Oct. 19 1930hrs
Greetings,
As we’d hoped, the trip from Grand Cayman down to Providencia was a calm and lovely passage. The nights were clear with a gazillion stars and the first night I saw one of the best shooting stars I’ve ever seen. We had a pod of dolphin come play in the bow wake the second evening just before sunset which, by the way, was magnificent, with the crescent moon and the shapes and colors of the clouds, WOW. This was what we hope every passage will be. Unfortunately, the weather just doesn’t care, and it’s difficult to find times when it’s this calm, especially when and where you want to be going.
We got into Providencia and had the anchor set by 1530 this afternoon. It’s a beautiful island with lovely, green mountains, that curves around at the north end to make a bay which is where we are anchored. A smaller island called Santa Catalina sits just to the west of the north tip of Providencia and is linked to it by a foot bridge. Santa Catalina protects the north-west side of the bay so it’s only open to the WSW. It’s well protected with a good bottom for the anchor to hold. I think we’ll be able to sleep well here. I’ll report on the rest of the island and the diving when we have a chance to partake.
Oct 21 2010hrs
This afternoon we walked across the bridge to Santa Catalina and around the path to the “fort” (one cannon and an old well) and on around to Morgan’s head, a big rock at the mouth of the bay that was, at some point, used for navigation coming in. It was a fairly substantial hike with some great views along the way. It rained on us for part of the hike but it didn’t dampen our spirits (only our clothes, a little).
Oct 25 0810hrs
With hurricane Sandy moving up through the Caribbean we’ve had some less fabulous weather for the last few days. Winds are out of the west which is the open side of the bay, so it’s been a little bumpy in the anchorage, but, so far, we’re holding. We’ve had showers passing through (it doesn’t rain for very long but it doesn’t not rain for very long either) for about three days. It looks like things will calm again tomorrow. In the meantime we’ve had some good reading and baking time.
We did go for a ride around the island, night before last, in the local “bus” mini van, with the other cruising couple (Don and Rita) that are anchored close by. We went to a very fun reggae bar/restaurant that had rope and log swings out over the water and local rum drinks in fresh coconuts. The service was very slow but we had fun anyway.
Oct 27 1900hrs
Today was lots of fun. The weather here has come back to tropical fabulous with Hurricane Sandy up by FL and headed north. With Don and Rita, we rented one of those four wheel drive, golf cart things and spent the morning driving all the way around the island stopping at any points of interest we came across. There were some amazing views of the Caribbean and the little cays on the NE side. We went back to the reggae place and I played a little more on their swings. We made a turn on a rough dirt road that ended up leading to the dam for the islands fresh water supply. A lovely little lake with rock hills rising all around it. We went through the neighborhoods and all the children smiled and waved. It was a great way to see the island.
Oct 28
Capt Johne spent much of the day working on getting the new A/C system working. Don has a vacuum pump and Johne was hoping to get all the lines in place and soldered so he could use Dons pump. But, as boat projects go, they didn’t have quite the right parts and this isn’t someplace you can just run out and get them. So, it will have to wait for Panama.
We heading out tomorrow, first thing, for San Andreas, the next island south. Both Providencia and San Andreas are part of Columbia. But we found that the culture here is much more West Indies Island than Latin American. Looking forward to the next stop…
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