Buenos Dias from Cartagena

Hi everyone! We thought we had better do a blog post and let everyone know we are still alive and well, but slowly melting in Cartagena! Our internet at the marina is terrible, so we have to go to an internet cafe down the street, thus we have not been keeping our blog or facebook up to date. Sorry!

We are still at the dock here. We moved in hopes of getting better shore power, but instead the electrician managed to give us a couple of big power spikes and now we think our ice maker is fried. This is completely devastating!!!! Ice cold drinks are a must in the hot boat, so now we buy bags of ice at the store and hurry back to the boat before they melt! Our AC takes too much power, so we can't use it right now. Greg is STILL working on getting the generator going. We ordered and received parts from the US but still no go. Another electrician is supposed to be coming today and helping Greg with both the power and the generator. Monday afternoon, Greg and I went looking for some parts. Everyone is so incredibly helpful and friendly here. If they don´t have what you want, they make every effort to help you find it. Awesome!

Remember our friends Mike and Kelly from our buddy boat Rum Boogie? Well, they quit that job, it just didn't work out, and are now on another boat "Chanteclair". The owner, George, is a lonely sixtyish rich fellow from New Orleans. He seems to be looking after them very well, and vise versa. He has taken us out to dinner twice, to the old walled in part of the city. It is beautiful at night... so many restaurants to choose from, and little squares among the streets where you can sit and people watch, have coffee or a drink. We are parked beside them at the marina. We toured the Naval Museum, which was great, full of history of the area, complete with neat little diaramas that showed in detail the different forts built to ward off the enemy, as well as replicas of the different ships from the 1600's to the present. We stil want to tour the Gold Museum, and the Old Fort is a must.

We have had asome work done on the boat, the labour and materials here are very, very inexpensive. Pedro repaired, sanded and painted the pilot house and his Dad fixed the wood on our broken back seat, so it doesn´t have to be held up by tool boxes under it anymore. Gosh, we are looking almost respectable these days!

The boys are keeping busy with their schoolwork in the mornings, as well as working on their music. George gave them a bunch of songs along with the lyrics for the computer, so they have been learning some new songs on the guitar. Of course there are always boat chores to do, and bringing Dad tools to and from the engine room.

I keep busy cleaning and cooking, as usual. Last Saturday Kelly and I needed a girls day so we went for a manicure and pedicure, and went out for lunch. The mani/pedi cost $6.00 per person. It was almost embarrassing to pay so little for so much! They even painted designs on our big toes! We splurged on lunch, a little roadside cafe served us soup, chicken, rice, salad and beans for a whopping $2.50 each. The local food is delicious, similar to the Dominican Republic.

We dug our all our awnings, and have put them up to give us some shade and keep things somewhat cooler. The temperature in the galley while I was cooking dinner last night was almost 100 degrees. Naturally, in the midst of this, my hormones, or should I day "horrormones" are rearing their ugly heads, so in addition to sweating constantly, I am also having hot flashes and night sweats. Our fans are on 24/7 and I pray every night for the electrician to fix our shore power so we can run the AC. You might ask... do I miss Yellowknife yet??? As much as I like to complain about the heat, no, I would still rather be here than anywhere else in world!

That's about it for now. Next time I come in to do a blog post, I will remember to put some photos on my stick. We have a few nice ones, and I's sure you are all anxious to see the newly painted pilot house : )

Bye for now, from the Galley Wench of Dutch Dreamer

Cartagena or bust!

We finally arrived in Cartagena around 2:30 Saturday afternoon. This was the longest, toughest voyage to date. Our trip took eight days. We chose to travel doing mostly day hops, but we had one overnighter with rough weather that was a very long 20 hours. Most of our trip saw 20 to 30 knots of wind. The seas varied, from 3 to 9 feet. The wind was behind us most of the trip, but the swells broke at our beam, so we were constantly being twisted around between the swells on one side, and the current on the other. It was never an unsafe trip, only uncomfortable. The first and the last days were the calmest, we actually had to motor the last three hours into Cartagena due to lack of wind.

Friday, March 26: Our first day took us from Aruba to Monjes del Sur, a tiny island on the coast of Columbia, a 50 mile journey. It was very frustrating to try and communicate with the “Garde Costa” while coming in to tie up, we couldn’t understand each other. They speak so fast and with such an accent that the small amount of Spanish we know, was of no use. Once tied up and settled down, we cooked up a feast of tuna and mahi mahi from the boys very successful day fishing. (See Brett’s blog post for the details!)

Saturday, March 27: Up before dawn the next day, we headed out for the next leg of our journey, to Cabo de la Vela, 80 miles down the coast. We arrived there late afternoon, after a pleasant day of motor sailing. The boys caught and released two small fish. We anchored in the bay, which was open and windy, but we were only there for one short night. We dined on fish again and went to bed early.

Sunday, March 28: We left Cabo de la Vela around 2:00 p.m. the next day. The next leg of our journey was taking us to The Five Bays, which were 120 miles down the coast, 20 hours away. We had to time our departure so we would arrive in daylight. Unfortunately, the wind picked up, and the swells were pretty big, so it was a fairly rough day sailing. Late in the afternoon, Greg asked me to make a pot of coffee for the night. He went to start the generator, it turned over, but wouldn’t stay running. Unable to take the time to do any troubleshooting, we dug out the Honda 2000, AKA Baby Gennie and made a pot of coffee.

At around 9:00 p.m. that night, Dylan woke me up from a nap. There was water coming into the boat and sloshing around on the salon floor. He had towels thrown all over the floor and was trying to mop up things as best he could. We thought we had solved that issue, but apparently not. The water was leaking into the compartment where the motor for the refrigeration is, not good. While the boys and I took over the helm, Greg fired up the Honda, dug out the shop vac and cleaned up all the water. We did this as needed throughout the night, until our arrival in the first of the Five Bays, Bahia Cinto at 8:00 a.m.

Monday, March 29: We anchored, hung out wet towels and cleanup as best we could. As tired as we were, we were amazed by the beauty around us. The Five Bays are a National Park, where locals go to the beaches and relax. They are sparsely inhabited by a few fishermen. They are also perfect stops for cruisers, as they are sheltered and good holding for anchoring. There are a few beaches on the shore. Behind the beaches, the growth is green and lush, all the way up into the mountains. We decided to stay in The Five Bays and rest up for a couple of days, before heading out again.

Greg went down into the engine room, to try and get the main generator running. I am going to take a minute to try and explain how our power is set up on the boat. We have a complex inverting system that supplies power to the two main electrical panels, one is DC, powered by the batteries, one is 110 AC. To run anything off the 110 AC panel (ice maker, air conditioning, electrical fans, etc.) you need either shore power, or a generator. The DC panel runs all the “necessities”: lights, radar, autopilot, steering, electronics and refrigeration. The DC panel gets its power from the four huge batteries in the engine room. These batteries are charged in two ways, either by running the main engine, or from the inverting system. The inverting system however, needs 110 AC to run, and therefore, charge the batteries. Without the main generator, the only way we are able to keep the batteries charged is by running the engine. Why not use Baby Gennie, you are probably wondering??? Unfortunately, it does not supply enough power to run the inverting system and charge batteries. It does give us enough power to run basic 110, coffee maker, toaster, ice maker, but not air conditioning, etc. What happens when our batteries get low? The lights dim, the battery operated fans slow, and most importantly, the refrigeration does not have enough juice to run its motor. Everything slowly grinds to a halt. The gas to our stove is supplied through a solenoid, and when the batteries get low, the gas alarm goes off, and we have to turn off the switch supplying the gas, so I can’t use the stove.

Back in the engine room, Greg managed to get the generator running. Unfortunately, even though it is running, it is not getting power to the inverter. That means the problem is with the circuit board. Now we know we will have to wait until we get to Cartagena to get the generator running. We will run the engine as needed to charge batteries, and use Baby Gennie for basic power.

We spent the day resting, the boys and I went swimming and snorkelling off the boat. Kelly, Mike and the boys swam to shore and checked out the beach and the shore. We tried to get internet, but couldn’t get a signal. We decided the next day we would weigh anchor and go over two bays, where there was supposed to be a few services. With any luck, we could pick up internet and weather.

Tuesday, March 30: Greg had a good look at the port side of the boat to try and figure out where we were taking in water. If you remember, back in Puerto Rico, and again in Sint Maartin, we ripped up the teak decking on either side of the pilot house where we were taking in water previously. Greg cleaned it up and patched the holes. While in Aruba, he worked on this again, and painted both sides with a good primer and then paint. Now, after having a good look at the port side, he was stymied, as he couldn’t see any holes at all. But he decided that the next day he would put on another thick coat of paint, to try and seal any tiny holes.

We weighed anchor in the afternoon, and moved two bays over to Bahia Guayraca. There was a tiny fishing village, with a little restaurant (basically a shack!). The guys launched the dinghy and went ashore with Rum Boogie. I stayed on board as I was not feeling well, and just needed to sleep. They chatted with the locals, who were friendly and helpful. They went to the restaurant and shared some red snapper, rice and salad, which they said was delicious, and had some cold beers. We decided to stay here another day and relax a bit, before moving on.

Wednesday, March 31: The snorkelling here was better, so Kelly, the boys and myself spent a lot of time in the water, checking out the reefs. We saw quite a few fish and some coral. Greg painted the deck on the port side. The wind really picked up in the late afternoon and howled through the night, waking us up a few times.

Thursday, April 1: We woke up and saw that Rum Boogie had moved further out in the bay. We thought their anchor must have slipped and they moved and re-anchored. It turned out they did slip, but didn’t realize it. We had slipped a bit as well. We decided we may as well move on to the last bay, to stage ourselves for the next leg of our journey. After hoisting the dinghy back on board, we head out to Ancon Chica. We anchored and prepared the boat for travelling. Mike and Greg strategized, to have the sails set for a more comfortable trip. The afternoon was spent splicing lines and planning. We decided to reef the main sail, so hopefully we wouldn’t heel to port as much, and take in water again. (Reefing means you don’t have the sail up all the way). With the mizzen, we let the back stay loose so we could run the sail at a different angle, in hopes again, of stabilizing the boat.

Our next destination was Punta Hermosa. The tricky part of this part of the trip was the timing. We had to leave early enough so that we were crossing where the Rio Magdalena comes out into the ocean, in the morning when it was calm. This area is notoriously rough, with debris coming out from the muddy river. Past the river is a city called Baranquilla. This city is known for crime, and they warn cruisers to stay away as people get robbed and shot. So we had to carry on until the next bay, Punta Hermosa. From Ancon Chica we were only 120 miles from Cartagena, but because we had to leave to be crossing the river in the morning, it meant if we went straight to Cartagena, we would arrive there at midnight. Not good. Thus, the stop at Punta Hermosa, 70 miles away.

Friday, Aoril 2: We were up at 4:00, and underway by 5:00. Because of an off shore island on our port side, we had to head east before turning south. It was rough! As much as we tried to secure things down below, there is always something forgotten, or something that comes loose. This morning, the cupboard that holds my pots, pans, bowls and a few glass jars decided to open, and everything flew out onto the galley floor. We were getting tossed around so much it was hard to walk around inside the boat. I managed to get out my broom, and while holding on for dear life, sweep up the glass. Meanwhile, the guys up top are trying to get the sails up. When they pulled out the jib, it caught and was stuck. Greg and Brett tried to unfurl it, but it just wouldn’t budge, so they tried to roll it up again. The wind was howling at 25-30 knots, and there were 10 foot swells hammering our starboard side. So, Dylan had the helm, Brett was trying to help Greg. Greg was at the bow of the boat, trying to get the jib under control. It was flapping wildly in the wind, and the sheets hopelessly snarled and tangled. I was in the galley sweeping up broken glass. In the salon, yes, water is sloshing back and forth across the floor. I went up top and saw how Greg was still struggling with the sheets. We finally managed to get it pulled back in, and he tied it up as best he could with the tangled sheets. What a mess! When he came back to the helm, I told him about the water down below, and suggested turning back. We were out about 10 miles at this point, turning back would have meant going into Santa Marta, a small city that we knew had a marina, but very limited nautical services. I tried to radio Rum Boogie that we were having difficulty and were thinking of turning around, but they were well ahead of us by this time and out of sight. Their radio, quite frankly, is a piece of crap and barely works at the best of times. That is another story in itself. We decided to carry on and make the best of it.

I think I forgot to mention that the night before, when Greg went to start Baby Gennie, the pull cord ripped out of her. It was late at night, and the boat was rocking in the windy anchorage, so he didn’t want to try and take it all apart to fix it. Unfortunately, this meant we couldn’t run the shop vac to clean up the water in the salon. We had to mop it up with a big sponge and towels. My hands and forearms ached, wringing salt water out of heavy bath towels. Greg was sore from struggling with the jib, he got hit in the head a few times with the wildly flapping sheets. It was a long day. We crossed the point where the river comes out at about noon. Even being five miles out, the sea turned muddy brown, and stayed that way for a few miles. It was rough, but no rougher than what we had already been through. We arrived safely in Punta Hermosa later that afternoon. We hung out the towels to dry, and prayed for calmer winds the next day.

Saturday, April 3: Cartagena or bust! I wanted to be in Cartagena for my birthday, and it looked like that would actually happen. We wanted to leave early to arrive in plenty of time, so we were up at 3:00 and underway by 4:00 a.m. Cartagena was only 50 miles away. The winds were about 20-25 knots when we left, but as the morning progressed, got calmer and calmer, until we finally took down the sails, and motored the rest of the way. About five miles out we could see the shore lined with high rise buildings. What a welcome sight civilization was! We motored into the bay at about 1:00 p.m. We called Club Nautico, the marina we planned to stay at, on the radio, only to be told that we would have to anchor out for the night, and would be able to get a slip the next day. Their mooring system is “med style” which means you are tied up at your bow or stern, and then tied to a mooring at the other end. They use divers to do this, and their divers don’t work Saturday. We explained our situation and our need for shore power, so they let us come in, and we were even able to tie up to our side, which works best for us anyway. Rum Boogie followed us in, and are tied up behind us at the dock.

We were so thrilled to be here, at last, and to be able to walk on firm ground. I hadn’t been off the boat in eight days! That about sums up our 373 mile journey! We have checked in and plan on staying for a few weeks. Keep checking our blog, I will be posting another one shortly about my birthday celebration!

The best fishing day ever

Written March 26, 2010:

Today was the best fishing day we’ve had on our entire trip.
We woke up at around 6 AM this morning, ate breakfast, drank a lot of coffee, and closed up all the portholes arsehole tight. Upping anchor was complicated a bit when the windlass decided to be persnickity, and Mom had to go below and jiggle the cord to the control.

When we got a bit further offshore we pulled up the main, mizzen and jib sails. It went pretty smoothly. With that done we set a course of 260 degrees, toward Isla Monjes. The wind was at a good angle for sailing, so we didn’t have to jibe, and we were doing 7.5-8 knots motorsailing with the motor at 1300 rpm. When we were on course, Dylan started letting out the fishing lines. Before he could get the fourth line out, the heavy trolling rod started screaming! Dylan ran to reel it in, I started reeling in the other rod, and Dad was pulling in the handline.

After a short fight, Dylan swung the fish over and on to the deck. We knew, at a distance it was a tuna, and upon closer inspection, deduced that it was an Albacore Tuna. It weighed in at 8 lbs. Dylan immediately began filleting it on the aft deck. I was the “Hoser”, I sat nearby and occasionally sprayed the blood and all the other lovely little fish organs overboard. When Dylan got the first fillet off, we noticed that the fish’s stomache was full, overfull really. Naturally, he sliced it open and pulled out a good sized mullet and baby mullet. They hadn’t even begun the break down, which was pretty funny. Little piggy learned not to overindulge the hard way...

We let the lines back out, and after five minutes, I decided to go down for a quick nap. As soon as I got down below, the medium trolling rod started screaming! I ran up and started to reel it in, when the other rod started screaming too! So, Dylan leaped on it and started reeling. After a few minutes, Dylan landed his fish, a 3 lb. Mahi Mahi. When he had it bagged, I finished reeling in my fish, a little 2 lb. Tuna. We decided to keep both.

So, after Dylan filleted both, we were pretty tuckered out, so we grabbed a drink and layed down on the back cushion. I’m not kidding you, less than a minute later the heavy trolling rod started screaming yet again. Since Dylan had reeled in two, and I one, I ran over and started reeling. It was another small fish, a 3 lb. Tuna. Instead of filleting it, this time Dylan just gutted it and cut off the head and tail. So, we put all the lines out again, and I went below for a nap. By now we were 10 miles offshore. During the next 35 miles, we only got two strikes, but after a few seconds the fish got off.

I finally got a chance to rest and read my book. I think I slept for a bit, i’m not sure. When we got close, Mom and Dad were getting things ready figuring out who to call on Isla Monjes. I was laying on the couch, half asleep, we were only a few miles offshore........ and then all of a sudden I heard a rod screaming! I leaped up, threw on my life jacket halfassed, and ran up the companionway. When I got up, Dylan was in a frazzle, as both rods were screaming. I ran over to the medium trolling rod and increased the drag so the fish would stop taking line. By the time I got there, the fish had taken over half of the line on the spool. With a grin on my face i started reeling. And reeling. And reeling some more. This guy was pretty big, I knew, he was putting up a hell of a fight. While i was reeling in, Dylan realized that both of the handlines had fish on them, too! With a woop and shout, I reeled in even harder. Dylan’s rod’s drag was able to hold the fish, so he left it and started pulling in the port handline. A bit later, Mom ran over to the heavy reel and started reeling in the fish. Dylan landed the 10 lb. Tuna, stabbed it in the brains, and left to get the other hand line, but the fish, despite having it’s brain scrambled, had some life in it and started flopping around the deck. Dylan noticed, but too late. A big wave heeled us over pretty good, Dylan dove for the fish, the fish flopped around mindlessly and fell over the side, and Dylan managed to cut himself on the arm with the ice pick we use for killing fish. After a few swear words that would make an old sailor proud, he ran over to the other hand line and began pulling it in.

And all the while, I was reeling. That damn fish took off a hell of a lot of line, and progress was slow. Dylan landed the fish on the other handline and stuffed it in a garbage bag before running over to the heavy reel and taking over for Mom. After a few minutes, the fish were getting closer, and Dylan and I found ourselves in a minor predicament. My fish was crossed over to the left, his to the right, and we couldn’t quite figure out which line was under. So, we stopped reeling and tried to figure it out. It took a little while, but finally deduced that mine had crossed over his, so he reeled in. While he was reeling it in, landing it, and braining it (Our expression for stabbing a fish in the brains.), I had my fish dragging 20 feet behind the boat. I said to him: “Well, you put up a hell of a fight, but your ass is grass.”

While all this was happening, mind you, Mom and Dad were trying to call the Port Captain on Isla Monjes. All we ever really got back from him was: “No copy, no copy, no speak English, no hablas English...”.

When Dylan had the fish bagged, Mom threw some ice in the bag to keep them somewhat cool. I reeled in my fish the rest of the way, Dylan grabbed the leader, and I grabbed the gaff hook. I had never really gaffed a fish before, so it took me a few minutes to get him in the gills and haul him up. Dylan says I did pretty good gaffing him. When he was in the boat, we brained him, which was easy as he was pretty tired after being dragged by the boat. When he was dead, we bagged him, put the lines away, rinsed off the deck, and got ready to tie up in Isla Monjes. By the time we had done all that, we were entering the harbour. Tying up in Isla Monjes is.... different, to say the least. They strung a 200 foot line in front of the damn they built to block the seas. You had to go up, really close into shore, pick up one of the lines hanging off of the main line with the boat hook, tie two bow lines on it, and throw it back in the water. Sounds easy, right?

Oh, I forgot to mention the 25 knot wind pushing you away when you’re trying to do this.
So, we go up, Dylan tries to grab the line, we drift back, the boat hook falls overboard, and we’re drifting sideways. Grrrrrreat! So, we tried to go up again, no luck. We backed out some, and let Rum Boogie tie up. They did, and then were told they couldn’t be there (Naturally). SO, they back out, and then one of the crew from the fishing boat tied off to the left jumped in the water and swam over to tie up some lines on the main line, because on the right side of it there were no other lines hanging off. When we tied them both up, we came up to the main line, tossed him one of our bow lines, and he tied it up. Yay! Oh, wait, now we’re held sideways to the wind because we could only tie the starboard bow line on. ****.

Now, feeling moderately frustrated, we motored up, Dylan picked up the loop, I ran the port bow line through, ran over to the port bow cleat and tied it off. Dad came up to the bow and spent a few minutes adjusting and centering the lines.

Now, we were tied up nicely. Rum Boogie came up and tied off perfectly..... those ********... With both boats tied up nicely, Dylan and I began to gut the three tuna. We weighed them out beforehand. The two Dylan pulled in were 10 lbs each, mine was 12 lbs. We decided to steak them, as it wastes very little of the fish. I took up the humble role of the hoser, and Dylan set to work steaking the Tuna. What he did was chop off their heads and tails, and then cut around the body with the fillet knife to cut the meat, and Dad used the cleaver to cut the spine. I tell you, we got a **** load of tuna steaks from those three fish!

Once that was all done, me and Dylan had a nice shower. Dylan still smelled a bit like fish afterwards, though. Because we wanted to have a drink and dinner with Rum Boogie, but didn’t want to get a dinghy in the water, we decided to raft up together. After 20 minutes of attempts, Mike somehow got their boat close enough that we could tie on to them. The end result was a sort of stern to side thing. It worked. They had to do a bit of tightrope walking to get over :). For dinner, Mom and Mike fried up the Mahi Mahi as an appetizer, and the Tuna fillets for dinner. It was very, very delicious.

After dinner, we sat around the laptop planning the next day’s cruise. After a while, we settled on going to Cabo de la Vela. It was about 90 miles away. That meant, to get there we need to leave at 5-5:30 AM!

We went to bed early, trying to get as many precious minutes of sleep as we could.

Brett,

The Dutch Dreamers

(By the way, we are currently in Cartegena. I´m not done typing up about the last week though. I´ll try to be done in a few days, then i´ll post it all up.)