June, 2010

Isla Providencia

A Colombian Island off the coast of Nicaragua

Modes of travel in Providencia Lots of motorcycles Walking Bridge

Time is flying by....but we are enjoying every minute of it.  Just at a slower pace.

I made a pot of beans today and a carrot cake while Sonny cleaned on the bottom of the boat.

We met the young owners of S/V Karaka today.  They came into the anchorage and anchored near us.  They are very interesting people with some exciting stories.   They have been boarded by pirates in Cartagena and attacked by a barracuda in Cuba. Check out their Karaka website and logs.   Thankfully, our cruising has not been so exciting.

It's Wednesday!   The supply boat arrives!

"Who said this sailing/cruising lifestyle was glamorous?"  

When we left San Blas on April 14th, we were full of diesel and gasoline.  Now,  850 miles later, adding 70 hours on the motor and 27 hours on the generator,  we need 60 gallons of diesel.

Sounds pretty easy?  Just go to the station to fill up.....well, not here.  You take your 5 gallon jerry cans in your dinghy to the dock, and walk about 2 blocks to the gas station.

After filling them, in the heat, walk back to the dinghy with the heavy jerry cans.  Sounds doable, but after the fourth trip....was enough.  I did not feel very glamorous.

Time to jump in the water to cool off.  

We went over to Tom and Patti's on Liberty for  a nice evening. 

We were told to be there at 7:30 p.m.   So, Tom and Patti (S/V Liberty) Steve, Lili and Sonny and I went at 7 p.m. to eat rotisserie chicken.  We had delicious chicken, potatoes, and patacones for $2 a meal.  That is in our budget!

It was just a small metal shed on the side of the road, but the food was delicious.

We went inside the gymnasium, waiting with anticipation, as the hundreds and hundreds of locals packed inside.  Finally, at 9:30 p.m. the first music group began playing.   The music was very loud and the speakers were huge.   Your heart jumped with the beat of the bass notes.

Steve and Sonny (aka Dos Gringos) were introduced as the band from Texas.  They played three songs as the crowd enjoyed it and clapped along with the music.

They asked them to play again that night, but we left at midnight.  The program went on until 5 a.m.

I found out the antivirus program I have been using, is no longer being supported or updating files.   Time for an upgrade.   In the meantime, I have gotten a virus.  So, today I spent defragging, compressing, deleting, copying and helping my computer back to health.

It is much better now.  But, what a scare!

Houses on the island are decorated with everything from conch shells to wine bottles.

We (S/V Liberty, S/V Liward, and S/V Valentina) decided to rent scooters and spend the day riding around the island.  So at 11 a.m. we were on our way, enjoying the fresh sea breeze in our face, as we scooted around, waving to the friendly people on their porches, and stopping all along the way.

Our first layover, was at Southwest Beach.   There are probably four local beach restaurants here where you can eat and relax.   We had heard so much about Restaurante El Divino Nino.  They serve a mixto platter with conch, fish, shrimp, lobster, patacones, salad for one person for 28,000 ml or about $14 US.  The one platter fed Sonny and I perfectly.

Then, we continued around the island and stopped at Rolando's Restaurant.  We had been there before with a group of cruisers for dinner.   It is a quaint restaurant on the beach, and the tables are old boats.

We enjoyed our day, but were very tired when we got back to our boats.

But, tonight is Texas night on S/V Liward.  Steve and Lili invited us over for delicious nachos and margaritas.

Today, we did what Ken and Karen (S/V Bear Necessity) did about ten years ago.

We hiked up the mountain at Catalina Island and picked fresh mangoes.   We had a bag full. 

Steve had also cut a coconut.   So we feasted on mango, coconut and coconut milk on our hike.

Later, we cooled off in the water near the boat, then we went into town to walk around and sit and watch people.

Check out these plumbers carrying their PVC pipe And, the famous blue lizard of Providencia

We went for a dip with Steve and Lili at Captain Morgan's head in the crystal blue water, until we saw lightning and headed back to the boats.

After lunch, we went over to Liward for Sonny and Steve to go over some of the songs they are going to play tomorrow at the dock.

Today's entertainment was a ship that came in the harbor.   We have never seen such a big ship in Providencia, as the bay is very shallow.  He came through the channel, the towards the dock, near Valentina.   But, he did not make it to the dock.  He ran aground, and, hard.   It was low tide, he was loaded with construction supplies for the island, so he was there for a while, right next to Valentina.

He kept trying to plow forward and reverse, only to stir up the mud in the bay.

Finally, around 10 p.m. he started his motor, and was able to motor to the dock.  I bet he departs at high tide.

Kay with Mila and Luna, a local girl.

We went with Steve and Lili over to the beach to grill chorizo and eat on buns with mustard and chips.  We had to find some dry wood to build a fire, but finally succeeded.  

I wore Sonny's crocs around because I did not bring my shoes to the beach.   But, after we had gone back to Valentina  for several hours, we realized I left his crocs on the beach.

Only in Providencia......after leaving a pair of croc shoes on the beach, 3 hours later when we returned.....they were still sitting there.   Have we said how much we love this island?

Sonny and Steve played music this afternoon on the dock for the locals.   There was a good group that gathered and sat around to listen to the Texan's play.    It is very relaxed and laid back here on the island....and, they love music.

Another good day in paradise.

After being on board all day yesterday, Steve and Lili were ready to go explore.   So we met in town at 1 p.m. to take the Chiva bus around the island.   But, the Chiva bus driver was home taking a siesta.  No bus routes this afternoon.

So Steve talked to Baldwin, a local, who said he could arrange a ride to SW Beach and around the island for us.  So we agreed.   We usually get burned when 'friends on the island' arrange something.  It ends us costing us much more.

So Bruce the taxi driver and Baldwin arrived.   We jumped in the taxi and off we went.   Our first stop was Southwest Beach, where the music was loud and locals were enjoying the afternoon, playing in the water, listening to the music, getting haircuts, and just sitting around visiting.

Our next stop was Roland's Restaurant on the beach.   Roland is a local Rasta man and owner of the quaint beach restaurant.

When we arrived back at the dock, Bruce and Baldwin would not take any money. 

That was a 'first'!

Providencia is filled with good, honest people that we have sure enjoyed getting to know. 

One thing we have discovered about Providencia....you do not see 'any' garbage or trash in the streets.

We have met some other locals here, Loimila and Casparmire.   They live right in front of the city dock.  Casparmire is in the business of preserving conch.   They currently have 1, 876 conch they are protecting.   It takes the conch 3 1/2 to 4 years to mature, so they have built four pens for them and are placed according to their size.   Their enemy is the  sea cats (octopus), who eat the conch out of the shells.  After the conch have matured, they will free in the area to reproduce.

When the conch lay their eggs, the eggs come out of the pointed end of the shell, bury themselves in the sand, and when their shell is developed, they come out to the water.

He also told us how to tell a male conch from a female......the female has larger points at the end of the shell than a male.

Very interesting!

Casparmire invited us and Steve and Lili to go with him and his workers to the conch farm this morning.   Of course, we were excited to go.   We snorkeled inside the pens, looking at the conch, cleaning the seaweed off the fence, and admiring their local operation.

This morning, we went to top off our gasoline.   That meant, dinghy to the dock, walk two to three blocks to the gas station, fill the gas cans for $4.40 a gallon.   Haul the 10 gallons back down to the dinghy....in the snow, uphill......(oops, I did get carried away).   It is not that bad, but not a fun project, but are thankful to get gasoline.

Our routine here in Providencia is to go for a swim in the late afternoon in the beautiful water near Captain Morgan's head then later, go into the island and sit on the benches at the park and watch the world (and motorcycles) go by.

 

Remember Lyle Lovett's Song "If I had a Boat"

Check out this horse on this     large boat

"And if I had a boat I'd go out on the ocean And if I had a pony I'd ride him on my boat And we could all together Go out on the ocean Me upon my pony on my boat"

We are trying to prepare for our 444 mile trip from Isla Providencia to Cartagena, Colombia next week, so this morning, we are checking the water level in our batteries.  Which means,  unload our garage in our quarter berth, and check the batteries underneath.

The boat is a total disaster during this time.   You just would not believe how many tools and spare parts we can fit into the quarter berth!

When we started that project, we got out the light (we bought two years ago) for our cockpit and started thinking about installing that.

But, the top of the project list immediately came.....our head (commode).   It is not getting water in the bowl.  So, of course, we thought it was stopped up hoses on the intake.   We removed the hoses, but they were perfectly clear.  We did go ahead and replace them while we had them off.

It was the impeller.   So, we changed that.   We definitely need to get some more spares.  It seems every six months we have to change it.

We finished around 4:30 p.m. with all our projects, got the boat back in order and jumped in the shower.

Steve and Lili (S/V Liward) and us went over to Wilberson Archbold's home in our dinghies with guitar and harmonicas.  Mr. Archbold is the island musician.  The locals call him "The Master".   He teaches music at the local school and plays the harmonica, violin, mandolin, and guitar.  He has had two pacemakers put in and said he could no longer play the harmonica, because it is too hard on his pacemaker. 

Steve and Sonny sat around and played music with Mr. Archbold on his porch for an hour or two.  He sang his local songs while Sonny and Steve played along.   A very special time in Providence

While we were sitting on his porch, two pigs from across the street came for a visit.  They just run wild and come into your yard and graze on your plants and flowers.  After Mr. Archbold called loudly to his neighbors across the street, they came over to retrieve the pigs and take them home.

What a game the weather is for us.   We were heading in to town to get our zarpe from Mr. Bush to leave, when I checked the weather one more time.   We had gotten our daily weather email from Chris Parker which said, "I would NOT lie in unprotected waters 79W or 80W to 85W from 10N to 15N or 16N late tomorrow into Tue22 morning."

But, today, we are going to hike up to the top of the highest mountain peak in Providencia.   We went with Steve and Lili and rented motor scooters and headed to Manzanilla to begin our trek.

It is a nice path going up, as most tourist hire a local guide for 30 mil ($15) each.  But, we just decided to see if we could find it ourselves.   It took us two hours to hike up where we had lunch at the top.   Then, we came back down.

We went to Roland's Restaurant on the beach.   Steve had promised him he would bring him some new strings for his old guitar.  So he cleaned it and put the new strings on it......much better.

Then the fun began.   Steve played the guitar, Sonny harmonicas, and Roland played the jawbone.   It is a real jawbone of a horse that he hits with a small stick, and....the teeth even rattle to make noise.   Then, they brought out the 'wash tub'.  It is a real wash tub with a hole and string through the bottom and a stick.  

Very good!  I took some video so I will make a video of it sometime soon.

We will sleep very well tonight.

We went to the several stores in town trying to find some vegetables, fresh bread, powdered sugar (which I found in Providencia for my Texas sheet cake), oatmeal, and raisins.

I cooked some pork chops, made potato salad, made some fish salad and boiled some eggs to prepare for our crossing.

We pulled up anchor at 1 p.m. ready for our slow crossing to Cartagena at a heading of 120°.   We were able to sail awhile, until we got down to 2 knots and started the engine.

We saw dolphin, had a nice moon to light our way, and literally dodged squalls all night.   My prayer life definitely gets strengthened on crossings.  When you see the squalls headed right at you, one after another......it is a challenge to miss them.

But we did.    At one point, we were headed the wrong direction.

We have not see any other boats or ships today since we left Providencia.

During the night, we took turns on watch while the other one tried to sleep.  On our first night out, we neither one, sleep very well.

It was a good night, no problems.  Just a slow trip with the current against us.   We are trying to keep up to 4 knots, which is hard at times.   Around 4 a.m. Sonny saw one ship about 12 miles out on radar pass us.

While it was still dark this morning, we were both in the cockpit and I was going down the companionway, when I glanced behind us and I could see a small boat and water splashing.  Our hearts began to beat fast.....faster....faster as they approached us.    We are 65 miles from Providencia and a fast launcha approaching us in the dark is not good.  He did not show up on our radar.

Sonny went on deck and yelled out, "Que necessita?"   

It was a gray launcha with some numbers on the front.   Not a marked military or coast guard boat.   There were 7 men on board in dark clothes with rifles.

Finally, he asked, "Guardia Coasta?" and they finally responded, "yes".

So we left our sails up, slowed down, and put out fenders.   This is our first coast guard visit while underway.  They just wrote out a report, stayed about 30 minutes, checked down below, and left.  They were very nice, but they sure did scare us approaching us in the dark.

Sonny asked them why they did not call us on channel 16 on the VHF to let us know who they were before approaching us in the dark.   They said, "We cannot do that, because the 'go-fast' (drug) boats would know their location".

We checked in on the morning SW Caribbean SSB net to let our friends know our position and conditions on board.  It is such a comfort to know that people are watching out for you.

On crossings, there is usually not a lot going on.   You just see lots of water passing by.

But, at about 11 a.m., we had been watching a big container ship approach us.   As he was getting within two miles, he was still headed towards us.  

Sonny was on deck making a sail change and monitoring the ships direction. 

At that same time, our fishing line started screaming.   So, I pulled in a mahi mahi and Sonny started cleaning it, when he asked me to call the ship on the VHF radio to make sure he sees us and what his intentions are. 

So, I picked up the microphone to hail the oncoming ship.   He acknowledged us and said he was going to continue on his current course.   So, I told him we would fall off to starboard and go behind him.  He was too close for our comfort.

Even with our course change, he was within one mile of us.    This huge Caribbean Sea, and ships come within one mile of us. 

There is no wind.   The whole trip we have had 3-4 knots, but that also means, the seas are low.   So, for us, as we head southeast, it is much more comfortable into the wind,  waves and current....to have flat seas.

For about three hours this afternoon, we had 10-12 knots of wind so we put our gib up.  Now, we have all three sails up and sailing over 5 knots.  Our first good sail of our trip. 

All of a sudden, our fishing line started screaming.   Fish On!   Whew, this is a nice one.   A mahi mahi, but a big one.   He is jumping out of the water turning flips, just like they do on the fishing shows on tv.  How exciting! 

Sonny went over to the fishing line and started trying to stop the line from screaming out as our mahi mahi was running.  He started tightening the drag.    I grabbed the fishing belt and put around him.

But, before we could get him stopped, he flipped some more.....and broke our 150 lb. line.   He was gone!   When we examined our line, it was a clean break, not where our knot had come undone.

We were sick......he was such a nice fish.

The wind died again, so we motored on.   We decided, this time, just to continue motoring until we get to Cholon.

For the past few days, we knew there was some kind of electrical problem with keeping our batteries charged.   The solar panels would charge them during the day, but at night the voltage would drop.  We were perplexed trying to figure it out.

As we neared the Cartagena area at night, the lights made it difficult to see.   There were ships coming in and out the channel.   We got on our previous track and headed south about 10 miles to the Bay of Cholon. 

We do not ever come in an anchorage in the dark, but tonight we are.   We have numerous tracks going in and a full moon to light our way.   So, we slowly motored through the cut and into the bay.   With our battery situation, we needed to get anchored as quickly as possible.

12:15 a.m.   Dropped the anchor in the tranquil Bay of Cholon, Colombia

From Providencia to the Bay of Cholon was 414 miles and took us 3 1/2 days.   We had a good trip, but are so glad to be here.   We have a lot of boat projects to do now.

We woke up at 7 a.m. with our minds spinning.   It is much hotter here than in the Hobbies or Providencia where we have been the last two months.   We put up the awning on the front deck, covered our mainsail, removed and washed the jack lines, and started unloading the cockpit lazarette and quarter berth.    After nursing our battery problem constantly the last two days coming here,  we are anxious to find out if we have some bad batteries or what the problem is.   This is our first project and top of the list.

Our friends, Kate and D.J. (S/V Hello World) and Damon and David (S/V Bruadair) were here in the anchorage to greet us.  

Also, Robert and Carmen are here.  They took M/V Manatee in to Cartagena today.

It is good to be around friends.

Damon came over to help us find our problem with our batteries.  He tested all the batteries, and, same as what we have discovered before.   They all tested good.  Then he tested the wires to our Link 20 battery monitor.  All good.   Next was the fuse to the Link 20.   It was corroded on the ends, so we replaced the fuses and screws.  And, that is where our problem was.   We are so thankful that is what it was and Damon's assistance was invaluable.

Kate invited us over for dinner today, along with Damon and David.   She prepared chicken, rice, and mango, avocado, and egg salad.   David had made a delicious pecan pie.  How good it is to be back in Cholon and reunite with friends.

Our friends, Dr. Caballero and Martha came down today from Cartagena.   It was so good to see them.   We spent most of the day together.  They came out to Valentina and we went to their house.   They made the trip with us in January from Cartagena to San Blas and we all had a great time.   Even Martha's 85 year old father, Efrain.

Then, it is time to go to Manatee.   Robert and Carmen invite the cruisers over to their updated shrimp boat in the evenings.  They are serving hot dogs tonight.  It is great to see them.   Robert's daughter and her husband is here from California visiting.

Potluck tonight.....Robert announced on the VHF that tonight is potluck on Manatee.  So I made a chocolate cake and we dinghied over at 5 p.m.  It was very good food and everyone sat around talking until after dark.

This morning, at 8 a.m. we started waxing the other half of the hull.  Then, Sonny hauled 30 gallons of diesel and put it in the tank.   We had to dinghy into Baru to get some more money and purchased 20 more gallons.

Then, we jumped in the water to cool off.  It is very hot here.

I made a pot of beans and we rested.  We are just not used to such busy schedules and hard work.  Our bodies are sore....but a good feeling.

Top of Page   or     "On to July"

"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key."

Lyrics from Already Gone,

peformed by the Eagles for their 1974 On the Border album