I had a few things do finish up on the white board such as securing all the jerry jugs checking oil etc before getting under way so while I did that seth made us a final bfast. Did i mention we now had 200 gal of fuel! After I dropped seth off at the dingy dock it was back to palapa and single handing. Of course it was quite windy by now so getting the anchor up was non trivial but I managed and got everything set up and headed out of the harbor. it is great having the new windless!
It was a bit sad looking at Cartagena in the rear view mirror but I can only spend so much time in port before feeling the urge to head off! i always get this feeling of freedom when heading out to see as well.
The good news was the wind was out of the west so I was able to sail as soon as i cleared the harbor entrance. As I sailed past the beach seth and i had parked at i remenised about the fun week and wondered what was to be next..
I was able to sail all day and into the night. Fortunately i had stocked up on leftovers so I was able to have a chip appetizer followed by carne asada on rice for dinner. Alas seth and I had finished up the pizza durring the last movie night so no pizza leftovers. I did my 20 minute nap program waking up to look at the AIS and radar with my iphone alarm.
The next day I picked up a finch hitchhiker. He was clearly out of range from land and flew around the cockpit. he seemed hungry so i offered him some water and raman noodles. he rejected both but proceeded to hop around the cockpit eating first the dead months i had killed the night before and then the live ones. in doing so he managed to poop all over everything. it is amazing how much poop a tiny bird can have, made me glad to not have a pet. in his pursuit of moths he managed to land on my head twice. i did not want to kill the poor guy but the second time i gave him a stern lecture and he banished himself to the dingy (where he continued to poop).
around sunset we got another visitor this time a tiered looking hawk. this guys was clearly out of his element as well and kept making low passes at the cockpit. when ever he would do this the finch would fly off and around and then eventually come back. finally i decided to abandon the cockpit to the birds and closed the hatch and retreated down below.
we had a biq squall that night so i elected to hunker down and do a movie night. fortunately i still had leftover carne asada so another easy meal. i thought the finch was long gone or had been eaten by the hawk but around 2am when i went up to check he was sitting on one of the pillows looking tiered and of course pooping on the cushion. i left him alone figuring he was on his last legs.
the next morning i got up and cleared the flying fish off the deck and looked for a dead finch. i never found him so i presume he must have recovered enough to make it to shore once we where closer.
the winds where to light to sail so i spent most of the day motoring along at 5 to 6 kts reading and relaxing. by afternoon we had some wind out of the north so i was again able to sail. this lasted through happy hour and dinner before i again had to start the engine.
i did another movie night as my book selection was down to the rock bottom. the next day my good weather karma finally caught up with me. as i rounded the eastern most point of columbia the winds really picked up and i got white caps for the first time. i was expecting this spot to be crappy, it kind of reminded me of point conception. of course as i added power i noticed the engine was topping out at 2400 rpm. great i thought, fortunately i had not yet rounded the point and there was an uncharted bay about an hour out. this was especially concerning as i was coming up on Venezuela and the last thing i wanted to do was have engine problems and end up stopping there for repairs.
i headed to the bay at max power doing 4.5 kts. i was too chicken to go very far into the bay as it was not clear how deep it was so i ended up anchoring in a pretty rolly spot. on the motor over i had determined there was a lot of crap in the bottom of my racor bowl (i had swapped the filter out the week before). i also decided i would change the secondary fuel filter on the engine. i started with the gunk in the bottom of the filter. i dont think this had ever been cleaned out so it was a bit of a messy job. after this i swapped out the engine mounted filter. this was also a pain due to the rolling and location. i filled the new filter with fresh fuel and put everything back together.
i was quite happy when the engine fired up and went up to 3000 rpm easily in neutral. by the time i got the anchor up and got under way we had 20 kts of wind on the nose and building seas. not the end of the world i had plenty of fuel and was about to make 5 kts at 2600rm.
this continued all night and in to the morning when i finally sighted aruba at dawn. fortunately i had found an abc cruising guide that heartsong had given me so i knew the clearance procedure. when i had left cartagena 3 days ago i had talked to allie one of david and thryns friends from st john about coming down. she was interested in potentially doing more charter work and also wanted some offshore sailing experience. when i last spoke to her there where issues with her job and time away from her bf so it was not clear if she was coming or not and if she was not i was just going to press on.
fortunately i got the bgan working and found an email confirming her arrival the next day. i called the port captain and was vectored into the cruise ship terminal to clear customs. not very painful, free and about half an hour but by then i was pinned to the dock by rising wind. to make matters worse it was a cruise ship dock with old tires for fenders marking up the side of palapa. finally with the help of some dock guys i was able to get off the dock without causing any damage.
i headed around the corner to renaissance marina and was given a berth right next to the fuel dock for only 44 per day. the marina was connected to a resort and a casino complex with shuttle boat to a private island. the area around the marina reminded my of the us in not a good way. i finally picked a restaurant and got a decent fish wrap to go with my 6$ beers. the waiter told me they had gone out of the way to develop aruba so tourists felt "at home". it was a bit scary for me and after one more attempt at a more local bar with $5 beers i decided i would not be going out.
i spent the day getting laundry done, getting new strobes at the marine store and a little provisioning at a Chinese grocery store. they had all kinds of cool stuff but no sesame oil. the women at the checkout told me that i was the first person to ask for it that it was used mostly in china.
my new crew was scheduled to arrive at 8pm so at 730 i headed to the airport to pick them up with a beer and subway (yes they had subway in aruba). i was quite shocked to discover the flight was showing arrived and the time was showing 840. after bit of staring i finally realized i had been screwed by "palapa time" once again. as i thought back i had never verified what time zone we where in and just kept the time set so sunrise and sunset where around 6am and 6pm
fortunately while i was dwelling on this allie came up and said "roger"? "fortunately" she had gotten hung up in customs and just gotten out. she was concerned i had given up on her and left. we had a laugh and got a cab back to palapa. back on palapa we had a celebratory drink or two and planned a post bfast departure for bonair.
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