For several weeks, we've been keeping an eye on the weather between Aruba and Cartagena. There's an area just north of Cartagena that is notorious for strong winds. A river comes out to sea near Barranquilla and the contrary currents and temperatures apparently churns up some wind. We've regularly seen gale-force (> 30 knot) winds appearing in this area in recent weeks. Our package finally cleared customs in Aruba on Tuesday afternoon (Monday was a holiday). We picked up our new anchor light, but it was too windy to go up the mast to install it. But, the weather forecast for Cartagena was looking pretty good for the next day. There were still some 20-25 knot winds in the forecast, and it was all following winds and seas. NOTE: this is a long post! We decided to stay well offshore to avoid risks of piracy sometimes reported out here, and to reduce the risk of weather effects closer to Cartagena. Check out the map of our GPS track below.
Meanwhile, another boat in the anchorage, named m/v Antipodes, came over and invited us out for drinks. Jim and Lara's boat is a motor trawler live-aboard, and they have come from San Diego to Aruba in the past few months. They plan to attempt a circumnavigation as well. Only 18 motor trawlers have ever made it apparently. Their boat is registered in North Carolina, so naturally we had to meet them. They also have worked in the information technology business as well. And, the most amazing coincidence is that they know Pat and Ali from s/v Bumfuzzle (an amazing couple who I followed on their web site when they circumnavigated a few years ago). In fact, they met them in person a few times. I really enjoyed hearing their first-person accounts of what they are like.
I spent the rest of Tuesday preparing a route and planning our arrival in Cartagena. We got up Wednesday and first sent me up the mast to install the light. That went very smoothly and it worked perfectly. Next I drove Coconut down to Barcadera port and cleared out of customs. One more trip to town to take in trash and get some cash. Then we got the dinghy up and prepped for departure. We weighted anchor at about 10:30 and headed out. Shortly after we left, we had two dolphin swim over and join us at the bows a bit. I always consider it a good thing when they visit us on a passage.
We intended to go back north to Bequia this week to pick up some stuff we had shipped there. We ordered a maintenance kit to fix our leaky fresh water pump, and the new laptop will be coming hopefully later in the week. On Monday we left Tobago Cays and moved over to Union Island to check the Internet, get the Monday post out, get fuel for Coconut, and make some calls. The anchorage off the reef there is actually pretty nice, so we decided to stay the night.
After a frustrating 3 days trying to get Internet in Basse Terre (the capitol of Guadeloupe), we decided to move Tahina to the beautiful tropical islands of Iles des Saintes just about 12 miles south of us. These hilly islands are a popular tourist destination with many ferries coming from the main island every day. Iles des Saintes is home to Fort Napoleon - located on the top of Terre de Haut, the main island of population here. This is where the main anchorage is located and was our destination of the day.


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