OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – SANTA MARTA & MINCA, COLOMBIA, 29/30 DECEMBER 2018. WHERE WE DISCOVER WHY A TOUR COMPANY CALLS ITSELF “MAGIC” TOURS!

SANTA MARTA and MINCA COLOMBIA

29/30 DECEMBER 2018

WHERE WE DISCOVER WHY A TOUR COMPANY CALLED ITSELF “MAGIC TOURS”……

Terry’s sister Carole Griffiths was due to arrive on the 29^th December. This meant a big tidy up on board Sisu, we had been using the fore cabin, her bedroom as our general junk area! On the 29^th December we took a taxi out to the airport. The backdrop to the airport were the dramatic, Sierra Nevada mountains, in front of the airport was a beach where we watched fishermen stood in the shallows as their companions motored out close to the shore throwing nets into the sea, whilst pelicans dived around them. Then when the nets became lively with caught fish, the fishermen on the shore would haul the nets in and up onto the beach. On the sands, pure white Egrets delicately danced en pointe with their long black legs, like prima ballerinas around the fishermen’s legs, seeking out any fish that escaped. Waiting for Carole was almost as big a treat as her actual arrival! Carole arrived, however her luggage was left in Bogota, we got it the next day. That evening we took Carole to Ouzo and had a fabulous meal. Ouzo is one of the best restaurants in Santa Marta, and it lived up to its reputation, the fabulous 3 course meal plus cocktails cost £46! for three of us.

We had arranged a tour to Minca, a small village and a coffee plantation the following day. The company was called MagicTour. We were collected from the Marina in a 4×4 with three other people. The 4×4 climbed its way up the mountains, tackling narrow heavily rutted roads to La Victoria Coffee Plantation, where we were given a tour of the whole process. Some of the plantation machinery was from John Gordon & Co, London and had been working for decades! Every part of the coffee pod and bean is used, and the plantation processes the coffee bean to the finished result using the natural environment of the surrounding mountains, water and gravity.

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We bumped our way back down the road, “free massage!” called out our tour guide as we jostled and almost ended up on each others laps, we became good friends by the end of the day! Our guide took us to a waterfall where after clambering over rocks Terry lost no time in jumping in! Lunch that day was a small local cafe with a huge bbq fire set into the middle of the palm topped open fronted brick shack. We had a choice of beef or chicken. The beef was hacked into Desperate Dan chunks, fired up and served hot, it was delicious!

Our guide asked us did we want to go to a local Chocolate shop in Minca village? Oh yes please! We squashed back into the 4×4 and we were dropped off at a small unremarkable shop. Inside it was indeed a chocolate shop and very local, not a tourist souvenir type shop. It was also a Cannabis museum and shop. Here you could buy a bar of locally made chocolate, dense and grainy. The real, raw stuff. To accompany the chocolate, how about a cannabis plant? Some Cannabis cream? Drops? Or…. How about a teeny, tiny chocolate cannabis muffin? Carole, Terry and I love muffins. “It’ll be just a gimmick, there won’t really be cannabis in it” we thought. They were so small too, what harm can just one do? In the back of the 4×4 we took a bite of our muffins, nice! I was a bit reluctant, but thought, well, this size can’t make any difference surely. Carole and Terry ate theirs. We waited. Nothing. Phew. That was a bit of fun, how we laughed! We knew there wouldn’t really be any cannabis in them! We kept asking each other “Are you feeling anything?” “Nope” Me neither” “Ah, they’re fake, thought they would be, we should’ve bought a couple each, they were lovely”. Two hours later……. We’ve got back to the Marina. We meet a cruising friend outside the Marina bar, Carole had a fit of the giggles. The two of us decided to head down to Sisu. “Carole” I said. “My feet feel funny, spongy and it feels like I’m talking outside my head. I don’t like it!!!” Oh boy. We got onto Sisu. A boat in water moves, and we are used to the movement, or bodies adjust and we don’t even feel it. Add to that a pinch of cannabis. I had to lie down. “Take the feeling away Carole, it’s not nice!!!!” Carole had another fit of giggles. We had planned to attend a Rally meal up on the Marina that evening, in an hours time. God, would the effects wear off in time?! Terry came back to Sisu, or rather laid back. We had a shower, I willed my spongy feet to take me to the shower and back. We made it to the meal, Terry was on very good form, as was Carole, I really tried to concentrate on chatting with our Rally friends. We had a horrendous thirst too. Never again!!!!!! I’ll stick to wine, gin and beer. I’m anti drug taking, never smoked. I simply don’t get the allure and habit that cannabis can become. Having now tried it, naively, I really, truly don’t get it! I’m sticking to gin! I emailed my son, Fynn, age 22 telling him what we had done. What a good example of an adult, responsible Mother! My son replied “Mum, what did you expect? You’re in Colombia, it was bound to be the good stuff!!!!” (In case any potential employer of my trainee Accountant son is reading this, he does not do drugs I hasten to add, in fact he’s a damn sight more sensible than his mother!) Footnote.. I take Cannabis drops each day for my arthritic right hip, it doesn’t contain the high and has worked so well that I don’t need the daily Ibuprofen and stomach lining protecting drugs I used to take. At the Chocolate/Cannabis shop I bought a phial of Cannabis drops, assured that these too have had the mind weaving element removed. I haven’t had the nerve to try a single drop!!! Perhaps that’s why our tour company called itself “Magic Tours”…….Welcome to Colombia Carole!!!

OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – ARUBA TO ENSENADA HUARITCHERU, COLUMBIA 17/18/19 DECEMBER 2018 148 nautical miles

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The weather gods gave us a good window for leaving. We can all make our own decisions on which day and time we leave, it’s not mandatory we go together. Most of us decide to go on Monday 17^th December. Before we can go anywhere, we have to clear out through Customs and Immigration. Due to there being a number of boats leaving at approximately the same time, Suzy, the Rally organiser, in group 1 has made this process easier. Normally each boat would go and visit the Immigration and Customs offices. Three of our group went to the offices and requested that our boat information, entry/exit forms, crew lists and passports could all be checked and stamped at the same time, rather than our 17 boats try to tie up in turn at the dockside. On this occasion, due to the number of boats leaving at the same time, they agreed. The day before we left, Kathy, sv Late Harvest and Rommy sv Annalena took all our paperwork to Customs and Immigration. The officials were very helpful and cleared us all out in a couple of hours. A big thank you to Kathy, Rommy and Aruba’s Customs and Immigration!

From mid day onwards, our little group upped an anchor and got going on the overnight sail to Ensenada Huaritcheru, an optional overnight stop before sailing on to Santa Marta. I always get a nervous tum before a sail, don’t know why, once we get going and living in the moment of sailing, it goes! Readers of our blog will know all to graphically that I suffer with seasickness, to everyone’s relief I now use sea sick patches. I bought them when home, they are tiny patches impregnated with 1.7mg of scopolamine (hyoscine) and eye wateringly expensive, I looked for the Gucci label imprinted on them, they were so bloody costly, but they work. I have to remember not to scratch behind my ear where the patch sticks, and keep checking with Terry that the patch is still there!

Our forecast said 20/25 knots, we know to add another 5 knots in this area, forecasts tend to be conservative. Wave height 2 to 2.5 metres high. All good. Again for time of passage we work on an average of 5 knots, so we reckoned it would take 24 hours to reach the Columbian anchorage. At 2pm we hauled up our anchor, we were virtually blown out into the bay and keeping her turned into wind was tricky as Terry hoisted our main sail with a third reef. This is the smallest amount of mainsail, we played safe, it’s easier to shake out a reef and have more sail out than to quickly put a reef in! The wind was on our stern, so we poled out the same amount of head sail so we would goose wing down wind. As we were getting our sails set, every five minutes a dark shadow moved across Sisu, we were directly under planes coming in to land, it was a very bizarre experience! We were very quickly achieving 7+ knots! The winds were steady so we set our wind vane to steer, it’s far more sensitive and accurate than our autopilot and uses no electricity, the autopilot is a thirsty beast on our energy. We sat back and enjoyed the ride hoping for the same through the night. We could see a small number of our group in the area, and kept sporadic radio contact, checking in with each other. We don’t have a great difference in size in our group, though as we are the smallest at 38ft, we tend to be slower, the 40+ ft boats work on an average boat speed of 6+ knots, that knot makes an hour or more difference in passage planning. We counteract this by setting off about an hour earlier than the speedy Gonzales in our group! By evening, as normal, the winds eased and sailing down wind wasn’t suiting Sisu. She was rolling from beam to beam as waves were sweeping across us, the roll became so deep there was no alternative but to take the pole down. We always have our life jackets on and by dusk we clip on too. Nevertheless, I watched Terry like a hawk as he went up to the bow to take the pole off the headsail under the glare of our deck light. With just the mainsail she steadied herself and we were more comfortable! With a clear half moon, we could see quite clearly a few of our friends around us, we had an evening check in too. By 0530hrs the winds had eased more, we weren’t achieving our 5 knots, we were losing the benefit of the 7 to 9 knots we’d achieved in the day. We gybed to and fro through the night to keep what wind was with us. We compared information with a couple of boats, they were doing pretty much the same. With reluctance, at 0530 we switched on our engine till 7am. We had timed our passage to reach the anchorage in daylight, it’s never wise to enter an unfamiliar place in the dark! Sleep didn’t really happen for us, I dozed in the cockpit for a short time, Terry only rested. As it was only an overnight passage, it wasn’t critical to sleep, had the passage been two days, during the day we would have taken it in turn to sleep. By early morning the winds had livened up and we could see a thin dark line on the horizon, Columbia! The swell was about 2+ metres down the Columbian coast, we had our head and third reefed mainsail out. With the winds at 30+ knots we could feel Sisu surf down the long deep waves as Terry helmed us down the coast, the sun was out and the sea was the greenest I’d ever seen. Ken and Grace in sv Pisces had a visit from dolphins, we lucked out this time, darn. We had our fishing lines out too, the fish as usual, laughed at our lure, but no one else caught a fish either! We were sailing towards the headland towards our anchorage. For some reason, these last few hours drag, it feels like you’re not making any progress. On the chart plotter, our AIS showed 3 of our group already anchored and 3 more rounding the headland. Finally we got closer and the winds increased to 40+ knots, we were really surfing now, and getting the odd lump of spray over us, conditions were certainly frisky! We had assumed, and the lesson here is, never assume anything, that as we rounded the headland, logically as we would be on the other side of the wind, the seas and wind would calm. We surfed around the corner at 6+ knots just before 3pm and saw the winds weren’t significantly any easier! The anchorage is in a long open area, the land is almost flat, so winds simply blow straight over and directly out across the bay! We pulled in our headsail easily, dropping the mainsail was fun, I held Sisu into the wind as Terry wrestled with the sail, we’d changed to 2^nd reef earlier in the morning so he had more sail to handle, keeps us fit! The anchorage was extremely windy, the waves were small as they fetched across the bay, fortunately anchor holding was good in the sand, always a concern in these conditions! By now we were all safely gathered in, but for those, like us, who tie their dinghies to the deck, it was too wild to drop them, as we would be leaving again in a day or so it wasn’t worth the hassle and technically we’re not allowed ashore anyway until we’ve cleared through Customs and Immigration. This was a rest stop for those who wanted to break the journey. Some of the boats arrived at mid day and the conditions in the bay were far calmer, as we rode in on the surf three hours later, the daily afternoon winds had fired up, ourselves and the last couple of boats arrived very quickly indeed! We gathered ourselves, straightened things out a bit below and then fought the mainsail into it’s sail pack, maintaining your balance and working on the deck under these conditions certainly improves core strength! Our celebration beer tasted wonderful!

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The shoreline seemed to have low buildings spread along the flat land, clearly a kit surfers mecca. There were brightly coloured canopies sparkling in the sky around us. As we worked, kite surfers were blasting past us, one guy was spectacular, he flew past our stern with only a couple of feet to spare, smiling and waving, then with a big grin took off vertically on his board, his kite flew him to the height of our mast as he performed aerobatics for us, twirling and twisting over 20 feet up! It was a glorious sight, I’ve no idea what speeds they achieved, they were like rockets across the shallow bay!

When we arrived, the Columbian Coastguard crew were circling around our boats in their large, high powered rib. One of the Coastguards was on Ralph and Monika’s boat sv Mora. They were checking on who we were, how many of us planned to be here and for how long. They were friendly and were happy with the information Ralph provided. They stayed for a short while just cruising around our boats, they waved as they went past us. They patrol the coastline around here, and several boats arriving at roughly the same time could be unusual.

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Early that evening Steiner and Jane offered to have sundowners on their catamaran sv Numa. As it was too wild to drop any dinghies, Steiner kindly provided a taxi service for a few of us, it was a very short wet ride there and back, but a good opportunity to catch up and share weather info and make plans. We weren’t late, had a quick tea and collapsed into bed, not caring that we were being bounced around, we’re here, in Columbia!!!

19^th December 2018

We awoke to a slightly calmer morning in the bay. This doesn’t last for long, by mid day the winds had blown up again, keeping the kite surfers happy. We all had a radio meeting, three of us were leaving for Santa Marta that morning. We waved them off and wished them safe passage. The forecast was fine for today and tomorrow. Seven including us, decided to have a rest day, well, it was restful apart from listening to the winds whistling over our deck and being blown about! We held a few radio discussions in the morning, timing is essential when rounding the cape to Santa Marta, we need to time our journey before the katabatic winds start up over the Sierra Nevada mountains and blast across the seas around the cape. It was a good day for doing more jobs, writing the blog and preparing more passage food. Tomorrow’s sail will take approximately 24 hours, so sandwiches, cooked pasta salad and ginger cake will keep us going!

OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – ARUBA MID DECEMBER 2018

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We’re checking and rechecking weather forecasts on Predictwind, Windy ty, Chris Parker and the local airport forecast. For a couple of mornings our little group gather at the Surfside Bar to pool our information and discuss potential leaving days and routes. It’s looking good to depart in a couple of days so this gives us time to jump on a bus to San Nicholas.

San Nicholas is the second largest city in Aruba. Our bus driver loves his job, he’s got a soft rock ballad cd on and in between beeping and waving to people he knows, he sings along to the likes of Celine Dione and Elton John. As we near San Nicholas we can see the now closed down oil refinery lining the beach coast line. As we step off the bus, waving goodbye to our jovial driver, it’s tempting to just jump back on. The place is pretty much deserted for a Saturday afternoon. A few days ago we walked along the coast towards the North which is vibrant with hotels and beachside bars. This city feels like it’s just given up. Maybe we just called at the wrong time, we walked down the road towards the famous Charlie’s Bar. The buildings are tired and need tlc, we get the feeling that when the refinery shut down the residents and workforce left at the same time. Charlie’s bar has been well known since the 1940’s, divers would bring their finds whilst diving and display them on the walls. Since then anything goes, licence plates, musical instruments, puppets, witty signs, photos, caps, flags, all manner of objects fill the bar, it’s fascinating! Over a couple of beers we chat to the owner and his bar man. The refinery closed 8 years ago and the large workforce left too. The workforce provided regular local employment and business not only for shops, bars and cafes etc, but kept the oldest profession busy too. San Nicholas as a red light area. The girls take care of themselves and have weekly medical check ups. The barman told us it’s not only the shops and bars having to work harder nowadays but the girls do too. San Nicholas is trying though, and whilst we didn’t see it, (we went straight for Charlie’s Bar!) there is an art installation where local artists can display their work outside, this combined with the cruise ship tour bus’s and annual carnival is helping to rejuvinate the town. As we walked back to the bus terminal, we passed a few girls looking for business. The back streets were virtually empty too, in fact a handful of girls appeared to be the only people we saw, apart from a man being ushered by a girl through a door of a one level small building lining the faded street. It may be that San Nicholas comes to life, it just wasn’t that day!

When we’re not on board being blasted by 30 plus knots of wind, we jump into our dinghies and meet up for sundowners on the beach and catch up with each other. At sunset, we all gaze out to the horizon, if we’re lucky we may just catch the elusive “green flash” of the setting sun as it sinks into the sea. Just as this wonder is about to accur, one the regular mammoth cargo ships passes by blocking our sight of the sun just as it’s disappearing into the sea, exactly when the green flash should appear. Hands are thrown up skywards and words of mild frustration in several languages are cast to the sea. Ah well, there’s always the opportunity of sundowners tomorrow and another chance to glimpse the green flash!

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Some of our group decided to have a Mexican Train domino game, popular with some people in the sailing community. I couldn’t see the attraction to be honest, why would you sit for hours playing a game favoured by old men in pubs? Terry and I had some things to drop off to Rhonda and Tim’s catamaran Q4 where the Dominoes were to be played. Catamarans have lots of flat space, perfect for entertaining a number of people. I got drawn in to play, Terry went back to Sisu to do some jobs. I won’t go into the rules, they change depending on which country you’re in, we were playing Aruba rules apparently! All I can say is, the game involved lots of giving each other loads of stick, more if they were winning, beer, wine, nibbles and lots and lots of laughter! I was hooked, it’s not just luck, there’s strategy too, you have to get rid of your dominoes, the first one out is the winner, then the dominoes are counted up. If a player only had one domino left, then it was a smart move to get rid of your high scoring dominoes onto the lines, or trains, this caused hoots and heckling as other players own game plans were thrown into disarray. I got nothing done that afternoon, but had a brilliant time and learnt something new, isn’t that what life’s meant to be about? We spend the majority of our time together whilst sailing, Terry got some jobs done, then met up with a few of the group on the beach at beer o’clock, a good day! We haven’t explored Aruba thoroughly, there are still many things to see and do. Caves, a donkey sanctuary, butterfly farm, ostrich farm, bird sanctuary and museums, we didn’t see these as they are off the bus route. If we visit again we still have plenty to see!

Next stop Columbia!

OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – SPANISH WATER TO SANTA CRUZ & ARUBA 7th DECEMBER 2018 10 nautical miles to Santa Cruz, 58 nautical miles to Aruba

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After a few weeks working on Sisu, we’re ready to set off from Spanish Water, a short 10 mile sail up the North West coast, where we’ll anchor overnight in the pretty little bay of Santa Cruz. From there we’ll sail the 58 nautical miles to Oranjestad, Aruba.

Clearing in and out of Customs and Immigration varies from Island to Island, this process can be simple, or convoluted! We are a group of approx 17 boats, leaving at roughly the same day for Aruba. Suzanne Chappell, Rally organiser, asked the Customs and Immigration Officials if they would clear all our paperwork as a group. For us to clear out individually meant a long trip by bus to Willemstad, which could take most of a day. So, a big thanks to Customs and Immigration, they came with their printers, laptops and personnel to the Santa Barbara Hotel and Resort, a quick dinghy ride away in Spanish Water, where they set up in one of the dining rooms and cheerfully stamped our passports and ships documents! We zoomed back, hauled anchor and had a cracking sail up the coast. Of course, when two boats see each other on the same route, it’s a friendly race! Several of us left a the same time so we had great fun in perfect conditions to sail close enough to take photos of each other and try to keep ahead. At 38 feet we are no match for the longer boats, so we gracefully admitted defeat to one or two! We arrived at Santa Cruz by 4pm, a good shake down sail, our small group spread out in the bay and dropped anchor. We were in a small quite sheltered bay with a little beach where it appeared there were a couple of covered bars set up. We pulled on fins, masks and snorkels and checked our holding was good, satisfied our anchor had dug in, we explored the rocky sides of the bay where the seas had undercut the rock into interesting nooks and crevices, our first sight of parrot fish this season. As we snorkelled we saw a vast ball of good size silver fish twist and turn as one, the ball was at least 20 to 30 feet in diameter, I couldn’t see where it ended or started as I snorkelled through them, they were completely oblivious to me, following their leader, the times you don’t have a camera!

We didn’t drop the dinghy that night to explore ashore, as it was secured and tied up on deck and we would be leaving early in the morning, however, as we all sat in our cockpits, we were treated to a mini firework display and bonfire on the beach!

At stupid o’clock, 0315am we were awake and after a quick breakfast, got going by 4am. We work on our speed being an average of 5 knots, so wanted to arrive at Aruba by early afternoon. Our aim was to avoid, if possible, milling around in the harbour at Oranjestad. With a second reef in the main sail on the starboard side and our head sail poled out on the port side the sails were goose winged, with a brisk wind on our back quarter we were soon pulling speeds of 7 to 8 knots, brilliant! We had even more fun as we felt Sisu surf down the good size waves at 9.8 knots! Yeeehaaaa! I have to say, it’s fun when the sun is shining, however in the dark of night it’s a very eye popping adrenalin rush to surf down waves at high speeds on a 9 Tonne surfboad.!

We looked behind us, only a handful of our group were just popping in and disappearing in the swell on the horizon, we were in with a chance of being in the first handful! We could see Schloss Ort, Jutte and Leo advancing, gradually creeping nearer, come on Sisu! We maintained a lead on Schloss Ort and Pisces, just reaching Aruba by a few boat lengths ahead. Radioing Aruba Port Control of our imminent arrival, we pulled in our head sail, quickly turned into the wind, dropped our main and motored in to the dockside along with Schloss Ort and Pisces. Our French and Norwegian friends from Curacao on Mupi and Wapati were already there, a lovely surprise, they quickly grabbed our lines as we bounced against the big tractor tyres lining the concrete dock. The Customs and Immigration officials were on hand to deal with our paperwork. This really is a luxury having them come to us, it’s not the normal protocol at all! They were courteous and welcomed us to Aruba. It’s not unusual to have a Customs official inspect the interior of our boat, so with Terry taking the hand of a young well built Customs official he carefully timed his step as the stiff wind was blowing us off and onto the tyres. After that little challenge, he then bumped his head as he came down our steps into the saloon! He took his experience with a grin and after a cursory look around timed his step once more onto solid ground happy to be on dry land!

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We were free to go and find our spot in the anchorage. As we motored past the sky scraping cruise ships, people waved down to us from the comfort of their cabin balconies!

We’re staying in Oranjestad Bay at the aptly named Airport Anchorage, Surfside Beach. During the day, every five minutes or so planes with their landing gear dropped for arrival, squeal past us braking hard for touch down, we can almost wave to the passengers as they fly low over our masts, and we’ve never seen so many different airlines! As a plane arrives, the air space is clear for another to take off, with a huge roar yet another plane builds up speed and takes off. Conversations on board become louder for a minute as the final blasting take off is achieved. It’s definitely a unique anchorage! The upside is a nice beach and two fair priced beachside bars!

For the first day and a half the majority of us stay on board, the winds are so high we daren’t risk leaving our boats in case our anchors drag. It’s fine as we have settling in jobs to do, but cabin fever sets in by late afternoon on the second day and we take a wet and wild dinghy ride across the bay into the Renaissance Marina where we have permission to leave our dinghies. The waves are being wind driven and we feel the strange experience of our dinghy being lifted by the frisky waves, followed by the sensation of speed overtaking our outboard engine and we actually surf into the calm of the marina area! It’s a big grin few minutes!!

Aruba in general is a tourist Island, if you seek to burn your kids inheritance on shopping and gambling, you’ve hit the right place. The north cost is lined with high rise hotels and condominiums. Each day 2 to 5 cruise ships arrive and unload thousands of tourists into the capital, Oranjestad where we are. The clean streets are lined with brightly coloured buildings, many in the traditional Dutch style. They are mostly high end shops, Prada, Luois Vuitton, Gucci, diamond shops, you name an over priced label, it’s here, one of our group saw a pair of shoes for $52,000 what!!!!!! There are modern casinos and American style shopping malls, one hotel has a sea taxi which takes fools willing to part with their money from the dockside under a tunnel into the centre of the hotels shops! In a designer watch shop, two bored sharp dressed guards lean against the polished window as we pass by. There’s a big photograph in of one of the windows, showing us that you too can buy a several thousand dollar wrist watch and be Daniel Craig’s James Bond! The guards frequently glance at their own sensibly priced, perfectly ordinary watches hoping for their day to pass quickly.

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At home on the Isle of Man we have electric trams which rattle through the North and East countryside and hug the coastline to our main town of Douglas. Oranjestad has its own little tram line too. The pretty San Fransisco style trams glide at the giddying speed of just above walking pace. The tram line starts close to the cruise ship dock side and amble through the main street. Of course we have to do it, The driver regularly dings his bell, startling small herds of tourists who wander onto the tramline in the centre of the narrow pedestrian roadway to yet another souvenir shop very like the one they’ve just left, like cows ambling absent mindedly across a field for greener grass. It’s all very entertaining for us, and the people here are friendly, speak English so getting around is easy.

We took a hike north up the coast, very different, the beach fronts are lined with high rise hotels. We walked along the beach front, by the outside bars, restaurants, swimming pools and beach sunbathing areas. We stopped for lunch, not the cheapest, we didn’t notice the small print of 15% service, and 8% tax, made our lunch and mojitos costly!

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Our wind blown anchorage is a good pit stop to do any repair jobs, in our case we need to fix the compass night light. Cruisers help each other, and thanks to Steiner and Janne on Numa, they have a spare LED lamp so we can once again use our compass for night time sailing. The general consensus is we set sail on the next weather window, there’s little here for us cruisers on limited budgets! we’ve got a few days of waiting for that weather window, so we’ll jump on a bus and visit San Nicolas down the coast. That’s in our next blog, a very different experience!

OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – 21 – 24 DECEMBER 2018, SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA

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Colombia has blown us away. In our blogs we simply will not be able to cover everything we experienced, so wish we could! What we can say is that we love the small part of Colombia that we have passed through. The people are beautiful, friendly, full of joy, music and make the most of celebrating life. Their food is so good and cheap that we ate out every night with never a duff meal. In our blogs covering Santa Marta and Cartagena, we shall have to be brief, so, here are the highlights, come and experience where we’ve been for yourselves, you won’t be disappointed!

From now on, we will need to have a basic grasp of Spanish, numbers in particular. We’ve enrolled in a series of Spanish lessons, our tutor being Aleja, a young Colombian teacher. After a few mornings of lessons a small group of us are getting the idea of how to make short sentences and try to ingest verbs, vocabulary, numbers and how to manage and get around. Aleja is patient and has a good sense of humour, our two hour lessons pass quickly, she encourages us to practice, practice! We become confident that we can ask how much something is, or where somewhere is. Great, and indeed we do. But can we understand what we hear back in their local dialect and speed? Not a chance! The Colombians appreciate our desire to learn their language, with a lot of laughter and gesticulation we’re retaining more and more words. Often they wish to learn English, so we help each other!

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Frank Virgintino’s cruising guide to Colombia tells us that Santa Marta was founded by the Spanish Conquistador Rodrigo de Bastidas in 1525 and was often ransacked by pirates and corsairs in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The city was also important as an outlet and port during colonial times, we saw evidence of this time through the streets, with elegant brightly coloured buildings, some well maintained and others ageing gracefully, their paintwork fading and peeling. Colombia’s history is deep and fascinating, we realise we are only just scratching the surface and will certainly read up more thoroughly when we get home.

One trip organised by the Rally was a visit to a children’s after school club in Santa Marta called Fundehumac. Founded in 2008, this Centre provides a cultural, educational and formative environment to improve the quality of life in the community. It is also a museum of community art. Many of us on the Rally have brought pens, pencils, books and clothing for the young children in the Club. A small group of us visit the centre on Christmas Eve. At the Centre the children put on a performance of music and local songs, the youngsters lead us onto the floor to dance, it was a hoot, they are naturals at Salsa! The children took our hands to sit down together as we watched a Christmas play they had created for us. To be honest, I was in bits, this very special time with the children reminded of my son and family at home so far away. The reality is our children weren’t at home this Christmas, nevertheless, the confident warmth of the children was incredibly moving, crikey, still moves me to tears just writing about it, long after the visit! After the play, we helped the children paint a wall mural of monkeys, flamingoes and trees, learning the names of the trees and animals we painted. This was followed by working with the children to make dream catchers for us to bring to our boats. Our dream catcher catches the breeze in our saloon, a happy memory. Finally, we all gathered together and took a group photo, with a lot of laughter, mischief and squeezing altogether to get into the shot, we reluctantly had to wave goodbye, it was one of the most moving, fun and memorable Christmas Eve’s I’ve known. Thank you to the children and team at Fundehumac!

Santa Marta is a very busy commercial port, perfectly situated out of the hurricane belt and convenient for the Panama Canal. The Marina has a washing machine and dryer, a treat to get laundry properly washed! It also has a bar, small shop, good showers and loos, a “Captains Saloon”, which is an air conditioned room with wifi, the staff are excellent and speak good English. The Marina put on a couple of events for us too. We don’t normally stop in Marinas but on this occasion being here makes it easy for us to explore Santa Marta and beyond. With the almost constant high winds we couldn’t have left Sisu all day out of the marina, in case she dragged her anchor!

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There are so many bars and restaurants! The busy colonial streets are laid out in a grid pattern and many walls are decorated with stunning murals. Yellow taxis, mostly Kia’s blast around, we become adept at walking between them, indicating they are turning appears to be by beeping the horn rather than indicating with the correct light! The city is very proud of how over the last twenty years it has turned itself round from being unsafe to walk around to being one of the safest cities to walk in. There are Policio everywhere, on bicycles, two up on motorbikes, and walking through the streets day and night. They are friendly and approachable. The beach itself is black sand, the water is not very clean, as you walk in to the sea, it’s very silty, we can’t see where our feet are walking, it was really un nerving to feel the odd plastic bag swish around your ankles or to tread on some unknown bit of plastic debris! I kept my feet off the bottom until absolutely necessary!! This brown “broth” of detritus doesn’t deter the locals, parents teach their babies to swim, athletic teenagers flirt, wrestle, perform handstands along the water’s edge and throw each other into the surf. This slightly grubby water is not the worst though, that trophy goes to the beach and water at Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic.

Provisioning and eating out is ridiculously cheap for us. The Colombian Peso, known as “COP” takes a bit of getting used to. For example COP 4,000 = £1. We see a price of several thousand COP and think that item is incredibly expensive, then we do a quick calculation and see the sterling equivalent makes the item ridiculously cheap! We are living very well on very little, good news for our cruising budget. A 6 pack of beer costs £2.60, a beer out is 50p, a dozen eggs is 73p, couple of large steaks around £3, and a really good meal out is approx £20 for the two of us, including beer and/or cocktails. We eat out every night, the meat is tender and top quality, and the quality of food is excellent. We are truly spoilt for choice, whether we choose a nice restaurant or street bar, we never had a bad meal or were subject to hiked up prices.

The atmosphere in the Rally is relaxed and flexible. Some go out in groups, others explore individually. We like to dip in and out, some of us, including ourselves, don’t like to be organised and herded, we’re sailors not sheep! In the evenings we would go into town, often meeting up with other Rally folk. The nightlife is friendly, vibrant and loud. Colombian people of all ages, families, backpackers and tourists all mingle safely down the bunting lined narrow streets. Cafe and bar doors are thrown open, beckoning you inside, each one decorated so differently, it was hard to choose. Each cafe and bar has tables and chairs outside, if there is a group, they find extra tables and chairs from somewhere inside and make room for you. As if the street was crowded enough with tables, chairs and people, there is lots of street entertainment, bands and single musicians play all genre of music and instruments, we saw an incredible Venezuelan young group of break dancers, who literally threw themselves around, spinning, backflips and competing with each other as to who could throw the best shapes! After a performance that left us exhausted just watching they would come round with a hat for payment, then move on down the streets to perform again in less than ten minutes rest!

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The centre of Santa Marta is heaving, mind you we were there over Christmas and New Year. The roads were We squeezed our way along pavements crammed with vendors selling everything under the sun, shoes, glasses, clothes, dvds, phones and more. Street food was cooked on flat open topped griddles, delicious potato cakes, deep fried cheese rolls, and the ice cream is delicious, this city has not been good for our waistlines!

OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA, CHRISTMAS EVE 2018. FELIZ NAVIDAD!

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We arrived at Santa Marta over the Christmas and New Year season, the city was full of lights, each evening the white painted front of the Cathedral Basilica Menor De Santa Marta was transformed with a laser light show and live music. It was quite magical, the vast Cathedral frontage changed from a night sky with stars and the Angel Gabriel, to the traditional nativity scene of Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the stable, to camels walking across a desert, then to modern gaudy geometric design! Nearby a pretty Square had been decorated with strings of white led lights draped from the trees and festive snow scenes, including snowmen and reindeer!

The already heaving streets became even more crowded with people buying Christmas presents and decorations from supermarkets and pavement stalls. Childrens bikes, toy pedal cars and jeeps, roller skates and dolls were hoisted above heads and carried on shoulders down the streets, it was the only way to carry large presents home!

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Our Rally decided to celebrate Christmas and have a pot luck Christmas Eve dinner at the Marina. Everyone would bring a dish and their own drinks. We filled two tables with a wide range of savoury and sweet dishes from one another’s country. I didn’t have any spuds and herring, so made a potato salad! We got out our Christmas hats, glad rags and had a great evening of good food and good company. After eating as much as we could, a group of us went into the city, we couldn’t sleep anyway as the city was jumping with all types of live music! The streets were filled with people dressed up and enjoying the music and entertainment, though it was busy we never felt crushed or unsafe, families paraded with their children, eco tourists and our Rally group all mingled freely. Street vendors selling beads, sweets, hats, and cigars approached us but didn’t hassle us if we didn’t wish to buy, quite different from other places we’ve been to.

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After a relatively late night, we all had a laid back Christmas Day. Terry and I found a lovely restaurant and had a long lunch, many places were closed, even Santa Marta has to have a day off!

OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – 21 DECEMBER 2018 SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA

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The high winds at Ensada Huaritcheru continued unabated, this anchorage was just an overnight pit stop en route to Santa Marta. Stenier s/v Numa had kindly offered to collect folks in his dinghy if we wished to come over to their catamaran for beers, it was too wild to hoist and drop our dinghy, we took him up on his offer! Onboard Numa, our little Rally group studied various forecasts like a gambler studies form on the dogs or horses, we studied wind speed and wave height, deliberating between us over ipads and beers as to which would be the best day to sail. A few chose the next morning, we plus a couple of others decided to stay on one more day, the winds were calming and an extra day would give the swell a chance to dampen down. Stenier dinghied us all back to our boats, with the conditions in the bay it was a very wet journey, most of all for Stenier who had to make the trip to individual boats many times, it was very generous of him! It’s funny to think people pay good money for this kind of wet and exhilarating ride in theme parks!

That evening the Colombian Armada {Coastguard} called by in their rib and were given a list of boats and when we were leaving, they were certainly keeping a watch out for us and making sure we were ok. Next day the winds had indeed lessened and some boats left in the morning. We still stuck with our plan to leave the following day. This is the stretch of coastline I was worried about. There is a cape called Cabo de la Aguja, which is renowned for its strong acceleration winds coming down from Santa Marta of up to and around 40 knots and reaching 10 miles offshore. Locals call the winds “La Brisa Loca”, the crazy breeze. The moon was also nearly full, affecting the height of the seas. Waiting an extra day would give the swell and winds time to calm down a little.

The howling winds continued overnight, by 0730hrs it was as though someone had flicked a switch, without the sound of the wind roaring through our rigging, the peace was deafening! I stuck a seasick patch behind my ear and we hauled up our anchor and set off, the sky was a beautiful blush colour as the sun rose, colouring the calm sea pink and blue. The wind had exhausted itself and puffed out an apathetic 7 to 12 knots pretty much the entire journey! My £10 seasick patch was wasted as we hoisted the mainsail which flapped with as much enthusiasm as a moody teenager. Our speed struggled to reach 3 knots, this was ridiculous! We’re a sailing boat, not a motor boat, we really didn’t want to start our engine. We had a look on our chart plotter, our AIS tells others who we are and all manner of particulars about our vessel, including the speed. We can also find out the same information about vessels sailing around us. We could see the other Rally boats were either doing the same snail pace so they were trying to sail, those who were achieving 6 or more knots had to be motoring. Ok, bugger this for a lark, we thought. We’re not the only ones going to be motoring, so we started up our engine too! We had been going so slow that a dragon fly at least 6” long had landed by our outboard and was able to cling on quite easily for most of the trip!

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Regular readers of our blog will know we are crap at catching fish. We cast our line and crossed our fingers. Well, something worked, as we pulled in our line we saw flashes of bright green, we caught a good size Mahi Mahi! Now, whilst this is exciting, there is the logistics of getting the fish on board, gutting and filleting it! I went below to get the rough white rum we use to finish off any catch quickly. Dousing the Mahi Mahi’s gills with rum, he went off to a happy fish heaven. Terry’s fish gutting wasn’t the tidiest, but in a confined space of the stern seats we soon had two bags of juicy fillets, dinner for two nights was sorted!

Thankfully the infamous Cape treated us gently as we rounded it, and we did not experience its fearsome reputation. We continued on passing by the headland of El Morro. We were greeted by the Armada roaring out in their black rib. We waved and took photos of each other, we are certainly being looked after here! We sailed in between the coastline and the large beacon topped rock of Isla El Morro, our first sight of Santa Marta was a good sized collection of tall white apartment blocks and hotels, we didn’t expect this at all! Behind the tall buildings the Sierra Nevada mountains rose up in the distance. Santa Marta was nestled between hills of verdant green lush vegetation. Inside the Marina Santa Marta we were tied up in our pontoon with the help of the experienced dockhands. We’d been advised to moor up on the marina pontoon with our bow facing the mountains, at night the fierce winds roar down from the mountains! In fact, these winds blew for almost the entire time, day and night through the town and Marina, flip flops, flags, washing, anything not tied down were blown away! We looked forward to exploring and having Christmas and New Year here in Colombia!

OCC SUZIE TOO RALLY – CURACAO TO SPANISH WATER 28 NOVEMBER – 6 DECEMBER 2018. FINALLY WE SET SAIL & GET TO KNOW OUR RALLY FRIENDS!

After a fright from our high temperature alarm and swift return to the safety of the Marina, we waved friends goodbye and motored down to the Fort Nassau floating bridge. The winds were lighter and it felt incredibly good to get out into open water once more. Sisu felt happy, glad to be free again. I experience a flurry of emotions, nervousness and exhilaration on our first time out, depends on the conditions of course. I had taken the precaution of sticking a seasick patch behind my ear early that morning, throwing up was not something I wished to experience!

Though the winds were lighter, about 15 knots, the sky south towards Spanish Water was grey, heavy with rain clouds. As we part sailed, part motored we watched a dense curtain of torrential rain sweep over the bars and beach front. I was helming, I warned Terry that if that mass of rain was heading our way, there’d be a change of helmsman! The wind picked up, a sign of rain coming towards us, and the sea in front flattened as the rain pelted down, “You’re turn!” Terry was a gent and took over as I wussed out and huddled under the sprayhood, at least the rain was warm! We did have a scare though, the radio suddenly shrieked, we virtually jumped in fright both thinking it was the engine alarm !

The rain moved on and after a couple of hours we dropped our anchor amongst 4 or 5 other Rally group 2 boats. Mike and Cathy from Late Harvest came over and welcomed us, we’re looking forward to meeting more of Group 2 over the next week that we are all anchored around Spanish Water.

Mike of Late Harvest co ordinates a radio net each morning on Channel 74 at 8am, with his laid back Montana accent he is a natural broadcaster. This is new for us. Whilst we’re gathered together for a while, this is an excellent way of keeping everyone in the loop, we get a weather forecast, warn of any security issues, help each other with sourcing things, advise of any upcoming events, welcome new group 2 members who may have just arrived for the Rally. I love the section of each mornings Net which is “Treasures of the Bilge”. If you have any gear or suchlike to pass on, or sell, you can advertise it on the morning net! Sabrina of s/v Honey Ryder brings us all up to date with events and get togethers, and Steve of Wanderlust keeps us well informed with the weather forecast. The Net broadcasts for 20 minutes or so, depending on what issues or announcements come up, it’s great fun and an excellent way of our little group keeping in touch. So, for now, we’ll catch up on more jobs, enjoy swimming, finally and get to know some new folks! And to be almost mozzy free at night is blissfull!

One way of keeping in touch with each other via the VHF radio is with our MMSI contact numbers. Each one of us has our own MMSI number, like a phone number. By entering each of us who has an MMSI number into our VHF radio contact list, we can call each other as a group or individually. This will be invaluable when we sail around coastlines which may require a bit of vigilance. Although we have had this feature on the radio for years we have never used it, it came as as surprise to find that we were all literally in the same boat, so we all had an interesting day entering numbers and reading manuals to ensure the system worked.

The weather is very mixed here, and when we do get rain, it’s torrential, the bay on the other side of Spanish Water is obliterated with the sheer volume of water hurling from the dark grey skies. During the day, we get a warning of forthcoming belts of wind and rain, not so at 2 or 3am and we’re soundly asleep with the hatches open, one of which is above our bed! It’s surreal, suddenly in the middle of a dream, then you dream it’s raining, bloody hell!!!! It is bloody raining!! Suddenly we’re bolt upright, dream state/life state utterly confused, getting rained on in real life, and vigorously too, each of us scrabbling out of bed, the bedsheet, if we have one on, naturally wrapping around our legs, slowing our upward ascend, arms windmilling to leap up and close the hatches before we’re soaked! With our nerves jangling, eyes shocked wide open from the onslaught of water and surprise, we attempt to relax and go back to sleep! It’s not something we have to deal with at home! There again it is December and we are still in the Northern Hemisphere, so we should be happy.

One of our get togethers was a dinner at Boca 19, part of the Santa Barbara Marina, a bar which served good food. It was the first time for many to meet their Group 2 rally folks and it didn’t take long at all for us all to feel very easy in each other’s company.

Amongst the cruising “travelling circus”, (I use the term affectionately!) there are often musicians to be found, and our little Group 2 is no exception. We have a selection of guitars, a ukele, one boat, Tom and Sabrina on s/v Honey Ryder have almost a full percussion set of bongoes, drums, a tambourine and a variety of things that can beat out a rhythm. We have penny whistles, we keep meaning to learn, 2 low whistles we hope to learn this season and my practise bagpipe chanter! Whilst this is great for keeping up with band tunes, it’s not much use in a music session, apart from solos, the bonus being I don’t drown everyone out as it’s not as ear splitting as my bagpipes! On Sunday we had a music jam in the car park of the dinghy dock. With a selection of good musicians we belted out the ol’ favourites, Jolene, Wild Rover, You are my Sunshine, Hey Jude etc. I love singing with a gang of folks and we all enjoyed a very relaxed, fun filled afternoon, the party only ending when it got too dark to see each other and the beers ran out!

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We all plan to leave on Friday for Aruba, anchoring that evening at Santa Cruz then continuing on to Aruba on Saturday. We had a group routing and general discussion meeting on Wednesday morning, 5^th Dec. Suzanne Chappell, the Suzy Too Rally organiser has ensured the Aruba Customs and Immigration are aware of the date our group shall be arriving. As Suzy and her Group 1 are two weeks ahead of us, we have the advantage of knowing how this process went for them and any issues we may need to be aware of. Group 1 had to tie their boats up against the cruise ship dock. Cruise ship passengers looking out over Aruba from their lofty balconies in the sky don’t see that they are tied up against a concrete jetty lined with filthy lorry tyres to protect the cruise ship hull. We cruisers at sea level will see all too clearly what we shall be tying up to when we clear in. We shall be putting out all our fenders to protect Sisu’s hull from being scraped against ancient, black tyres! The meeting is a good chance to exchange information, plans and ideas. We are all in agreement that once we reach Aruba, instead of staying the full ten days, at the first weather window we leave for Santa Marta. This particular leg may be challenging sailing due to high winds and we want to get it over and done with!

The socialising at Spanish Water continued into the week with Americans Tim and Rhonda, on their catamaran, Q4. Tim has concocted a Group 2 signature cocktail and was keen to trial it at 4pm that day on their Cat. At 4pm there’s a mass zooming of dinghies across the little cul de sac of Anchorage C where Q4 is anchored and we all pile on to sample Tim’s cocktail, it tastes very innocuous and fruity. Tim lets us know it’s pure alcohol, ah ha, a wolf in lambs clothing! I have just the one, Terry has a couple and then we stick to beer! We had another great fun evening, Group 2 is bonding easily and there’s lot of laughter and non stop chatter, Tim and Rhonda are excellent hosts, their Cat a superb party venue with it’s large flat, roomy layout inside and out. We could have squeezed in 6 into our little cockpit, we and some of the other boats are suited to more intimate gatherings! Terry and I had two gatherings Wednesday evening, so at 7pm we left Q4 and dinghied over to see our good French friends Stefan, Virginie, their daughter Ava and cocker spaniel Jude on their Catamaran, Yippee Yeah. We met them in Curaco last year and have kept in touch. Mike Brooks joined us too and we enjoyed a very convivial evening catching up with each other over a tasty Jambalaya washed down with beer, fine red wine and whisky!

Thursday 6^th Dec, and the weather is steady very heavy rain and high winds, my laundry which wasn’t quite dry and left pegged out on the railings overnight from the day before is now threatening to fly free, my new skirt is destined to be blown into rags if this weather continues! Terry states “We got this in Scotland!”, it does give us the opportunity to plot our route up the coast and to Aruba, catch up on the blog and cook food for later and tomorrow whilst the decks get a good wash down. We remind ourselves we need to rig up a tarpaulin water catcher, in the San Blas Islands we will have regular rain, water has to be carefully used onboard and it would be daft not to catch it! I don’t like being cooped up and feel cabin fever setting in! Hopefully the weather will improve tomorrow for clearing out!