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30/01/2025
Aqualuna - The Final Tomato
Leg 2: Santa Marta to Panama via the San Blas Islands - 23rd-30th January 2025. It’s the end of an awesome off-grid week spent laxin’ n’ limin’ round the San Blas Islands but sadly if we stayed much longer we’d probably contract scurvy. The contents of our fridge consist of half an elderly butternut and 3 squidgy onions plus one defiant solitary tomato in the fruit net. We did also have camembert, sour cream and yoghurt but discovered that for some completely unfathomable reason the Colombians, where we provisioned, make all their dairy products “extra salado” and it is so very salty it’s completely inedible ….. so that all went overboard to feed the fishes (which were probably actually the ones we subsequently barbecued. Ah - the circle of life!)We were in fact inundated with.
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25/01/2025
Aqualuna - Murals, Music, Mayhem ….. and Life on Stilts
Santa Marta, Colombia 19-23 JanSanta Marta is a feast for the senses. As you stroll through the streets you are deluged by a riot of colour, smells, music and mayhem. The city is visually dramatic with the Sierra Nevada mountains forming a spectacular backdrop and the Caribbean Sea in the foreground. Colourful street art decorates many of the buildings and sets the stage against which the life of the city plays out. If you love people watching you’re in for a treat, particularly in the evening when the city springs into even greater life, and crowds throng the streets enjoying the seafront boardwalk and the central Parque de Los Novios. Colourful restaurants and bars are cheek by jowl in the streets surrounding the parque, and insanely loud music from each one competes for.
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18/01/2025
Aqualuna - I Can Definitely See The Pub From Here!
Day 5 of Leg 1: St Lucia to Santa Marta, Colombia (Day 8 for the fleet)With 138 nautical miles to run - and less than 24 hours to go - we can see Columbia. So thrilling! This is the furthest west we have ever sailed and we are super-excited to overtake fellow fleet boat ‘Misfit’. Okay they’ve actually been moored in Aruba for several days - but hey, when you’re so far behind everyone else we’ll take anything as a win!We’re just coming around the Peninsula de la Guajira and are expecting the wind to increase substantially as we start our final run down to Santa Marta - probably 35-40 knots as we approach. But for now we are revelling in champagne sailing, sparkling sunshine and flying fish a-go-go. As we’ve rounded the cape, the swell is now coming from behind us and the boat has steadied.
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16/01/2025
Aqualuna - Errrm …… Whose Idea Was This???
Day 2 of Leg 1: St Lucia to Santa Marta, Colombia (Day 5 for the fleet) Having focused all our excitement, energy and resources into leaving yesterday, we are 24 hours into the first leg and have now started wondering which one of us should shoulder the blame for thinking it was a good idea to sail round the world. (I’m certain it’s not me …… just sayin’!) I guess we should have had an inkling when we left St Lucia in a lacklustre drizzle that seemed set in for some time, but in a bizarre break with tradition we have barely had a glimpse of Carribean sunshine or blue seas since we left. Instead we have been sailing through the most dismal conditions that I think I have seen since leaving the English Channel. Menacing rain clouds, pregnant with their watery load are.
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12/01/2025
Aqualuna - Left Behind but Not Left Alone
Yesterday was not a good day and we were unable to leave St Lucia with the World Arc fleet.The last few weeks have been a high octane roller coaster of emotions, stress - and fear that we might have to pull out of the rally altogether as we’ve steered through an on-going engine problem with conflicting diagnoses and much teeth sucking from “well these 6BY3 Yanmar engines are absolute rubbish - what can you expect?” (not true) to “o without doubt you’re going to need a new engine and we can do that for you for US$50,000” (also not true!)The “total oil pump failure” was in fact a software update that was needed for an engine interface. So over Christmas and New Year (not stressful at all!) we managed to get an updated one sent to St Lucia with FedEx delivering on time (yes!) and getting.
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