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Libeccio - On the "road" again..



As you may have noticed, we have packed our (shopping) bags and are once again under way. The destination for this leg is the San Blas Islands, approx 290nm from Santa Marta.

We have had a great time in Santa Marta- the whole experience was honestly a very pleasant surprise. Friends of ours who have visited Colombia in the past few years have raved about its beauty, the culture and the friendliness of its people. While we have only spent a few days in one city, both of us are looking forward to visiting Colombia again. Our trips to the coastline and up into the rainforest to visit a coffee plantation highlighted just how diverse the geography is. Santa Marta itself was bustling and while there is a lot of improvements needed and being made, we felt welcome and safe where ever we walked. There is a central square a few blocks off of the water front that had a maze of streets filled with restaurants and street bands. Such a great place to go for dinner and then walk around after. The water front was filled with families even though it was 10 - 11pm.

Our time in Santa Marta was split between the inevitable boat jobs, reprovisioning, informal socialising with the other WARC participants and attending formal events that were sponsored by the marina we were staying in as well as the ministry of tourism.

We are enjoying getting to know more about our fellow WARC participants- it is fair to say that there is no single path that they have followed to get here with a diversity of geographic locations, occupations and levels of experience. There are brand new boats as well as tried and true vessels

On the boat jobs, well, we did just OK- knocking off a few important ones (completing the refurb of the head (toilet) on our side of the boat and fixing a leak in the water supply to the washing machine. However, while doing a rig inspection, I noticed that there was a fair amount of wear on the shackle that holds the block (pulley) where the halyard (line) for Izzy. Suffice it to say that after 4 days of chasing, multiple missed deadlines including delaying our departure today by 2 hours we have decided to take our chances with the rigger in Panama. Apparently a Kiwi who is very good at his job. Until that is fixed, though, we are without the services of Izzy.

Normally this would be a major loss, however, we can run wing on wing (where the main sail is on one side of the boat and the genoa is on the other) efficiently. Also, the trick with this leg is that it is relatively short. At 190nm it will take us just over 35 hours to get there if we average 6kn per hour. Part of the beauty of the San Blas islands is that they are surrounded by coral reefs- they provide protection when you are anchored in the channels and are home to lots of wildlife that makes the snorkeling very enjoyable. The downside to the reefs is that they are incredibly dangerous to navigate at night and remain dangerous in the daylight unless you are very careful. So in the lead up to our departure, the discussion with other skippers was how best to time our arrival; how this would fit in with the forecast weather and whether or not they would navigate to a large channel and anchorage at night (we definitely will not). So this leg will be all about timing the approach and making sure that you do not go too fast.

To help us do this, we have put two reefs in both our main and our genoa. However, the winds have remained 20 - 25 kn such that our speed currently is averaging 8.5kn with surfing to 10.5+. This is way to fast and our eta is currently during the dark on Friday morning. Fear not though, the winds are forecast to be strong tonight, but, should ease off tomorrow and over Friday night. Certainly we hope so.

This leg is just Jane and I so we will split the watches between the two of us. With it being only us, we can be pretty relaxed about the timing and so will be flexible if one of us is feeling more tired. Roughly, the night is broken into watches: 7 -11; 11- 3am; 3 - 7; and 7 - 11. Some couples will go as short as 2 hours on and 2 hours off, with the majority favoring 3 hrs on and 3 hours off. We find our approach allows us to have a decent sleep and works for us.

Enough rambling on for today- I hope this blog actually gets posted. Only 2 of the 3 that I had sent in during the St Lucia to Santa Marta were posted. Not sure why.

Hope you all are well,

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