The leg from St Lucia to Santa Marta, Columbia, was billed as a straight downwind run in beautiful trade wind conditions.  But the routing showed that it was going to be a bit tricky, with all three weather models running on the Expedition program suggesting a big detour from the rumb line (direct route) to the South close to the coast of Venezuela.  It looked like the program wanted us to go South among other things to pick up the strong currents near the coast for the best ETA.  If three models suggest that you go into the same direction, in my experience one should not ignore that, even if it’s a big detour.  So we followed the Expedition routing.   

It seemed that only 2 or 3 other boats out of a fleet of 30 were going the same way.  The good news was that we had benign conditions to begin with but the bad news was that there was less wind than predicted by the grib files and we were going much slower than many of our competitors on the direct route.  In addition, after a couple of days, we had to contend with rain squalls and many wind shifts from a thermal low over Columbia and Venezuela.  So we headed north a bit more to get away from the thermal low, which gave us more wind and sun shine!  Everyone worked hard:  many sail changes, gybes, reefs in, reefs out, pole up, pole down; every sail in the inventory was used (other than the new mizzen staysail), even the staysail in over 30 knots of wind.  In the end, we arrived pretty much as forecast after 4 days and 20 hours.    

The good times!

Squalls threatening

The third day at sea was my 70^th birthday which was duly celebrated, with champagne and a cake that had been stashed away out of my sight.  Big surprise!

We did not know what to expect from Columbia.  The approach was certainly scenic with the high, snow covered mountains as a backdrop and the city looked modern from afar – but what about the fact that Columbia until recently was ruled by drug lords?   

Windy approach to Santa Marta

Our first encounter with Colombian officials was of course for check-in.  Being part of the World ARC group, it was a lot easier for us to clear into the country than is normally the case.  Instead of having to hire an agent to deal with the formalities, we walked up to the local officials sitting around a table in a shaded corner in the marina and a few minutes later, walked away with our Zarpe, the permission to stay in the country.  

The marina is a fenced-in enclave situated among a number of high rise hotels and apartment buildings, in beautiful surroundings.    It has very good facilities except that the water is not drinkable so we had to preserve the water in our tanks and had to take showers ashore.  Unfortunately, those were a bit iffy so that I never had warm water in 5 days.  But there was always cool music in the shower facilities and the electricity on the dock worked….  So who cares, really?  There is a nice bar and restaurant right in the marina which  provided a nice setting for conversations with fellow WARC sailors.     

But it was time to get out of the marina!  WARC had organized a jeep tour for us which was interesting.  Think about the presidential motorcade – we were a convoy of some 20 SUVs driving in formation through the streets of Santa Marta.  Our jeep, albeit old, even had air conditioning.   

If you think power poles in the US have to carry heavy, just look at this!

The WARC motorcade

It took quite a while to get through the city to the mountains to the South.  First stop: La Victoria, a coffee plantation formerly run by a German couple who immigrated right after WW 2.   Now, the wife of the couple’s son is running the place.  The plantation is huge and covers steep mountain sides.   

Only the red bean is good – the others have been ripened for too long

According to our guide, a bald American who did not hold back on his socialist views, only 12% of the plantation is planted with coffee beans – he did not explain what else is planted except for some fruit trees!  In a sign of the times, he explained, the plantation is now operated at much reduced capacity because it is impossible to hire the necessary number of workers.  Everyone prefers to drive tourists around than to scale perilous hills to harvest coffee beans!  And the money is better, too!  So the plantation was now operated just to supply the coffee needed for the restaurant and the tourists visiting like us.   This area of Columbia is in government control but there are many other areas which are controlled by various armed factions.  If you turn off the main highways, you’re likely to get to an area where government forces are not present.

The second stop on the tour was a couple of waterfalls which were nice to look at but nothing special.  We had expected a walk through the jungle to get there but ended up walking a rocky road with not a bird or other animal in sight.  

More interesting for us was a visit to the “old” city of Santa Marta. There are not many “old buildings” at all – the most prominent being the “Gold Museum” which is a misnomer since it’s really a history museum.  

The Gold Museum

We learned that while Cartagena, some 200 miles away, was the center of the Spanish colonial power, Santa Marta was mostly struggling by pirates.  Since the 1500s, there were some 50 instances where pirates tried to or actually took over the city.  

The most interesting place in the “old” city for me was the huge market.  There was music blaring everywhere, the wares were sold on the streets from push carts, from shops on the streets and in a number of dedicated market halls, an attractive cacophony of sounds and frenetic activity.  When they saw my camera, many vendors offered me to take their photo although I declined to send it to them by Whatsapp …..

Impressions from the Santa Marta market

Santa Marta commercial harbor

At the end of our stay in Santa Marta WARC threw a nice prize giving party and dinner.  To our surprise, we scored third place in our group even though we had chosen a longer route.  It seemed that a lot of boats were using their engines too much, which incurs a heavy penalty.  Our friends and fellow St Francis YC members Guillemette and Adam from Saltair - whom we had beaten across the Atlantic in the 2023 ARC - came in first – congratulations!

After a couple of days in Santa Marta the discussion among the WARC boats turned to the next leg: to the San Blas Island - or Kuna Yala as they are called in the indiginous language.  It had been very windy in Santa Marta ever since we arrived and it appeared that those “enhanced” trade wind conditions with gusts over 40 knots and 3+ meter seas would have to be negotiated all the way to San Blas.   This leg is a “free sailing” leg without a scheduled start so boats could leave when they thought best.  The leg is about 280 miles – an awkward distance because it was likely impossible to leave in daylight and get to San Blas in daylight.  So the plan of most for us is to leave in the evening and spend two nights at sea in order to get to San Blas in the morning.    But more about that in the next episode!

Scuba diving trip for the boys on Kincsem on our day of departure