We've been in Colombia over three weeks now and it's been a whirlwind. From the sight-seeing around town, to Minca and then The Lost City. In between these excursions, we've been catching up on laundry, grocery, school and boat chores. We also had a rattle in the engine that Ken wanted checked out when we arrived. Sergio, the boat yard manager and mechanic has been busy as well, so it was just last week when he finally made it by. He and Ken worked out the probable issue through broken Spanish, a translator and double language barriers - it turns out Sergio is Italian and the locals have a hard time understanding his Spanish. The end result was we needed to haul out to fix a bushing (don't ask me, I don't know the details, but it involved the drive shaft). Normally a haul out requires scheduling days or weeks in advance. When I asked when we could do it, Sergio looked at his watch and said, "How about 15 minutes?" Ugh!! I was not prepared for that. But, 30 minutes later, we were out of the water and work began.

In the midst of all this craziness, our friend Andres whom we met our second night here, introduced us to a private school his family helped found 30 years ago. We toured it, met the principal, teachers and some students. We were all getting excited about the possibility of Kaylee attending for a month or so to get some much needed kid-time as well as the opportunity to really learn some Spanish. All the paperwork was filled out and we were finalizing the details when the school was informed Kaylee would need an official student visa to attend, even as a visitor. So, just before leaving on the 5-day trek to The Lost City, we filed online for the student visa. Upon our return we had the email from Immigration stating everything appeared to be order, all we had to do was . . . go to Bogotá, all three of us, to get her passport stamped. Another ugh!! Bogotá is 600 miles away from Santa Marta, not a simple bus or cab ride. Bogotá was on our list of places to visit, so I guess this was our forced opportunity. After making one last ditch effort at the Santa Marta Immigration office and getting confirmation that, yes, we really did have to go to Bogotá, we made plane and Airbnb reservations for the next day. Off to Bogotá!

Thankfully flying to Bogotá is not hugely more expensive than taking a bus, but much, much faster. The three of us flew round-trip for about $350 combined. We did have an exciting welcome to Bogotá when we aborted our landing just before touching down. None of our Spanish was good enough to understand what the pilot told us over the load speaker, but 20 minutes later we landed without incident. We were now in a city of 8 million at 8,675 feet above sea level - a massive difference from our typical environment.

The next morning we navigated the big city by foot to the Immigration office, thinking we were arriving relatively early, 8:30. As we entered the room and saw the 100-200 chairs 80% occupied, we knew we were in for a wait. We picked up our number and waited. Three hours later we were called to sit down with an official who asked our purpose, studied our passports and asked, "Isn't the entry stamp you already have good enough?" Sheesh! We told him it was good enough for us, but evidently not the school system. After a quick discussion with a supervisor, he returned saying, yes, we really did need it. Whew! Glad we didn't fly to Bogotá for nothing! One more hour of waiting and ta-da, Colombian student visa!

 

The next couple days we figured out the bus system, visited the Gold Museum, the National Museum and the Salt Cathedral. The Salt Cathedral was our favorite. It's an active salt mine that over the years the miners built chapels and the Stations of the Cross into the mine. It was quite impressive.

Now we are back in Santa Marta settling into a routine as Kaylee starts school. She catches the bus (really a private van) at 6:30 each morning and returns at 3:15, except on Monday and Wednesday when she has tennis after school and doesn't get back to the marina until about 4:30. The school is called Colegio Billengüe Santa Marta (​http://www.bilinguesantamarta.edu.co) and caters to families who want their children to learn English. We really want Kaylee to learn Spanish so are a little worried it might be too easy for her to get by just speaking English, but all the non-academic classes (PE, Music, Art, Computer), plus Spanish and Spanish Culture are all taught in Spanish, so she is still getting a lot of exposure. The kids typically speak Spanish unless they are in the English-taught classes (Math, Science, Social Studies, English), so all the lunch and playground time is a lot of Spanish too. 

So far she is loving it. She came home so excited the first day saying how great it was and how much fun she had. The kids are super nice and welcoming. She's already being invited over to houses after school - I'm just trying to figure out the best way to communicate with the parents between having a US-based phone number and not speaking a lot of Spanish. Most of the parents do not speak English. She is trying to learn the class dance in record time so she can participate in the Carnival performance next Friday. And, she is working hard on reading, speaking and learning Spanish - let's hope that continues! Lord knows I need a translator :)

The Lost City tour was on our list of must-do's for land-based activities in Colombia. After a week+ of getting acclimated, we decided to join our friends on Nomads for the 5-day hike. First, we checked with the tour company to be sure an 8-year old could go . . . they had no problem with that, and I knew Kaylee would be the least of the three of us who they would have to worry about getting through it from a physical perspective.

The Lost City was not truly lost as is true with most of the indigenous ruins around Central and South America, just abandoned and overgrown. The local indigenous populations were still well aware of its existence. The city was built around 800 by the Tayrona and abandoned in the 1500's when the population was decimated by conflict and disease after interaction with early European settlers. Today, there are four groups of indigenous populations, descended from the Tayrona, who inhabit the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. Here is the wikipedia link for a little more history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Perdida

The only way to reach La Ciudad Perdida is by foot (or mule) with one of the four sanctioned tour companies. It is a challenging hike, but made very comfortable by great guides, all food provided, beds with full mosquito netting and the ability to refill water along the way. Now, that isn't to say we weren't completely eaten up by bugs anyway and many in our group experienced stomach issues the last couple days as well.

We loved the group we were matched with; 4 Dutch, 2 English, 1 Aussie, 2 Colombian, 2 Czech, 2 Canadian and 2 other Americans. All but the Czech and Colombians spoke English and almost everyone had passable Spanish, so we managed communication quite well. Kaylee was a social butterfly who bopped around throughout the days, partnering up with whoever happened to be in the front of the pack. She was always waiting for us at the next stop. The group mascot, everyone was really sweet with her. She did an awesome job, we were very proud of her, covering the 30+ miles with a small pack and great attitude. The guides kept asking, 'she's really only 8?'

We reluctantly left Bonaire Sunday morning, January 15 after an incredible two weeks of snorkeling, diving and ice cream - home made gelato. It was a 21-hour sail going along the south, then west side of Curacao until finally rounding the northern tip of Aruba. We anchored a bit offshore, flying our yellow Q-flag indicating that we had not checked into the country. Our intent was to stay one night and be on our way to Cabo de Vela the next morning. Our friends on Nomads, Kate and James, arrived in the late afternoon from Curacao and we promptly picked them up by dinghy for a happy hour on our boat. By this time I had reviewed wind forecasts and decided we would stay an additional day to allow the winds and seas to calm a bit more before navigating around the Cape on the north coast of Colombia. Not allowed to go to shore because we did not clear in (customs and immigration), we worked around the boat and rested in preparation for our next overnight to Cabo de Vela.

Wednesday morning we departed with Nomads on an uneventful 30-hour sail. I feel like we are getting better at the longer sails, I dread them less, but it still messes with your sleep patterns so much I end up being awake for stretches in the middle of the night for the next week. We anchored off what can barely be described as a town, more like a conglomeration of lean-to's and shacks. Nomads picked us up and we spent the next few hours walking the one long dirt road and picking a spot for dinner. The three of us had a great dinner (fish or shrimp) with multiple beers and juice for under $30. We were starting to think Colombia may work out to be a pretty good place.

A strangely desolate but beautiful place. A single dirt road lined with hostels and restaurants where you can get a covered hammock on the beach for 7,500 pesos ($2.50) a night. There is also a very active kite boarding school.

Andres was taking us to Minca (a small resort town up in the mountains) for the day, but first we stopped by his uncle's house. The next few pictures are of some animals he fosters for rehabilitation. It was like a little zoo in his courtyard!

We loved Bonaire! Just as everyone ahead of us told us we would. The town, the people, the other cruisers, the water. The water, the water, and everything under the water. This is known as a diver's paradise and we were not disappointed. 

We had our first medical mishap this morning when Kaylee hit the deck with her chin while doing some exercises and stretching (the stretch was my idea and led to the fall, so I will claim fault). She was a trooper and walked to the hospital holding ice to the wound to get three stitches.

Now it is time to move on. We could easily stay here months as many here do, but the weather, winds and waves are giving us a great opportunity to get around the cape over to Columbia. If our plans hold . . . I always say that because I feel like as soon as I say it or type it, it will change . . . we will sail for Aruba tomorrow then on to Columbia Tuesday through Thursday or Friday, depending on if we stop on the way.

We are now in Bonaire after a 74-hour crossing from Bequia, SVG (St. Vincent and the Grenadines). We picked up an extra crew member, Christopher, in Bequia and headed out Thursday, Dec 29 around noon. Having the additional adult is a life saver for getting through the overnight watches. Other than being long and fairly rolly with the wind and waves behind us, it was an uneventful passage - thankfully! I used a patch and Kaylee took pills for the motion and we both did great. With 20 knots behind us, the boat flew along at 6-7 knots, so we made great time covering over 400 miles. Bonaire is beautiful and the diving paradise described everywhere. We are on a mooring where we can snorkel and dive right off the back of the boat!

The boat's been back in the water for a little over two, strike that, three weeks now. We motored around to Prickly Bay from the boatyard to anchor and get ourselves ready to be moving again. Our days have been filled with many shopping trips, getting lots of school work done, small boat projects, swimming, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Now we are back to weather watching and waiting for the winds to slow a little and turn back to the east from the northeast.

I've tried to write this blog post about three time now and each time the internet connection gets steadily worse and worse. Mostly just cutting in and out so nothing gets saved. We have a new wifi extender which is great, but still dependent on picking up a signal that has reasonable bandwidth behind it. Evidently much harder than I hoped.

As I write this third paragraph (many days and more than a week after each of the prior two paragraphs) we are just off Carricou Island, an island just north of, but still part of Grenada. We've had a few good days of sailing, but of course the 'winter winds' down here have a slight bit of north to them, so we are battering into them as we attempt to go northeast into the Grenadines. Yesterday, we thought we were going to beat the forecast high winds as we left a lovely deserted island south of Carricou and sheltered ourselves into Tyrell Bay, Carricou. That was not the case. It was an exciting 5-hour sail in 25-knot winds with a double reefed mainsail. Once we were finally anchored, a quick swim and shower, we dinghy'd ashore for dinner at the Lazy Turtle. Thinking we were dinghying (is that word?) back to our boat to crash into bed immediately, we were shocked to find what we thought was a boat who had anchored WAY too close to us! As we complained to ourselves and boarded our boat we started to look around and realized the other neighboring boats seemed to all be in different places. The dark is so disorienting. It finally dawned on us that it was OUR boat that had moved, not anyone else. Checking the chart plotter revealed our anchor had drug almost 300 feet. Thank goodness it must have happened slowly and no collisions! We spent the next half hour pulling anchor and resetting in the dark, something we try to avoid at all costs. It was a sleepless night worrying about it happening again in the high winds. Not trusting that anchorage, we motored around to Sandy Island today and picked up a mooring ball hoping it is sufficiently anchored to withstand these winds. We will probably check out of Grenada officially tomorrow and move on to St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the coming days. Before I lose this, I'm going to save and attempt to post. And then I'm going to try to just post a bunch of pictures.

For those of you not on Instagram, I have been having a lot more luck getting photos and videos to post there with just the cell signal. I have also been using the 'My Story' feature to post short videos during the day where I can try to show life on the boat a little. They expire after 24 hours, so they won't live online for eternity :-). But I try to keep a few going as often as I can. You can find us on Instagram at @aquavidasail.

The second storm, Matthew, first affected all our friends down in Grenada as it developed into a Tropical Storm and passed about 50 miles to the north. Luckily other than a couple very rainy and windy days, we heard it was not too stressful. The evacuation of the southeast allowed us to host friends from Jacksonville, but also made our drive to the Outer Banks of North Carolina after the storm passed excruciatingly long. After navigating closed and flooded roads and bridges we were rewarded with a beautiful rental house on the beach full of family .

Ken is back in Grenada now. He's catching up with everyone and plowing through the list of boat chores. Kaylee and I are back in Florida and getting some much needed school work done. Here are some pictures from our travels over the last month:

Ken will be back from Grenada November 2nd. Molly's wedding is November 12 and then we will all fly back to the boat together Thanksgiving Day! We should be sailing again in December. Where to? Not sure yet. But we will try to keep everyone up to date. And our SPOT location will be active again too.