PUERTO VALERO

(Columbia, South America, SW Caribbean)

10^O56.842’N, 75^O01.934’W

13 December 2018

    National Flag of Columbia

Thursday 13 December:  Santa Marta to Puerto Valero, 64 miles, 9 hours, 1.4 engine hours, 7.2 knots average speed.  Total miles: 12261

An 0615 hrs start enabled us to arrive at our next destination, Puerto Valero, SW of Santa Marta, during daylight hours.  We prefer not to arrive at an unfamiliar anchorage in the dark, especially this one as a sand bar is reported to stick out further than is shown on our navigational aids and charts!

37 Suzie Too rally boats arrived pretty much together, escorted by the Columbian Navy!  It was a particularly windy sail, but Lady Rebel handled the seas well.  Unfortunately we lost two lures so didn’t catch any fish – maybe we were going too fast!!  The anchorage was windy so we stayed on board plus we had another early start the following morning.

    Rough seas never show fully in photographs!           The Columbian Navy watching over the fleet

    The fleet at anchor

Friday 14 December 2018 – ISLA GRANDE, Columbia

10^O10.301’N, 75^O44.00’W

14-17 December 2018

Puerto Valero to Isla Grande (Isla Roserio, Columbian Island Group), 71 miles, 12 hrs 25 minutes, 5.72 knots average speed, 7.9 engine hrs.  Total Miles: 12332

An even earlier start than the previous day turned out to be a blessing as, although arriving at Isla Grande at 1630 hrs, it took seven attempts, nearly 2 hours, to finally get the anchor to dig in successfully and that was in 17m of water (we like, and are used to, less than 5m!) and it was getting dark!  We had been ‘instructed’ by the Columbian Coastguard, given waypoints in-fact, where to anchor.  Unfortunately their requested location was on top of a coral reef.  Our charts did not show this so we assumed their suggested shallower patch was a sand bank.  Quite how much damage our anchor and chain did to the reef, along with several other boats’ failed attempts to anchor, we will never know!  So sad considering it takes years and years for the corals to grow.  The Navy, however, seemed happy with our new chosen location – happier than we were anyway!  A neighbouring boat came over for drinks so the situation was soon forgotten and we set our ‘Anchor Alarms’ just incase we dragged.

    Some of the fleet sailing past Cartagena to Isla Rosario.         We would sail back to Cartagena in a few days

Lady Rebel finally anchored in deep water with the rest of the fleet, just before sunset

The following morning we were officially allowed to re-anchor in a shallower (4m) lovely sandy spot nearer to the island where the holding was perfect.  No-one could quite understand why we weren’t allowed to anchor there in the first place!

     Anchored closer in to shore

Isla Grande is beautiful, quiet, a little rustic with warm clear water.  We had lazy lunches, raft up ‘parties’ and group snorkelling.  Ken went scuba diving but my nose was not healed enough for me to partake so I used the time to pack for my Christmas/New Year UK visit.

     A lazy lunch amongst the pigs and chickens

      Kids playing on the jetty and excited to see what the local fisherman had caught

    Several dinghies raft up for a gentle ‘float’ around the island

    Clear blue sky and sea, 32 degrees!                                                     Group snorkelling fun

    A sea spider                                                                                                   The obligatory Christmas hat photo!

    Next stop:  Cartagena