Very few people outside Holland and the Caribbean have heard of the ABC islands. Together with Statia, Saba and St Martens, further North, they used to make up the Dutch Antilles. They were Holland’s contribution to the colonisation of the Caribbean, but were mostly trading islands instead of the great sugar estates that made Britain and France so wealthy in the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth Centuries. Nowadays they tend to concentrate on tourism for their living, especially Bonaire and Aruba. Aruba was our next port of call after our second stop in Curacao. We left Curacao from our favourite area off Santa Marta, which is a deserted lagoon to the north of the island.

After 60 miles, a thunderstorm and nice gentle following wind we arrived at Orangestadt and the Renaissance Marina. First of all however, we had to tie up to a very rough concrete wall, in the docks, to clear Immigration and Customs. The Immigration Officers arrived at the boat almost immediately and cleared us in without leaving their car! The Customs Office was a short walk away and nicely air conditioned. Will had to visit them to clear in, but was pleased about the air conditioning. Obviously so were the Customs Officers. The temperature in Aruba is generally around 31 degrees C, which is too hot for most work outside. Perhaps this is what attracts the tourists to Aruba, together with the gambling and the small attractive tourist beach.

It certainly isn’t the architecture or the various ‘attractions’ which are badly signposted and lack even a basic description of what you are looking at when you arrive there! The shopping centre, just outside the cruise liner terminal, is pink, and appears like a wedding cake with its fancy cornice work.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) this is just about the only interesting piece of architecture on the island, with perhaps the exception of a reproduction of a Dutch windmill, used as a restaurant.

The rest of the island is composed of multi-storey hotels and single storey concrete houses. (Shacks would be a more appropriate word for some of them). Of course we did not see Aruba in its best light, since it rained most of the time we were there.

Indeed the storm that turned into Hurricane Omar started very close to Aruba with strong southerly winds and even more torrential rain. The sky was overcast for at least three days, which probably didn’t worry the tourists who came to gamble, but probably worried the tourists who came to sunbathe. We heard that the storm created terrible damage in Bonaire, even sweeping away the small pier where the loud music had been situated! We haven’t heard whether the music is back again. It was certainly a great shame for the rest of the small town though. Hurricane Omar caused considerable havoc in Antigua where the rainfall caused such flooding that two helicopters, properly tied down, were swept away and wrecked. Fortunately our houses in Jolly Harbour survived in reasonable condition, although some leaks did occur. The flooding seems to have been contained to the gardens and not to the houses. Our friends and ourselves were indeed fortunate.

Our time in Aruba was not all gloom however. We were fortunate to have as a neighbour in the marina one Morgan Jones, who had a handlebar moustache and who was from Texas. He was living on his catamaran. He kindly lent us a book which had been written about one of his forebears of the same name in Texas. His ancestor had built about six thousand miles of railways in Texas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The original Morgan Jones came from a small farm in Wales and ended up owning railways by dint of hard work and effort.

It would be nice to think that it is possible to be as successful nowadays, although all the taxes that the labour government wish to suck from those who do work, seems to make that very difficult. It appears the United States is going the same way in order to pay for their oil war. Perhaps the ordinary people of the world should rebel, or maybe ‘twas ever thus’. Will has just finished reading an excellent history of the Mediterranean Sea by John Julius Norwich. A first class read, but only proving that the general population of all countries in all ages worked, paid taxes and went to war, all for the whims of a very, very few, very selfish and arrogant, opinionated men ( and the occasional woman)! Why did we do it!!? Are humans really so gullible? It seems so.

We hired a car on Aruba for a few days. Quite a good deal for a small, air conditioned, Japanese car. It cost just under $120 for the three days plus petrol which we thought was quite reasonable.

Two days were enough to see all the island and all the tourist spots although the holes and ruts in the road did prevent us from reaching the ostrich farm on the first day. The second day however we found a paved road that went almost all the way there. We had lunch there, which was perhaps a mistake. Will’s sausages were almost too tough to eat and when this was pointed out to the waitress another one (nearly equally tough) was brought along, well after the rest of the meal was finished. If you visit an ostrich farm our advice is not to eat the sausages. Omelette had been on the menu, although apparently the ostriches had not been laying due to the wet weather. An ostrich egg is about 30 times the volume of a chicken’s egg.

The omelette must be very exciting when the ostrich hens are laying. Unfortunately we were charged tourist prices in US Dollars, which range from twice as much to ten times as much as a local might pay for similar services. The tour was good though. Did you know that ostriches could live for about 80 years, and that their knees bend the other way from ours; watch out for their forward kick! They only have two toes on each foot though.

Our guide was a colourful character, but expected a tip on top of the large fee we had already been charged. The American habit of tipping 20% is not good for anybody else in the world, neither recipient nor giver!

This was most obvious on the private island which was attached to the hotel and to which the marina was also attached. The private island for guests of the hotel and marina only, was delightful. There were many iguanas and flamingos there, mingling with some of the guests on the adult (topless) beach.

The service seemed reasonable, at least the waiters and waitresses didn’t spend all day talking to each other, and the food was adequate. When the bill came however there was an obligatory 15% service charge. This was bad enough, but at the bottom, provided for all to see, it said “the 15% service charge is spread throughout all the employees of the hotel, equally. Please feel free though to give extra to your personal server if you think you have had good service.” This was printed on the bottom of the bill!!! We didn’t feel free!

Perhaps one of the tourists attractions in Aruba epitomises the island. ‘Visit the natural bridge’ the advert says. The natural bridge has collapsed!

Granted there is a small natural bridge adjacent, but nobody tells you about that one until you get there. The bridge in the adverts is no more

.

Besides the helpfulness of the marina staff, and some of our marina neighbours, the only saving graces for Aruba are the dancers and musicians who perform every Tuesday evening (when it is not raining) in the old fort, which dates back to the eighteenth century and is very small and very Dutch.

The performers were first class and the dresses beautiful. The musicians were excellent and most of the music had been written locally and was part Latin American and part Afro Caribbean. Dance music with a swing and a beat. We cannot praise the performers too highly. They were lovely.

We were not sad to leave Aruba however, apart from our swims before breakfast in the Renaissance Hotel swimming pool.

However it was an experience in being a tourist

rather than a traveller. The word ‘cruiser’, which determines our status in American English, raises other connotations in proper English and we tend not to use the term. Sailor and traveller are perhaps more accurate but we are definitely a ‘turista’ at times!

Especially in Aruba and to a lesser extent here in Cartagena. Our voyage to Cartagena took about eight days. We had two overnight passages and a total voyage of about 400 miles.

All the passages were delightful with a following wind. All except for one day, when we were passing off shore from the very large Rio de Magdalena which changed the colour of the sea to a muddy brown and acted as a partial breakwater to the waves kicked up by 35 knots of wind from the north east. We hand steered Atlantia at this point, surfing down the waves and crashing into the one in front. Very exhilarating and just what our cruise is all about (when we are at sea!) Atlantia behaved beautifully, and handled like a dinghy. We only had a reefed mizzen, no mainsail, no staysail and only half a genoa (the rest was rolled up) and we were still going 8 knots. Terrific!

Our first evening we stopped at a rock , Monjes Del Sur, just off the coast of Venezuela. We were in company with Lou, a single handed sailor in a C&C 42, and helped him tie to the rope that was stretched across the harbour. Fortunately he spoke Spanish, since the coastguard and navy, who keep the island as a look out post, didn’t speak English, and we ‘no habla Espanol’. They wanted to know all sorts of information about the boats, and about an hour after we started, sitting on the quay wall, they had to copy all their answers onto another piece of paper, (by hand of course) We were ordered away from the island the next morning by a man with a rifle. He pointed to his gun and then out to sea. Although it was obvious what he wanted us to do, we did not wish to leave until the late afternoon! Lou kindly explained to the Capitan of the island by radio that we did not wish to leave; whereupon we were ushered by a very friendly soldier up to the lighthouse;

for our own safety you understand; whilst the coastguards and navy had firing practice with their rifles and a rather large machine gun. Fortunately they were aiming away from the boats and we spent a number of very pleasant hours watching the masked boobies (from the gannet family)

and ospreys (they get everywhere!) wheel around the top of the rock. We don’t know whether any of the birds in the firing area were hit, although the official secrets act prevents us from saying how good the soldiers/sailors were at their target practice!

We left in daylight in early evening for Columbia. There is no official pilot guide to the coast of Columbia and such large scale charts as there are, are deficient and inaccurate. We were very fortunate to have been given a part guide on a disc made up by a yacht ‘Pizazz’, a few years ago, and updated to 2006 by other foreign sailors (cruisers). This gave bays with indications of where to anchor and distances between. Anyone travelling inshore on the Columbian coast really requires to have this disc and we would be pleased to help if required. Contrary to popular opinion there has never, to our knowledge, been a serious piratical incident on the Columbian Coast. This cannot be said for the Venezuelan coast next door where ‘open season’ seems to have been declared on Americans. We are pleased not to be there. The coastguard on the Columbian coast seems to be very vigilant with plenty of instances of making sure that yachtsmen are safe. We even had to file a ‘float plan’ to the coastguard in Cartagena before we left Aruba to say when and where we would be. Our only contact with the coastguard however was in Santa Marta when we tried to report in. ‘English is the language of the airwaves’, but not in Columbia, where very few people speak English, and certainly not the coastguard in Santa Marta. There was, therefore, blissful silence on our radio! (We now know what a dumb blond must feel like; happy!) Our night sail past two oil rigs was uneventful and we rounded the corner of the coast, going southeast with 20 knots of wind and had a wonderful sail. We anchored in the morning at Cabo de la Vela (Cape of Sail)

and met some very friendly fishermen who sold us a fish for a $1.00.

Some yachtsmen were sold lobsters for a very reasonable amount. .

The bay is very beautiful and we were sorry to leave it to set off on our next overnight sail to five bays. This area is a national park and has high sided bays, a little like a miniature Loch Huron with trees on the hillside and a sandy strand with palm trees at the top of the bay. This is where the Andes ends, and Will was sure he saw Condors wheeling high in the sky above the distant mountain tops. There were certainly eagles, ospreys and chulos at a lower level. We are going to buy a bird book!

A small dash of fifteen miles through a very narrow gap,

a little like the entrance to Loch Moidart, was our next days sail to Santa Marta where we met up with Lou again, and anchored in the harbour area. There was a man snorkelling and we think he was picking up lobsters. We also met the ‘Dive Master’ who offered us water, fuel or anything we liked! Since we had the yellow flag up to say we hadn’t yet checked in, and were voyaging from early next morning, we declined.

The following day we sailed for Punta Hermosa, past the Rio Magdalena, as previously described, and making landfall just off a spit of sand not shown on the charts! Considering the spit is about three miles long, and growing, one would have thought it might be mentioned, although it is shown on Google Earth. We anchored safely behind the spit however, and had a very restful nights sleep with only half a metre of water under our keel.

The last day of our voyage was spent motor sailing in a slightly rolly sea to Cartagena. Cartagena is set in a bay, again guarded by a sand bank, which probably moves at its north end. The vista as we sailed past the last headland was surprising. A view a little like Manhattan, rose up before us although more spread out.

We had been expecting a massive headland nearly surrounded by water with a large fort on top. It is nothing of the kind. The old town walls still exist, but instead of water surrounding the town, which is about 1 metre above sea level, there are now concrete roads. This is sensible since traffic is not allowed within the old fortified walls. More about Cartagena next time!

Hope you like the pics

Love Atlantia.