Scary passage to Columbia

What planned to be a well thought passage of 6 days turned out to be really horrible at the end, but we were fast enough to arrive in 5 days!

When leaving the BVI’s we looked at the best weather window that just worked in our timing as well. And ok we knew that winds are always strong in front of the Columbian coast, however once again the weather was not really what the previsions showed us.
We already know we have to add at least 5 knots of wind and a meter more height to the waves and that seems to work really well. What they don’t show on the map is the shortness and disorder of the waves …  So how did we experience this passage?

It wasn't at first. The girls are playing nicely and we have visitors:

Lots of cargo ships pass our route, but not one sailboat, I wonder why…

We have about 20 - 25 knots all the time so we advance very nicely. Big waves but relatively from a good direction. Rain showers through the night… and then “red at night, sailors delight, red in the morning, sailors warning”.
This picture was taken in the morning 😎

Imagine sitting on a roller coaster. At first you sit on the ones for children between 8 and 12 years old, for about 24 hours.
Then imagine sitting on a roller coaster for children above 12 years and the appropriate height!  You go suddenly up and down, in the meantime hard left and right. Only it doesn’t take you 1 minute 35 seconds, it takes you 3 days!

With only a small portion of the sail (3 reefs) and a mini genua, we went below 10 knots only when we crashed into the waves. We even had a surf down the waves at 19 knots!

The girls still found a way to play asking us if these waves are like the mountains when we go skiing?! At last, imagine there’s a roller coaster for adults above 18 years in really good health with no heart problems. Not once below 25 knots and 9 full hours between 35 and 49 knots (so gale and strong gale, 8 and 9 Beaufort) … Now we surfed down a wave at 21,5 knots and off course then crashed heavily in the waves…
We even read this in the GPS, so we didn't want to get close to the coast!

Luckily we have the Iridium Go, generously sponsored to us by VMS, that provides us real easy weather updates, so we can more accurately follow our position in the storm and count the hours its supposed to last. We tried to avoid the heaviest part by going closer to the coast, where we had to sail around a few enormous cargo boats waiting for the wind and sea to calm down… 

But there’s always an upside to every icky moment: we arrived one “dodo” early (passages are explained to the girls in nights sleep, 6 nights is quite ok for them actually).

This time more 'upsides' actually: we didn’t break anything; apart from back aches, we are all fine; and the people are just amazingly friendly here!

While arriving in the bay of Cartagena, we can breathe and take pictures again. Quite a surprise to arrive to this scenery of high flats. With the broom and the sudden heat it made us think about Dubaï 😎

 

Paperwork seems a lot easier than anticipated and after a good sleep, wash down and post of the blog we are ready for Columbia!!!