Santa Marta - Cartegena 10:24.555N,75:32.478W
Serenity of Swanwick
Phil and Sarah Tadd
Thu 23 Feb 2017 14:38
Thursday morning we left for Cartegena, on advice from the marina and our agent we understand that we can make a stop for two nights without any extra formalities but we were still a bit dubious. Unlike our sail from the ABC's we had very little wind, almost flat seas and managed a steady 4-6 knots until the wind died Friday morning and we motored the last 5 miles. There are two entrances to the harbour Boca Grande is the small boat entry and about 5 miles further South Boca Chico is the big boat entrance, we contacted the port control gave them all our details and checked the depths though the Boca Grande, enough water so in we went.
All was going well, we were told to anchor and wait for the authorities to visit us, still waiting, then disaster. We were anchoring in deep water so needed almost all of the chain out unfortunately the stopper knot at the end of the chain didn't hold and all of the chain went overboard. We had seen this happen to someone in St Lucia and had checked that ours was fixed but the knot pulled through the hole. A Colombian couple offered us assistance and we anchored with our, lighter, spare anchor. The Colombian couple arranged for some help and we agreed a price for the recovery of our anchor which by good luck worked and we now have our proper anchor back in use. This afternoon we will look at the city and tomorrow intend to leave.
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