Providencia
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Fri 26 Jun 2009 23:14
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Hello Friends
"13:22.8N
81:22.6W"
We've stayed nearly two weeks in Providencia
as it's such a pleasant island to stop at. The bay here is sheltered, has plenty
of space, sociable yacht neighbours and a good dinghy dock: even the ATMs work
OK and it's not too expensive either. A beer** costs 2,000 pesos or about 60p /
$1 in contrast to often several times that in the eastern
Caribbean.
Here is the bay 'Santa Catalina Harbour'
here in Providencia, looking W:
 As mentioned in the last blog, we arrived in
time for the "Old Providence Caribbean Garden" festival (the locals are proud of
their English heritage and use of the language - and their separation from
mainland Colombia). There have been quite a few late night concerts - too late
of course for Blue Sky and also a beauty contest (ladies only) and beach horse
racing. Even though most days since we've arrived are nominally public holidays,
everything seems to work OK and all the shops are open anyway.
We dressed overall for the occasion and here
we are with 'Split Hill' (or more colloquially, 'Morgan's Ass' by the cruisers
in honour of the famous Captain Morgan who was based here long ago) in the
background.
 Michael & Garrison did actually climb
the hill - hence the previous panorama of the bay.
The sights are many and varied and the
noticeable thing is how friendly the residents are - in contrast to some places
we could mention in the eastern Caribbean. Here's a couple of contrasts if ever
there were - an iguana at the fort overlooking the anchorage and of course the
(very lovely) beauty queens putting in an appearance at the beach horse
racing:
 The horse racing did not yield any useable
photos since, in the words of the locals, it was very much "here dey come, dere
dey go" so in the time it takes to get the camera switched on, it's all over.
Great fun though as the horses race towards the crowd, which magically parts to
let them race through. Fortunately no horse stumbled or the crowd would have
gone down like nine pins. There was great food available on the beach though as
the afternoon progressed, the whole beach ran out of beer...
Another day we dinghied around to the reef
protected windward side and went snorkelling. The reef here is notable for weird
coral heads rising up almost to the surface from a sandy bed about 10 metres
deep. Lethal for navigation but great for snorkelling around, though fish and
coral not as wonderful as Cuba.
Sadly no pictures as our Olympus
underwater camera is no longer waterproof - though still surprisingly robust. We
noticed that salt water had got inside so we rinsed the whole camera with boat
water (basically distilled water from the watermaker) and dried it out - all
seems fine so far.
After snorkelling we were invited to lunch
by some local friends with a glorious house overlooking the reef - here is G
relaxing after lunch on the lower terrace:
 [For those in search of exotic holiday
destinations, the very lovely and artsy house is available for rent, though
getting to Providencia does involve flying to Colombia, then San Andres (50m
south) and then a final hop to Providencia.]
Yesterday we hired scooters for a road
circuit of the island. It's a while since the skipper & first mate have used
motorised two-wheelers and these scooters at 20 mph felt a lot more dangerous
than our SLK at 120 mph. Fortunately we returned unscathed from the adventure,
having spent most of the time snoozing on the beach after lunch.
We are now underway off Providencia
and on course for Panama. We'll aim for Shelter Bay just inside the
Cristobal breakwater at the Caribbean end of the Canal where there's a marina
and we can do a spot of maintenance before cruising the islands. Reasonable
winds forecast to start, but probably a spot of motoring closer to
Panama.
Best Wishes
George, Michael and Garrison
** the price of beer is
of course the basic unit of Blue Sky value
comparison.
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