VIVA COLOMBI!
If I asked you for five words to describe Colombia I bet they wouldn’t include ‘welcoming’, ‘safe’, ‘fun’, ‘sophisticated’ or ‘beautiful’. I bet you’d be surprised if I told you that cruising here is far better than in the Eastern Caribbean.
But it’s true. This is a country that has been defined by a single issue projected by Hollywood and the world’s media and the reality couldn’t be further from that outdated image.
For my wife, Terry, and I the adventure started when we turned the stern of our Island Packet 465, Seminole Wind, to the Eastern Caribbean. We left Union Island with steady tradewinds in the high teens, just occasionally tipping over 20 knots true with squalls strangely absent. We sail two-handed so our weapon of choice for downwind sailing is a huge Parasailor with no pole to wrestle with on a rolling foredeck.
Just for once the weather was stable enough to fly it all night so a hoist off Union and a drop approaching the mooring in Bonaire two days later gave us two back-toback 200-mile days. For a long keeler designed for comfort not speed, an 8-knot average is a rare treat and made for a glorious final passage, probably the best I’ve had in a lifetime of sailing.
We had sailed west to join the Ocean Cruising Club’s 2018-19 Suzie Too Rally from Curaçao to Belize via have created a unique model that has little in common with the big commercial rallies. With no employees, no entry fee and exclusive to OCC members, it’s simply a large group of like-minded people benefitting from their experience and superb organisational skills.
