Pitufa.at

We’ve now spent a week in Cartagena and we absolutely love it. The anchorage is protected and even though the water is slightly smelly fish are jumping around the boat with dozens of pelicans plunging noisily down to catch them–so it can’t be too bad. The only nuisance are the taxi boats and private motor boats that heedlessly go through the anchorage at full speed.

The historic town centre is within walking distance of the anchorage and we spent the first few days here sightseeing, feeling like tourists on holidays The houses and atmosphere in the centre are surprisingly European–makes you feel like being in Southern Spain. We also feel very safe, there are ridiculously young policemen on mopeds everywhere (most of them wearing dental braces) and coast guard boats patrolling the harbour. The only place where they tried to rip us off twice is the posh supermarket near the marina (charging us 50 euros for a baguette…) There’s restaurants and bars everywhere with astounding differences in prices. You can have a fish fillet for 3 or 30 euros…

Cartagena has been a Unesco World Heritage site since 1984, there are forts and museums all over the town, but unfortunately we’ve also discovered some architectural sins from the 70s and 80s as well as half collapsed ruins within the walled city centre, which is astounding, as Cartagena’s economy obviously relies on tourism. We visited the Naval Museum which gives an overview of the historic development of the city and its dozens of fortifications that have been added since its foundation in 1533.

The last 3 days were quite rainy, so we stayed at home, finished a rain-catching/shadow canvas for the foredeck and since the sewing machine was already out I also turned some unpractical shirts with long sleeves into comfy short sleeve shirts. Back in Austria it would have never ocurred to me buying a sewing machine, but living on the boat we use our indestructible Pfaff quite often

After visiting some islands in the southern Caribbean between February and July (Tobago, Grenada, Bonaire and Curacao, we’ve now left the “beaten tracks” again and have reached Latin America. Colombia used to have a bad reputation, but now traveling is supposed to be safe. Cruising Colombia means lots of bureaucracy (instead of checking in yourself you need an “agent” to deal with authorities), but the fascinating metropolis Cartagena is really worth visiting. Old meets new: the impressive, walled city center with its Spanish houses is surrounded by skyscrapers.
During the next weeks we’ll sail down the Colombian coast, before heading on to Panama and the San Blas archipelago.

We’ve spent the last “florines” in Willemstad, tidied the boat, said good-bye to our friends (that’s the sad side of the cruising life: many of the friends we make sail into other directions…) and will get up the anchor in one hour. The weather forecast looks ok, if it gets too rough we can still anchor in some safe spots along the way

We spent the last 3 weeks in a little side bay of Spanish waters that is quite protected from wind and swell, but experiences gusts from unpredictable directions, so most boats have either a stern anchor, or a line ashore to keep them from swinging against each other or the shore. While our engine didn’t work we had 3 anchors out which kept us in a stable position.
On Friday we took the mechanics for a test run around the bay (with the turbo now running again Pitufa does well over 8 eight knots ) and anchored then with just one anchor (free swinging in order to be able to leave anytime without a big hassle towards Columbia). That worked well on Saturday (unusually calm conditions), but this morning, right when we were about to go out hiking with friends, everything packed and ready to go we had the feeling that Pitufa was blown too close to the shore.

Safety must always come first, so we dropped the rucksack and the hiking sandals, got up the anchor and dropped it a bit further away from shore. Waited for the next gust–shit. Again too close to shore. Got up the anchor again, dropped it a bit further out. Shit. Too close to the neighbouring boat. Got up the anchor again and dropped it at the entrance of the bay. We’re safe now, but no longer very comfortable in the howling wind and waves building up across Spanish Waters. Doesn’t matter–we’re leaving on Tuesday anyway, the grib files predict fair winds for Wednesday and Thursday. Got under deck, looked at the new grib file. Shit. They’ve changed the forecast to strong winds throughout next week.

Incredible, but we’re still in Curacao. The expected 2 weeks have already turned into 5, but at least we’ve finished all repairs and maintenance jobs on the engine. We’re theoretically ready to leave, as soon as the weather allows it. Sailing down to Cartagena is a bit tricky, because the cape in the north of Columbia (Cabo de Vela) is infamous for strong winds and high steep waves, while the coast on the way south to Cartagena is often completely becalmed, or too windy as well. We’re now checking the grib files (wind and weather forecast) each day, waiting for the “magic moment” when there’s not too much wind to get safely around the cape, but enough wind to carry us down to Cartagena…
The anchorage in Spanish Waters seems to be full of people who’ve already spent months (or years ) waiting for that weather window and have grown roots here in the meantime. There’s a cruiser who offers internet connection, another one delivers water to the anchoring boats, mechanics offer their services, watermakers are on sale–anchoring in this bay feels like living in a small town. Free shuttles from two supermarkets pick up cruisers each day to encourage them to spend money
Of course there’s also some social life going on: there’s a happy hour for cruisers in the bar twice a week, people visit each other on their boats, exchange info, charts and books. We’ve enjoyed living in this community for a while, got lots of work done, but now we’re eager to get on and explore a new country.

After getting all the love and attention it had obviously missed, our Yanmar is now happily purring again (even the turbo works…). We’re now finishing some minor works, waiting for fair winds and getting in touch with “agentes” in Colombia (that sounds more exciting than it is. These agents don’t have the licence to kill, but the licence to speak to the harbour master to settle check in procedures and bureaucracy).