At last the most procrastinated blog entry of all. San Blas to Cartagena Colombia. Almost exactly 200 miles, from San Blas Panama to Cartagena leaving from the Holandes Keys. Salsa can comfortably do around 4kts if there is any breeze at all or if you feel like running the motor. 5Kts doesn’t really push her too hard either but requires a nice breeze or quite a bit less economy using the motor. My weather forecast was the best one I had seen in a week and I had to be in Cartagena within a week to meet with Jen and Dave who were flying in to meet me. So light, variable winds that wouldn’t be against me on the nose seemed reasonable even if less than ideal for sailing. After much internal debate I opted to leave early in the morning knowing that I would spend a minimum of two days and nights at sea (48 hours) with up to to 58 hours to make the port before I would have to spend a third night offshore. This seemed pretty reasonable, I only had to average 3.5kts to get there in two days and couldn’t go any faster than 4kts or I would arrive before dawn on day three. I probably spend too much time thinking about this stuff.

Around 8am I optimistically uncovered the main sail and motored out of the anchorage. An hour later… Still motoring, no wind to speak of and I could see a big black cloud creeping up my stern; I mean a big one, taking up half of the sky. Then on the radio I heard reports of strong winds and rain in the anchorage I just left a few miles back, but nothing to get worked up about, just people warning others to close their hatches and take down their biminis. I thought that at least when the squall got to me I could kill the motor and start sailing, and I was right. I think I saw around 15 to 20 kts of wind mostly from behind allowing me to keep up the full genoa, no main and run at about 5 kts, making me very happy. This lasted a few hours and I was excited to start out well ahead of my self imposed 3.5kt minimum speed. Plus I think about things like every mile I make at 5kt, there is another hour I can afford to go only 2.5kts, which given the forecast was a likely scenario. The wind shifted a bit, and started to diminish, and I don’t recall getting very much rain either. Soon it was up with the full main and full jib, and constant sail trim to keep the boat moving over three knots as the wind continued to diminish, seems I was only on the edge of the storm and it wasn’t a strong one at that. Shortly after noon it was time crank up the motor again and drop some sails.

I get VERY good economy with my 18HP universal diesel, especially under 4kts I can burn just over a liter an hour or four (at least three) hours on one gallon. If Salsa’s economy was rated by the EPA she would be a gas hog getting only 15MPG or so (about the same as my old suburban, however salsa weighs about five tons, and is not only transportation but my house and every possession I own, so I think that’s pretty damn good. Then when you factor that most of the time she is under sail and getting infinite miles to the gallon, now that’s an efficient way to travel. Anyway, as I was saying I’m motoring along at just under 4kts, waiting for the next breeze to come along. This leg was one of the worst for fishing, two days and nothing but seaweed. Eventually I got another little breeze along with a little bit of current to help me out and I was sailing along at just over 3kts, not making my quota but I had a few bonus knots from before. Few hours later back on the motor and rolling along in a mild but very noticeable swell. When the wind stops offshore, the waves don’t, at least not for a long while. So if you start motoring without the sails up, depending on your course relative to the wave direction, you can have the boat rolling from side to side violently, even in a light swell of only a few feet. Now one thought is to put the main sail up even though it won’t make you any faster, it can and does stabilize the motion. At the expense of wear on the sail and often a loud FWACK! FWACK! FWACK! With each wave as salsa tries to lean over with the wave and the sail catches the wind as she rolls and tries to hold her upright. I opted for the rolling. Later I discovered that if you put a reef or two in the main sail when using it to stabilize the boat it nearly eliminates the fwack noise of the sail smacking the wind and still works pretty well to cut down on the roll. But none of that really matters as long as you have at least SOME wind then the sail seems to stay filled on one tack and doesn’t present such a headache.
The passage was slightly less than fulfilling, not to say it didn’t have its moments but hour after hour of motoring tends to make me a bit crazy. The most exciting part of the passage was waking up in the middle of the night to a very loud THUD. It literally took me three seconds to get on deck and see, well I saw nothing as usual when you’re sailing at night and look in the water! The next day I saw LARGE trees passing by and realized that there is no way to avoid one, it’s more of a game of chance. I’m am at least comforted knowing that I probably wont assume any serious damage in this kind of a collision considering that I have a strong full keel that ‘dampens’ the blow of a collision, especially something floating. Another embarrassing yet interesting tidbit was when I was asleep under power and the autopilot shut itself off. Normally under sail it’s very obvious if there is a major change of course, sails luff, the heel changes, you feel the waves at a slightly different frequency, all these things alert you. In a calm see under motor, there are almost no audible signs to wake you up, especially if you fall off course very slowly. I woke up, checked my position to learn that I was going the wrong way, lovely. Wasted time, wasted fuel, wasted sanity. Then I see the Autopilot went to standby at some point while I was dosing, maybe for 30 minutes. The neat thing about GPS is you can look at your old track and see where you were, it showed two BIG circles, (maybe a total of 2 miles traveled) just going round and round. At the moment I caught the error I happened to be on the part of the circle pointing back towards Panama, otherwise I might not have even noticed and gone back to sleep!! No big deal, reset the autopilot, plot a new course, go back to sleep, at least for a few minutes at a time.
I spent about half of the total 50 hours motoring or motor sailing at very low speeds. The other half sailing or drifting in the right direction. There were a few brief squalls that got me moving nicely with full sail but nothing sustained long enough to make a real difference. The biggest surprise was arriving in Cartagena with so much extra fuel. I hadn’t bought diesel since Colon Panama over a month ago, and I only carry 35 gallons, and still had 10 or more gallons left upon arrival in Cartagena, expecting to be empty. I arrived around 10 am, so in theory I could have motored slightly less and sailed a little more and arrived a little later that day with plenty of daylight, but I was tired, ready for rest, and at the same time anxious to see Cartagena. Plus as I closed on the coast I noticed significant increase freighter traffic and didn’t want to risk sitting off the coast tired a third night with freighter traffic, so I got in early during and was happy to do so.
Entering the bay of Cartagena is as straight forward as it gets. Well marked, well charted, few hazards, plenty of room, and lots to see. You sail right past the hotel district of Boca Grande, along with several of the forts and other land marks of the area. It is a few miles from the entrance to the anchorage so you have plenty of time to take in the new city from the water before you drop the hook, and after the gloom of Colon Panama, plus the beautiful yet isolated San Blas islands, Cartagena was a joyous sight! I cruised around the 40 or boats in the anchorage and found a good spot right next to an old friend from Panama. I don’t have much blogging from Colombia yet but there are plenty of pictures on the website, mostly from when Jen and Dave were visiting, including several shots of the reefs around the Rosario Islands with my new waterproof camera mom sent me (THANKS MOM). More to come!

Filed under: sailing • Trip

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