Beautiful Cholon

It was great to sit in the calm and safe anchorage of Cholon again waking up to the different bird sounds including the special one from the “Whatthefuckbirds”, they still keep us in stitches. 

October and November definitely is the worst of the rainy season in Colombia and Panama and this year is no exception we did get a LOT of rain to the point that the drive way up to Roberto’s house is slipperier than snot on a glass door knob and very carefully we climb that 40% climb and going down is even more challenging.

On October 13^th we celebrated Sid’s birthday at “Crow’s Nest” with a tasty Fondue Bourguignon and luckily the weather cooperated so we were able to walk instead of slide down hill. 

Happy Birthday Sidley

Carmelita and Roberto

A few days after that Roberto’s kid’s Lori and Paul flew in from LA, including his brother Tom from Medellin, it was a happy family reunion and we were honored to be included. Tommy is a retired Costa Mesa officer and both of Roberto’s kids are still active police officers. Sid had a lot of fun talking to Lori as she works with some of his ex partners. We had a blast and not one moment to relax. Roberto was so impressed with the Fondue dinner on Sid’s BD so we had one for his family. It was a hit, everybody enjoyed it and we ate and ate for at least two hours.  The eating and drinking didn’t stop there it went on for days. 

We had many potlucks on Manatee:

Tommy and Roberto

Lori

Paul "Pablo"

Their last evening in Cholon Roberto organized a potluck on Manatee. Food as always was wonderful and when Carmen changed the music to some hot Latin stuff Tommy took over and taught us all to dance Salsa, man can he wiggle his butt. Even Sid ended up wiggling his little behind like a Latino. It really was a fun evening. 

Is it Halloween yet??!!!

Actually this photo was staged

Tommy the Salsa Teacher

Next day we all went to Cartagena, Roberto had rented a cute house in Getsemani with 4 bedrooms and invited us to stay with them. Getsemani is one of the most charming neighborhoods in Cartagena. The nightlife is definitely happening here especially with all the hookers and numerous bars, most famous Club Habana. If you don’t remember the Getsemani name just tell the taxi driver you want to go to Club Habana.

Lori, Tommy and Paul we sure had a wonderful time thanks again for all, especially to Lori for bringing us our mail and all kind of goodies.

We had another fun week in Cholon but do to our visa running out it was time to say goodbye. The weather was still iffy as a Low pressure system just above Panama was threatening to turn into a tropical depression. Until that one was gone we were stuck in beautiful Cholon. We will miss Roberto and Carmen terribly, they are both such wonderful friends and who knows if the “check in” drama straightens out we may return. 

Manatee on the way to Cartagena

Definitely sat too long around the hook! What a mess!!!

 

Pot of Gold?

Manzanillo Marina and Checking in procedure

We did not know what to expect this time in Cartagena, our last visit left a bitter taste in our mouth. One reason we came back was for some unfinished business with our buddy boat Wind Shear who most of you know was confiscated in Cartagena last April. I will bring the whole story eventually to the light but not until all is behind us.

Paradise was a mess and needed a bath and so we took a slip in the Manzanillo Marina for one week we thought.  The one week turned into a month keeping us busy with boat chores and doctor visits. Medical stuff here is very good and very affordable we took full advantage and did the yearly check up. We both have a clean bill of health.

Imagine the costs: Mammogram 28 bucks, Ultrasound 8 bucks,

PSA blood test 28, Cholesterol blood test 5.60.

(What is wrong with our prices in the US?)

But the big expense we had was definitely the marina bill. We were shocked to find out that the service fees were higher than the slip fee. Our bill for one month came to 1000 bucks, minding you we had to climb on another boat to get into ours, water coming out of the hose smelled like sewage, electricity never showed higher than 90 volt, due to that most appliances didn’t work. The showers had only cold water and the doors as soon as they got wet were see-through and the TV/computer room had no AC as advertised. When we were told that the slip fee was only 89 dollars a week we took it. But this is what the bill came to:

Slip fee is 20 000 per foot a months, for us: US$ 10.32

10 000 per day for live aboard US$ 5.16

10 000 per day for electricity US$ 5.16

5 000 per day for water US$ 2.58

You do the math and will be shocked to see that the extra fees are more expensive than the slip fee, outrageous.

For this price cruisers expect floating docks, a restaurant on the premises, good WiFi, a pool and a safe neighborhood, which this has none of the above except for a very slow most of the time not working WiFi because the son of the owner running the marina unplugs the WiFi so he can watch TV on his computer. Not just that he ignores the needs of his clients and does not come back to you for any inquiries or complaints, most cruisers at the yard were very disappointed and unhappy.

In the two months we were gone, drastic changes have been implemented with the check-in procedure. Last November when we arrived in Santa Marta we learned that the Port Captain there never had to deal with cruisers and gave us a rather hard time. Back in November Santa Marta was still pretty unknown for cruisers but with the new marina, it opened the doors for us to make a shorter passage to Cartagena which was a big relief along this treacherous coast line. Any of the boats arriving that had Cartagena as destination on the Zarpe the port captain would call into the office, they had to see him with an attorney present and he fined them all. The word spread fast not to stop in Santa Marta if the Zarpe did not state Santa Marta on it. Unfortunately right after we arrived in Cartagena they had a change of watch and the Santa Marta Port Captain was sent back to Cartagena were he originated from. Stories have it that everybody was relieved when he was sent to Santa Marta and that the moral is down with him back. There were no imminent signs then that he was back but we sure can tell now.

FEES FOR CHECKING INTO CARTAGENA

Exchange rate 10/10/11 USD 1.00 = Col. Peso 1,935.00

Agency fee in/out                  150.000

Immigration                          20.000

Cruising Permit                     166.000

Temporary Importation       100.000

                                                436.000     USD 225.00

                                                ======

After two months you have to renew the Cruising Permit for an additional 200.000 Pesos/ 104 $ which brings the total bill now to roughly 330 US dollars. By the way even a boat that is on the hard for storage must pay the cruising permit.

This permit is good for 6 months, considering that after 4 months you have to leave the country as the 6 months tourist visa is over. You can only stay in Colombia for 6 months per calendar year. If you stay for 2 months, head to Panama for two and return you would think the 100.000 you had paid for the one year temporary importation would still be valid, nope that one expires when you check out.

Also after two months you have to renew your visa and pay 75.000 per person each month so if you stay 6 months you have to pay this amount 4 times. For the two of us that is another 600.000 pesos roughly 300 dollars.

One week after our agent started our paper work she called to tell us that a customs inspector will come to the boat. He never made it but he did want the number of the hull and engine. Then it took a full month for our paper work to finally be completed while I had to go to customs with the agent to sign the paper. Another new thing required to do. Why do we even need an agent if they need us there to sign the paper? My agent told me that she is really upset as the new/old port captain is also ordering the following: 

NEW ADDITONS BY THE PORT CAPTAIN

Customs inspection               60.000

Health Inspection                  60.000

Food and Animal control      60.000

Veterinary visit on yacht      fee unknown

Plus 30.000 for boat rental that will bring them out to your boat as they refuse to take a dinghy (they say it’s too dangerous). I doubt they all show up at the same time so you can pretty much triple or quadruple the boat fee.

Also be careful which agent you use:

Be aware that David and Manfred are corrupt agents.

Manfred never filed for cruising permits as he thought they were frivolous charges, not until we were boarded and harassed by the Armada in Cholon did Manfred realize that it is an essential permit cruisers need. In the mean time he was charging the 166.000 pesos to his new clients but the money of some conveniently went into his own pockets. Nobody ever checked paper work on boats before, not until the new port captain came back. Several of Manfred’s clients had to pay a fine of each 1.000.000 (USD 516.00) because Manfred did not get a cruising permit for them. Another boat he screwed up with paper work resulting in confiscation of the boat and still is and all was Manfred’s fault. He also checks boats in and out of the country without them having to leave, they don´t understand that this illegal action could get them in mucho trouble if caught.

David does anything for you if it involves money, you can bribe him as much as you can bribe Manfred. Robin on Wind Shear bribed him to leave without his wife; the boat is in her name. To cover his own butt, David called for Robin’s arrest for fraudulent paper work, also called authorities his wife was against. Result: boat was confiscated, Rob ended up in jail, but this story is for a later date. Together with Manfred they helped Rob to get a Zarpe to get Wind Shear with help of Coast Guard out of the country. Fortunately his illegal attempt to flee didn’t succeed.

David lied too many times to my face so I definitely don’t trust him.

David’s Uncle Romero, is no longer an agent in Santa Marta, he was caught by Port Captain handling paper work with his own fabricated stamp, collecting the money into his pocket.

Makes you feel really secure to know you are at these agents mercy.

Unfortunately we are not allowed to check in by ourselves and this is the only country we have ever been to where we needed an agent, not to mention the most expensive place to check in.

By the way we use Paola
cartagenacaribbean@hotmail.com

321 583 1456

315 756 2818

or call Cruising Services VHF 68

The last thing I ever want to write down is the following. The authorities have started to board cruising boats in Cartagena. The first one announced it the following morning on the local net. They were approached by the authorities asking to come aboard for a routine inspection, instead of the routine they came aboard with a drug dog and searched the boat for over an hour. They pulled pretty much the whole boat apart and the more time past the more they got frustrated because they could not find anything.

One day after their boarding another cruising boat faced the same. This time they tried to bring a wet drug dog aboard, owner did not allow it, so they brought 2 dry dogs in. The owner just had eye surgery the previous day and was on bed rest, told the agents and asked if they could come back later. 3 ½ hours later the agents wanted them to sign paperwork that stated they were professional about it. The owner refused to sign as they were harassed and they left the boat a mess with head liners torn down and other damage. Just the other day a boat announced on the radio that the authorities were back and checking every boat for paper work.

You know hearing all this, takes the fun out of visiting a beautiful place like Cartagena and I don’t think we will ever return again. We have first hand seen how authorities work here and how corrupt it can be.

Did you know that Colombia celebrates Valentines Day on September 17^th Sept and is called Amor de Amistad. Neither did we and were just puzzled to find the mal packed with people and we enjoyed a great concert with a local artist. With the Day of Love really nasty weather rolled in, we have never seen so much rain and had winds up to 35 knots, just good we were in the marina and were not affected by it, but the radio was busy as many boats broke loose in the anchorage of Cartagena.

While in the yard we had a change to catch up with Kim, Tim and Steve of North Star. Their boat is getting a major overhaul and work is going slow mainly due to lots of rain. We enjoyed some wonderful dinners on our boat or in their small yard apartment, gave them a tour in town they haven’t seen yet, discovered a new Restaurant “De Oliva” a must!!! This Restaurant is just up the street from Club de Pesca towards Carulla. My favorite meal is sesame encrusted shrimp with a ginger sauce with stir fried veggies. Sid loves the fillet stuffed with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese.

Hopefully North Star can soon get splashed and head for Panama to catch up with us.

Having a Beer or two

Beautiful Old Town of Cartagena

Contraban Alley best prices for booze

Steve and Kim ¨North Star¨

Dinner at De Olive with Carmen, Roberto and North Star

We eventually escaped the marina and headed back to Cholon to finally spend some time with Carmelita and Roberto. Obviously you noticed that I haven’t updated our Blog in a while and you know what I am going to blame it on them LOL. But all that in our next update.

Roberto and Carmen having fun on Manatee

San Blas to Colombia

After a quite night in Linton and the sun started to peak over the dense jungle’s canopy on top of the hill we snuck out of the anchorage. We had little to no wind at first but with all the thunderstorms forming along the Panamanian coast the wind started to fill in to a nice 18 knots and had a wonderful and fast sail to Chichime. Fast was good then as soon as we were securely anchored a pretty good squall hit us with winds up to 35 knots. This is definitely the time of daily thundershowers, the rain we don’t mind so much, it’s the darts the angry clouds throw towards and around us we don’t like, but when they are over we love the fresh and cool air.

When you see a foot like this in an approaching  cloud

you better get ready for some strong wind

Enjoying our fresh brewed coffee and a quite morning, Sid mentioned that an ulu was already approaching, a bit early for 7 AM. The head of a young Kuna girl popped up over the lee cloth peaking right into the cockpit, Where are her manners and our privacy! She was forgiven right away then as soon as she saw me she yelled ‘Manuela”, wow, she still remembered my name from our 2 day’s stay 2 months ago! Melina, her sister Princeline, Calisto (not sure if he is the father) and the adorable grandma Sipu hung around quite a while to chat with us, didn’t even try to sell us anything which was nice for a change. They were so excited to see us again they came by at least twice a day to chat. Of course there is always something Kuna’s want, so we gave them some reading and sun glasses and they put in an order in for nail polish for the girls, cardboard box for Sipu, a T-shirt for Calisto, a tarp for their thatched roof and powdered milk. To our surprise Sipu gave us each a necklace she had made, that is unusual for Kunas to give presents they take them but rarely give them.   

By the way Gaby your “Gabydup Island” is still here and we had Mama and baby dolphin play around the boat in the early morning, what a treat.

The joy of boating! We tried to send some emails out but learned that our SSB was not tuning at all therefore we were unable to transmit, always something to repair.

The other joy having sunset visitors

No joy the following morning to clean up the mess LOL

Three days later we motored to Banadup in the East Lemons and we anchored pretty much in our old spot. While in the process of anchoring a little boy stood on the beach in front of his hut waving and screaming ……uela. “Did you hear that”, Sid said”, he’s calling you!” – “Nah”, I said and pointed at the Kuna in the water next to our neighbor, “I think he’s calling “abuelo” his grandpa cleaning our neighbor’s boat”. But then again the kid was looking straight at us so I waved back at him and he started jumping up and down yelling “Manuela, Manuela”, wow a 7 year old boy remembers my name, I am impressed and flattered. An hour later the boy with his parents paddled their ulu out to Paradise, warmly shook our hands and told us how happy they were to see us on their last day on the island. All the San Blas islands are owned by individual families and each family rotates the guardians every 3 months. Their time was up but they assured us they would be back in November.

It was actually fun watching the changes of the guards the following morning. A big panga loaded to the hilt with people and all their belongings landed on the beach in front of the Kuna huts, where the family leaving was standing amongst all their belongings piled on the beach. The family exchanged a few words then the women went right to work and moved all their belongings onto the island. While then the women of the leaving party moved all their belonging into the panga the other women moved everything into the hut. I have no idea how they kept their stuff separated as everything is packed into the same plastic containers. The women worked their butts off schlepping everything into the boat including huge and heavy bags filled with coconut. The guys kind of just stood around letting the women do all the heavy stuff. Then when all was loaded we got a good chuckle out of them first chasing the dog, then the cat and the funniest the chicken. All took about 20 minutes and you would think after not having seen your relatives you would sit together for a while and chat, nope they barely said goodbye to the new family but they did wave to us as they motored by and away from the island.

We couldn’t pass up the waist deep water again on the little sand spit of one of the island where we found clams last time. Wanted to make sure we had left some behind and sure enough we found enough for a wonderful dinner again. After claming we went to the resort island for an ice cold beer to find that the friendly old man now wasn’t so friendly anymore and he had raised all his prices by a third.

Our second night September 1^st, we had thunder and lightening all night long it was a noisy night but stayed off shore and away from us but it did leave us with a cloudy and misty day. Due to Hurricane Irene up north the air was sucked out of here and pulled the ITCZ (Intra Tropical Conversion Zone) up which was all the lightening we saw.  

We were suppose to meet Roberto in San Blas on his backpacker run on his boat Manatee, but after postponing his trip for a fourth or fifth time we decided we could not wait any longer to deliver his new alternator in Cholon. 

We calculated that our 200 mile trip would take us anywhere from 40 to 48 hours and to time it right to arrive sometime after daybreak we decided 3 PM would be a good time for departure. We left behind the beautiful coast of Panama with clouds building up rather fast, some were towering clouds fully built to explode into massive thunderstorms. We watched them head out to see where we were going but realized that they headed in a NW direction and Paradise into a NE direction and were hoping that we missed them all. It came close but we never did get any rain or thunder but the clouds did send us some 15 to 18 knots of wind which we fully took advantage of sailing with 6 to 6.5 knots towards our next destination. 6.5 knots is fast for us and we realized at this speed we would arrived at 11 at night and that if it kept up we would eventually have to slow down as it was not an option to enter the reef in Cholon at night. But the wind only lasted as long as the thunderclouds did then the motor had to help as 2 knots would definitely get us behind schedule. We had a spectacular sunset with all the left over clouds. A tired booby managed to land on the bow of Paradise and settled in for the night. 

 Sid took the first watch and a few hours later as I woke up he told me about this huge cloud exploding with one lighting bolt after another right in front of us, he assessed where it was headed and figured if he changed course 30 degrees to the north we might miss it. Good calculation on his part we did miss this cloud which was very active, but what we didn’t expect was behind that cloud was another cell, then another and yet another before we knew it we were in the middle of storm cells getting pelted with heavy rain and darted with lighting bolts, some hit so close to the boat we could feel our hair rise and smelled the ozone, it was not fun, not to mention we didn’t get any sleep for over 3 hours. Poor Booby was pelted by the rain but he staid through the night. 

After fluffing his feathers he took off. The interesting thing was the bird sat always with his head into the wind. We hoped he would land again the following evening but no joy.
What a relief it was to finally manage to get out of these angry clouds and were thankful that at least the sea was calm and the 4 to 6 foot swells we had prior were all knocked down by the rain. Irene had still her pull on the ITCZ and there was no escape from it. The rest of the trip went smooth we had wind enough to sail without motor on to just motoring but the sea stayed calm and the sky clear for the second night. On the second morning as the first sunrays blinked over the horizon we could recognize the Rosario islands and at 8 am we snuck through the entrance to the calm bay of Cholon. Hello World gave us a heartfelt welcome as we motored by their boat and later on that day spoiled us with a good cup of tea and coffee on their boat and we caught up on our adventures. But first we anchored, had a big breakfast and took a good nap.

You would think all the rain we had in Panama would keep the boat clean, absolutely not, it just moved the dirt from one place to the next so we decided it was time to visit a marina to give Paradise a well needed bath. Club Nautico was out of the question since it is first of all a very crappy marina and second of all gets waked all day long by the many pangas. We opted for the Manzanillo yard which has some med-mooring slips. Here we are scrubbing Paradise and I tell you a lot of scrubbing it is. Everything inside out is getting cleaned including all the walls which you can watch how the mildew grows. 
Talking about a bad hair day!

 

Portobelo River Trip

The scent of tropical flowers that swept over our boats in the early evenings and during the nights drove Jeannie and me nuts so we went on a wild flour hunt and found an amazing array, which some were out of reach or between spider webs not to mention the huge spiders eyeballing us, a squeal here and there we managed to collect beautiful bouquets.

We are anchored across the bay

Jannie digging for some plants

A chain of hearts

The white flowers have a wonderful scent

After all this time in Portobelo we finally remembered that there was a river to explore, Sunny and Blake on Slow Mocean joined us. We took separate dinghies and ventured up the river or rivers as there are three different rivers to follow. Since it was still fairly early in the morning we did see quite a few birds, but what we didn’t expect was instead of just mangroves the rivers snaked through jungle and fields with brma bulls. It was a very scenic ride and the further up the river we followed of course the river narrowed, at some points it was barely just wide enough for one dinghy to pass but the amazing thing was the depth still was up to 10 feet. 

The lowest in depth we found was 2.5 other than the hump Blake got stuck on and the rocks we hit in the lagoon area. In those narrow parts the river bed was way over our heads and you just know you don’t want to be here in a heavy downpour. We rounded one corner along this high riverbed and it was a bit creepy having dozens of buzzards look down on you. 

The funny thing about this trip was Sunny half laying on the dinghy tube loosing her croc in the water and while retrieving it Sid jokingly said: “Oh look there is a croc in this water”, and we all had a good laugh until about 2 minutes later when we actually did see a croc. Yes, Gaby, sorry, we really didn’t know that they are here when you were swimming around the boat LOL! 

Not sure what this is but we think it's related to the cocoa pod

Not just are crocks in these waters but now and then after a heavy rainfall snakes are washed out of the trees into the river end up being rescued by an anchor chain and so we had two neighbors with boas on deck.

A couple days later Sid and I were just going into town when we noticed this huge black wall of a cloud with an enormous foot approach. Whenever you see such a cloud you know that there is a lot of wind involved and so we decided to stay on board, which was a good thing. The wind roared and Sid noticed that Slow Mocean started dragging and went on a walkabout. Sunny and Blake at that time were in Panama City and no-one was aboard. In heavy rain and lightning bolts hitting all around us we tried to rescue Slow Mocean. Sid could not start the engines and there was no way to hip tow a catamaran so I was towing in the dinghy in reverse (line was only on the bow of dink) into deeper water. It was tough going as the wind was still blowing hard and a dinghy just does not perform so well with the engine in reverse. Camille on Bohemia came and helped and it was easier to tow the boat with two dinghies. ½ hour later another boater came to see if he could help and ended up on the bow with Sid pulling the anchor up. About one hour later Slow Mocean was secured. 

In the following days Discovery a Panamanian charter boat came in high speed through the anchorage and rocked everybody. He comes through here about every other week and has never left a wake like this, so many cruisers were upset especially the one where the wife fell down the companion way and the guy who was on the transom fixing his water pump which rolled into the water due to the wake. The captain was hailed on the radio by several boats and asked to please slow down, but no answer. He turned around in front of Portobelo with throttle slightly down but then pushed the throttle full forward and left us another nasty wake then anchored on the outside of the bay. Several of us jumped into the dinghy and went out to question the captain. We were told that the captain was not on board that he was in town checking in with the port captain. That’s funny the port captain was not in town anymore and his office closed as a cruisers had tried to call him. Anyway, we all contacted the owner of Discovery via email and the following day the port captain from Colon arrived to discus the situation and was actually shocked that nobody wanted compensation. We just wanted him to never do it again and maybe an apology. As a matter of fact the port captain asked us three times if we were going to sue, we did not want compensation. We all bought him drinks, fed him and he and his wife loved it so much they stayed for karaoke and he ended up singing “ I Did it My Way” five times to every bodies dismay LOL.

We left the following day to Puerto Lindo and picked up Binnie’s mooring which is tucked into the corner behind a reef. We had barely settled in when a dark, dark cloud was creeping over the hill and unleashed its fury. We had winds up to 35 knots and since we were bow and stern moored our sunshade acted like a sail and we had to hang onto it so that it would not get damaged. It was a fairly big system and brought a lot of rain. It was overcast for the rest of the day but that did not bother us as we had a fun afternoon again at Binnie’s for ping-pong and once more I managed to kick Reed’s butt!!!!

I received an email from my cousin Gaby. She was contacted by a reporter who wanted to write an article about her vacation with us. Everybody was fascinated that she went on such a far trip by herself and got on a boat and sailed to the Islands of Kuna Yala. The article was printed in the Newspaper of Holmestrand in Norway.