Zero2Sixty

Bonaire to Santa Marta 2015

by Art on

Information

Distance (nm)
488.23
Hours
45.73
Average (kts)
10.68

It's about 450 nm from Bonaire to Santa Marta, Columbia breaking the passage to the San Blas Islands of Panama up a bit for us. We've had a great time in Bonaire and really enjoyed all the activities above and below the water.

Last night, Giamma and Carmen braved the thousands of people on the streets of Kralendjik to celebrate Carnival. Tracy, Andrea and I just hung out on the yacht and enjoyed the sunset and a nice dinner together onboard. This morning, we're preparing the yacht for our passage and have to visit the customs and immigration folks to clear out of Bonaire and prepare our paperwork for arrival in Columbia.


by Art, 'Santa Marta, Columbia 09:00 LT'

After a long night of fast sailing and more big waves, we arrived at Santa Marta about 09:00 this morning. During the night we put in our second reef in the main sail and put out the staysail to help us helm a bit easier. Our speed didn't suffer too much as we still clipped along at 12 kts of more. From about midnight on we had sustained winds over 30 kts (37 kts was the highest I saw) and a sea height close to 4m. It was nice to arrive here in daylight hours! After speaking with the port authority we were cleared to drop anchor and wait for Dino, our local agent, to come help us handle the clearance into Columbia. We're all exhausted and will rest today, perhaps going on-shore for dinner or something. Otherwise, just the typical post-arrival chores to do (wash clothes, wash the boat, minor repairs and provisioning). A number of days of rest then we push on for Panama and the San Blas Islands which are about 300nm from here.


by Art

At sunrise, Giamma and I discussed where we where and decided we need to continue about another four hours before we gybed to the southwest on a course that would take us directly to Santa Marta. It looks like we have a much better angle on the waves now (they were coming from our rear starboard quarter before and very uncomfortable to sleep with). Now they are coming directly from our side and we just roll easily over them while maintaining our great speed. We hope to continue like this over night and arrive in the morning at Santa Marta.


by Art, 'Bonaire 12:00 LT'

About noon we were ready to go and slipped the ropes from our nice berth in Bonaire. After motoring out beyond the headlands at the north end of the island, we put up the sails (1 reef in the main sail and the genoa out) and started our passage. The winds were 25-30 kts and the waves about 3 meters. We decided to head northwest (about 300º) as the wind angle was for a nice reach of about 120º (apparent). We flew along averaging over 12 kts (max speed 20 kts) for the rest of the day and night (remember this is with 1 reef in the main!). Lots of stars out and we saw both the Southern Cross and Big Dipper again in the same night sky. This was also a good test to see of my broken rib was healed enough to be able to stand my share of watches with the rest of the crew. I can report I'm back in shape and had no problems at all. It's been a slow healing process (about 8 weeks so far) . Glad I'm far enough along to be able to do my share onboard.

Passage Track

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Comments so far

  • comment from Marie Marie on February 19, 2015

    nice to know you approch san blas and then pacific! buena suerte with all the colombian authoryties!!! and then with the sea just when you'll go out of santa marta...strange current making big waves...but buby was going cartagena and goha is so so so small... besos a todos in "chameleon" the william five we had when pitiou was child (15m), it was written "ô god thy sea is so great and my boat is so small"

  • comment from Il Mozzo Il Mozzo on February 17, 2015

    ready for a other nice passage! In bocca al lupo al Crew feelin' good......Ciao Il Mozzo