Bonaire to Cartagena in Colombia

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Having far too much of a good time to get of my butt and get into some serious blogging so apologies (once again) for being slack and not keeping up to date in blog world. So much so, we are now in Cartagena in Colombia and I am in catch up mode. So back to Bonaire and the story of the three plus weeks we had there.

We arrived on Bonaire on Australia Day (the 26th of January for you non Aussies) and caught up with the crew of Nika who had very kindly made Anzac Biscuits for us. They were leaving the next day so we spent as much time as we could with them and they introduced us to some new friends they had made from the boat Allways Sunday, Ricky and Robin and their 15 year old daughter Danielle. These guys were all really keen divers so some plans were hatched to get into the water as quickly as we could.

Basically the whole of the coast off the main town of Bonaire has had moorings laid down where you tie you boat up for the cost of 10USD per night. This then allows you unlimited access to snorkelling and diving straight off the back of your boat. The shoreline is a shelf that extends out for about 40 to 150 metres at a depth of about six to seven metres. It then drops of rapidly to a depth of over 40 metres forming one great big wall that extends all the way up and down the west coast of the island.

Bonaire’s registration plates are all stamped ‘Divers Paradise’ and is rated as one of the top 4 dive locations in the world. I am not sure how these ratings are formulated but when you consider the ease of diving here and the abundance of fish life it certainly pushes the rankings up the scale. The coral species are certainly not as great as other places in the world but far, far more than we saw in the eastern Caribbean. Lukey Bill has always wanted to do his open water dive course and we decided that it might be better to wait until we got to Bonaire to spend his hard saved cash.

After doing some snorkelling and seeing others diving certainly increased his desire to get qualified himself so after a couple of days checking out the various dive stores we decided on one shop and within three days he was a fully qualified P.A.D.I open water diver, not only that but he topped his course with exceptional results in his exam with an overall mark of 96%. I spoke to his instructors and they were raving about his natural ability in the water and as a diver so all in all, not only was Luke really chuffed with his results, all of us were exceptionally proud of his achievements.

The gang from Small Nest arrived in Bonaire and moored up close to us so it was great to see them. Willem and Heike hadn’t dive for a while and Willem was very keen to get back into the water. We ended up buying some more dive gear for the boat and in the end we have enough full sets of regs, tanks and B.C’s for three people to dive at the one time. Willem also got some gear and he and I ended up doing some really great dives together and it was great to be able to take Heike down for a refresher dive in some crystal clear water as apparently her last dive was basically in black, freezing cold water, something that left pretty nasty memories for her.

Of course it wasn’t long before Nikki, Luke and I were in the water with the guys from Allways Sunday and then as time progressed Layni was not to be outdone and wanted to have a go herself. While the gear was not a perfect fit, we were able to get her down the mooring line and it wasn’t long before she was swimming around by herself, with my big hand at the ready to reign her in when she got a bit over confident or a bit over buoyant. Debsy got keen and was back in the water again as well. Debs hadn’t dived for about 13 years and after a bit of a tentative start, she was diving so well and really enjoying herself. Pretty special parents time being able to dive with the kids and also seeing Luke and Nikki being able to head off and dive on their own which was just great.

In the back of our mind was the passage from Aruba to Cartagena in Colombia and from all the research we had done, it wasn’t a very nice trip to be had if the weather conditions were not good. It is rated as one of the world’s worst five passages and as we had the luxury of time we decided to wait for a good weather window and what better place to wait it out. Another reason to wait a bit longer was Carnivale was going to be a happening thing around the 14th of February which was something we thought was going to great to see.

The crew off Grace and Go Beyond arrived in Bonaire and Shane and Matz were keen as to get into some diving so they were another addition to the growing number of divers in the underwater party. We hadn’t seen either of these boats for a fair while so, like always when you haven’t seen each other for a while, drinks and catch up were always the order of the day.

Just about every day, dinghies were heading off for some new dive site, full of divers and gear and if the mood took you, you just had to kit up and fall off the back of the boat, so easy and so good which was pretty much what life was like being at Bonaire. It was a quick dinghy ride into the dinghy pontoon and a relatively short walk to the supermarket for fresh chicken, meat, fruit and vegetables which was an absolute real treat. The town had a pretty good range of food, catering for the island’s residents, the big dive tourist market, yachties and of course to service the huge number of cruise liners that seemed to pull in every day or so, disgorging their thousands of passengers into the town streets, cafes and restaurants.

We had been waiting for a new dinghy to arrive in Curacao as we believed the time had come to upgrade our old one as it was just too small and too slow for the five of us. It was ok for two but it was obvious that we had outgrown our baby boat. When Simon from Woolloomooloo arrived and took the kids wakeboarding behind his dinghy, we could see the benefits of having a dinghy big enough for transport of people and equipment and we could also see how much fun the kids could have as well by either doing some wakeboarding and or skiing. Unfortunately, the dinghy we thought we might be able to buy in Curacao had been delayed in a container shipment and we were told that it might be weeks before it landed there. That being the case we thought that we would have to stick with the old girl until we got home, which was a bit of a disappointment to all concerned.

So away from water based activities to some land based ones and the crew from Grace and Sunboy hired a couple of four wheel drives and headed off for a trip around the island and up to the National Park on the northern side. The southern side is where massive amounts of salt are extracted from the ocean in great big lakes, an activity that has been going on for centuries and driving past we stopped and checked out the incredibly small huts where the slaves used to sleep, 4 to each one, working the salt pans during the day and retiring to these boxes at night. At least they had some incredible water frontage to make life a bit more bearable.

The east side of the island has a lake where windsurfing is the premier activity, it is relatively shallow with a lovely sandy bottom and constant good strong winds so for novices and pros alike, one and all can have a brilliant time. We stopped and had a drink there watching the windsurfers fly back and forth across the lake, obviously having a brilliant time.

Heading north, the scenery starts to change and the abundance of huge cactus plants starts to dominate the landscape. The vista was so unexpected after being on the boat for so long and looking onto the township everyday. We drove around the National Park dodging the wild goats and stopping every now and then to grab some photographs of the beautiful pink flamingos that inhabit the waterways that come in from the coast line. We stopped at a café on the west coast and had a snorkel off the coast, even spotting some old canons on the sea bed, amongst the fish and coral before having some lunch and moving on, having to be out of the park by 5.00pm.

Carnivale time arrived and the township was filled with decorated floats and people in costumes, parading through the streets in one very loud music and dance filled atmosphere. From what we can make out, Carnivale is the last hoohraaa where people let their hair down before lent. The island residents really get into it and I think that is the same for everywhere we had been from the Canary Islands through to South America. The streets were filled with onlookers and the whole parade took about two hours, with each float or group of parade participants not being in any particular hurry to pass by the onlookers. The town continued to party all night long and even from where we were moored, the music blared across the water.

Diving, diving and more diving seemed to fill our days on Bonaire and on the small island off the coast called Klein Bonaire. We had a couple of days over there with Allways Sunday as their boat being a Catamaran and under the length limit for the dive moorings meant we could head over and tie up and explore different dive sites to the ones we had been visiting so often. A new Aussie boat on the block came into town and ‘Songline’ with Phil and Chrissie from Brisbane were our new neighbours for a couple of days on their Lagoon41 and it was great to meet them and make new friends who were also heading on their way home at a similar time frame to us. The list of boats heading for Australia seems to be getting bigger and bigger the closer we get towards Panama.

Water was a bit of a problem on Bonaire, like so many of the Caribbean and most, if not all of the water on the island was made in the local desalination plant. The upside was that water here was much, much cheaper than anywhere else we had to buy it but even at the cheap price that it was, it was still too expensive to use to wash the boat on the regular basis that we would have done had we had access to ‘normal’ water supplies. There was a heavy settling of red dust all over the boat and some pundits were saying that the dust was from the Sahara!!! That we found pretty hard to believe considering how many thousands of miles away that was but it was obviously coming from somewhere and we realised that we would have to wait until Colombia to get the old girl all nice and clean again.

The weather window we had been waiting for was coming up on the horizon so the time had come for us to leave Bonaire and head further west. We planned on getting to Aruba and bypassing Curacao as there wasn’t really anything there for us that we needed to buy as we had missed the dinghy. The idea was to spend three or four nights in Aruba and then jump off from there for the 400 odd mile trip around to Cartagena.

To make Aruba by morning, our passage plan was to leave Bonaire by late afternoon, early morning and allow us to sail through the night and make an easy run in. We fuelled up the boat, filled her with water and had a nice early dinner before setting off into the sunset. Our plan was to sail south of Klein Bonaire, south of Curacao and then, hopefully have a nice reach across to the bottom of Aruba.

As we left the protection of the leeward side of Bonaire the seas picked up a little bit and we had some good winds giving us a nice downwind sail for Curacao. The seas were a bit confused heading around the bottom of the island but the conditions heading up the west coast of Curacao were just brilliant. Adopting our usual practice of headsail only during the night, we had perfect reaching conditions, sheltered water, good winds and we cruised north west, taking in the night sights of the island as we were making 7 to 7.5 knots with little or no effort. I didn’t really want to come off watch when Debs came up top to relieve me so we chatted for a while before heading off for a few hours sleep. We got into Aruba mid morning and had to head into the commercial port to check in with customs. The wharf was full of boats from Venezuela unloading their cargo or fruit and vegetables and we had to wait some time, circling around in the inner harbour waiting for a space to berth up.

Clearing in wasn’t really a hassle and the wharf was buzzing with activity and even though the crews were all busy unloading their fresh cargo, they still had time to try and have a chat with the crew of the boat so far from home. The cargo, particularly the big fresh watermelons looked so delicious but unfortunately we weren’t able to get any to add to our larder. Next stop was the Renaissance Marina a couple of miles further north where we hoped to be able to get a berth for a couple of nights. Luckily for us, there was one owner berth available that we could sub lease as the owner’s boat was out of the water getting some repairs done. The berth just happened to be right outside one of the casinos on the island and just next to the shopping and hotel complex which we were allowed access to. Starbucks Coffee, Chinese food and swimming pools- yehaaaa!!!

We thought that Aruba was a little like the Gold Coast but compressed into about 5 or 6 suburban blocks. Jewellery shops everywhere, casinos, brand name shops and lots and lots of electrical and camera stores and a movie theatre. Much to the girls pleasure, there was also quite a few shoe shops, one of which the girls found had very nice shoes and very cheap prices - what a combination to bring a smile to the girls faces!! The retail therapy continued when we found a shop that sold a T.V and DVD player that could fit onto the wall beside the nav table. Ever since we had been on board our movie nights had been confined to watching DVD’s on a lap top computer. Not the best situation as it meant we all had to crowd around the little screen so now having a nice flat screen LCD is just like having television for the first time. We don’t use it for TV reception; just watching DVD’S and it is just brilliant. We also splurged and bought a camera and underwater housing to try and capture some underwater shots. Robin form Allways Sunday and Matz from Go Beyond both had similar units and were able to get some really great photos during their dives and snorkelling trips so all being well we might do the same. The cream of the shopping experience for Lukey was being able to buy some more purple and pink lures, being our absolute favourite colours we had had so much success with.

Each day, the weather window was looking more and more favourable and while we could have spent more time on Aruba, the best weather opportunity for weeks had arrived and it was time to get organised and head off.

The recommendations for Cartagena were to arrive into the harbour after sunrise and before sunset so we had to calculate our 400 odd mile passage to get in between those times. That being the case we again decided to leave around sunset, early evening and having three nights at sea. We provisioned up and pre prepared some meals for the trip in case the conditions turned to crap and then headed down to Customs and Immigration to clear out. This time we rafted up next to one of the small freighters to save waiting and cleared out without any hassles. After doing a slow cruise up the west coast of Aruba we had dinner and headed west for Colombia.

We sailed throughout the night and the watch system went into place early and like always, the first 24 hours at sea is the worst, as it takes time for people to get back into the watch system, overcome some tiredness with body clocks being thrown right out of whack. The conditions were just excellent, all except for the opposing current we started to run into, running at up to two knots at most times. We motor sailed continuously as the winds just died away but considering the hell trips some of our friends had had previously, we didn’t mind one little bit. The fishing lures got their introduction into the Caribbean Sea and we were rewarded with three beautiful yellow fin tuna, two of which were dispatched to the galley and the last one was released as we already had an enough to get by and didn’t want to risk the chance of wasting it. The fish was just superb to eat and we thought about how much people from places such as Japan would pay for such an incredible feast of the freshest fish possible.

The counter current was throwing our plans into a little bit of disarray but fortunately we were able to maintain enough boat speed to get through the worst of it, still maintaining an ETA for a morning entry. I think because the overall sea conditions were better than we had ever hoped for, everyone really settled into the trip quickly and there is no doubt that collectively, this was one of the best passages we had done so far.

Seeing the coastline of Colombia appear in the distance was incredibly exciting - we had sailed to South America - Far Out!!! Not long after we had sighted land we were surrounded by dozens and dozens of dolphins, some of them leaping right out of the sea as though they had been trained for years. They stayed with us for ages, a sight that none of us ever, ever tire of.

The skyline of Cartagena eventually came into view, seeing ‘skyscrapers’ something we had not seen since I don’t know when. The harbour at Cartagena gave us two entry options. One being Bocca Chica and one being Bocca Grande, Bocca Grande being a very narrow passage over a rock wall that had been built to protect the harbour hundreds of years ago. Even though the guides had indicated the depth across the wall and through the passage was only 8 feet deep, Nika, Small Nest and Elena had all gone through without issue and we were assured that we could get through even though we draw 8.6 feet unladen. Happy to report we got through with plenty of water to spare and we saved ourselves about two and a half hours by not having to go south through Bocca Chica and then back up to Bocca Grande.

We had made a reservation at the Club de Pesca Yacht Club as Club Nautica Marina had no deep berths left and we didn’t want the hassle of anchoring up and trying to protect our dinghy as it appears that is a national pastime here, stealing dinghies and outboards. We finally found our way to the Yacht Club and got tied up to the outer hammerhead, touch down Colombia, South America!!

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Comments

[Fran Nord]

HI
Wonderful to get the update guys. Carnivale how exciting. All cool this end. Lots of love Frannie x