Sailing to Cartagena, Columbia

Arriving in Zapzurro, Columbia was like entering another world. Instead of thatched homes that blend in with the colors of the earth, we saw brightly painted concrete buildings. The yellows, greens, blues and pinks sharply contrasted the surrounding jungle. The gently sounds of nature, the soft lapping of water on the shore, and the beautiful songs of birds were overridden by the loud upbeat rhythms of salsa music and the roaring of outboard engines on the small pangas entering and leaving the harbor. Despite our culture shock at arriving here, we realized that were we arriving from anywhere other than Kuna Yala, we would see Zapzurro for what it really is, a small quaint, little village nestled in the jungle, far removed from roads and motorized land-vehicles. We soon went ashore to explore the new sites. Since Zapzurro is not an official point of entry and we had just arrived in Columbia, we decided to check in with the police to let them know of our arrival and to request permission to stay and visit. We had no trouble finding an officer. The village was swarming with policemen. They were all dressed in green military fatigue with tall, black combat boots and were carrying huge automatic firearms. In contrast to their fear-provoking attire, they were also wearing large, friendly smiles. The policemen in Zapzurro were the most genuinely hospitable and helpful policemen we have ever met. They encouraged us to stay and to explore, and they helped us to find our way. We spent the next two days hiking in the jungle and visiting the neighboring towns. On our third day, a cruiser named Don came into the harbor and told us of the excellent sailing conditions offshore. Hurricane Gustaf was in the Carribean 1000nm to our north and was sucking the air out of our area, creating wind. We had been hoping to have enough wind to sail to Cartagena and had reluctantly assumed we would have to motor a large part of the way. Now was our opportunity. On August 28th at 10am, we left Zapzurro en route to Cartagena. Outside the sheltered bay, we encountered almost no wind, and we begun questioning the timing of our departure. However, only two hours after leaving, the wind picked up out of the west and then soon clocked around to the southwest. We were sailing at a broad reach (wind coming from the stern port quarter) in 20 knots of wind. It was perfect! We were making excellent speed. Our GPS showed us to be moving at 7 to 7-1/2 knots! Since we hadn’t sailed much faster than 2 knots in the past few months (because of the light winds), we had almost forgotten that Chandrika could sail so fast. We sailed throughout the night and the following day at 2pm we arrived at an intermediate anchorage point highly recommended by a fellow cruiser. The anchorage was on the south side of Tintipán, an island in the San Bernardino island group, south of Cartagena. Unfortunately, the anchorage was terrible. The bottom was sand covered with coral heads. Since it was already afternoon, we did not want to continue sailing as it would mean sailing through reef-strewn waters that night in the dark with terribly inaccurate charts. We had also been warned to stay protected from the south, as the squalls that occasionally pass through in the night tend to approach from this direction. This anchorage would be completely exposed should we experience a squall. We also did not like how close to shore we needed to anchor to be in anchorable depths. Not far from shore the bottom quickly dropped to 120 feet, a depth too deep in which to anchor. We spent the next two hours motoring around, sounding the bottom, trying to find somewhere shallower that did not bring us uncomfortably close to shore. We also hoped that we would anchor somewhere that did not have coral. We finally found a patch of ground with 75 foot depths. That night we awoke instantly as the wind jumped from only a few knots to about 30 knots. We rushed outside and quickly pulled down our shade awning to reduce windage on our boat. By the time we got it down (about 5 minutes later), the wind speed had picked up to 40 knots. Just as we had feared, the winds from the squall were coming directly from the south, pushing our boat towards the shore. We were so thankful we had gone through all the trouble of finding a spot further away from the shore! That said, we still did not like having a lee shore. If our anchor were to drag, we might have a hard time keeping the boat off the land, especially if the wind got any stronger. We turned on the motor, keeping it in low throttle in an attempt to relieve some of the strain on the anchor. The strong winds were kicking up about 5 feet of swell. We watched as our dinghy, which was trailing behind the boat, rose up as high as our heads and then dropped out of view behind Chandrika’s transom. The squall stopped almost as quickly as it had begun. It had lasted only about an hour, but an intense hour it had been! The winds were sustained at 40 knots with higher gusts. The highest gust we recorded was 47 knots. At first light, very eager to leave, we raised anchor and motored towards Barú, an island 20nm south of Cartagena. Barú has an excellent, well-protected anchorage with lots of room, 22 foot depths, and a good-holding mud bottom. Here we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves for a week before continuing on to Cartagena. August – September 2008