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Timshel - Santa Marta to San Blas Day 1 Start



Distance run (12.00 to 24.00): 82 nm, Max spd: 11.7 knots MWF: 40.9 knots. Our speed log is working again. We took it out when moored in the marina, always a delicate operation as you try not to get too much water in the boat while replacing the log impeller with the blanking plug and back again. the problem seemed to be a colony of little things that look like wood lice (slaters in Scotland), I guess the aquatic version, that had taken up residence. We also managed to put some more foam (swimming)noodles up the aft shrouds to protect the mainsail, for aesthetic reasons blue ones were chosen. One might have used foam pipe insulation, but it seems nobody in Santa Marta needs to insulate pipes, we couldn't find it.

The whole fleet had a great time in Santa Marta, the marina, the tour guides, people in shops, everyone was really helpful and welcoming. We had a lovely day at the beach and some interesting tours, our all too short time finishing with the Farewell dinner and Prize giving. However, I'm also sure that everyone thinks that Columbia, and Santa Marta particularly is the windiest place on earth, and nothing that happened after our 12.00 start has dispelled that notion. We started in bright sunshine, heading not directly downwind, but fast reaching north west a bit to get clearance off the Rio Magdalena as Mark had warned of huge trees, fridges and other detritus being swept down. It was great fun, but conditions got livelier and livelier and we gradually reefed down to slow the boat and get more control so that the hydrovane could steer as darkness approached. Laura Dawn suffered a steering failure, but seemed to calmly and competently sort out the emergency steering and devise a fix for the problem. Caused no doubt by crashing into a wave, one of our big ceiling trim panels fell down in the saloon. I tied it up to the table to stop it sliding around. It's a 3 person (at least) job to get it up again, so it will have to wait until we get there, maybe we can bribe someone to help with coffee - or beer? Eventually after passing the river, we settled down to head west for the night under a scrap of mainsail and reefed staysail only, slower but under control.

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