Bamboozle's downwind system effortlessly munched through the 350 miles from Curacao and as dawn broke this morning the entrancing coast of Colombia was emerging from the gloom on our bow. It was a stunning landfall and, from the seaward side, very little can have changed since Columbus himself came this way.  With the theme tune to the movie The Mission booming out over the cockpit speakers we seemed to have arrived in a forgotten world complete with eerie morning mist drifting off the jungle clad hills.  At this point of the coast, the Sierra Nevada mountains run almost straight up out of the Caribbean to the summit of the Pico Cristobal Colon at 5800 meters just 35 miles inland so there is no lack of scenery.  Sadly this morning this northernmost outcrop of the Andes remained wreathed in clouds and we were never quite sure if we could actually see the range's unusual tropical snowfields or if we were just imagining them.

 

What we fortunately could clearly see was the way in to one of the deep indentations into the coastal foothills that form the "Five Bays" area of the Tayrona National Park.  The only detailed chart of the area we have on board was hand-drafted in 1963 so the "Mark I" eyeball remains a key piece of navigational equipment in this part of the world.  We are comfortably anchored towards the top of the bay with a few houses visible tucked up behind the sandy beach but we have yet to subject any of the locals to our newly learned "conversational Spanish".  We have heard from other cruisers that they are a friendly bunch and we will take "Katie the Kayak" out for a cruise around the bay this afternoon to see what we can find. 

 

Talking about the locals, I had a somewhat confused conversation over a dodgy skype line with my Mum the other day who asked me if their were many "Pirates" in Colombia....I thought she said "Parrots" so I said that yes....of course..... there are lots of them... they live in the jungle but are only really a problem if you feed them!  I couldn't understand why she was so concerned by the local birdlife!