Hi
So the crossing went absolutely fine! Glorious sail and sun, took us two days with manual helming and arrived outside Cancun, Mexico to a little island called Isla Mujeras. Again our draft is to deep to most anchorages but found a good spot.
A very busy place, lots of holiday makers but stunning water and beaches. Did some shopping and hired one of those golfcarts to drive around with to great laughs and fun to both us and the kids.
Spent a day on the beach, me and Jani with the kids while poor Chris had to take the ferry to mainland to get the autohelm. Hot and sweaty he did return just in time for sundowners. All happy in camp Moody Finn.
We only spent three days there as we had to get a move on for Janis sake. His flight back home was from Colombia. So checking the weather….not looking that good. Going down south and wind blowing from southeast, plus the strong current that will push us up against Cuba. I wasn’t happy leaving but got voted out….
Well….oh dear Lord! It was the trip from hell. We were to tight to wind so kept motoring, big seas and all three kids seasick plus I felt rough. Puke galore, changing sheets, couldn’t do any cooking, the big boys upstairs doing shifts of 2 hours at the time not leaving the cockpit between. I just willed the trip to end and us getting somewhere, anywhere…
As I was laying in the bed in the night ( at least I was warm and dry 🙂 ) I heard a shift of noise in the engine….hard to tell what was going on but I just knew it sounded different. So I jumped up and stuck my head through the window into the cockpit and told Chris. He pooped on that, told me all is fine. Oh well…if you say so….to the bitter moment when the engine died few minutes later! Now we were in deep shit. No engine, wind and current pushing us towards south Cuba… My heart just pumped madly as I watched Chris pull up floor and opening doors to the engine compartment. Out of fuel? Filters blocked? What?
He fiddled around with fuel tanks and the pressure was high in them. So released air and hurrah, engine got going! All good again. But not for long…as it did the same thing again. I so had enough by this time. I was scared and just stood there with torch in hand saying the same mantra again and again: please let it be fixed, please let it be fixed, please let it be fixed….after changing all fuel filters apart the last one which we couldn’t get off we had to makeshift this tool to get to the filter deep down and under engine….it was hot, dark and blowy. Finally Chris got it, changed it and a big hurrah got the engine going!!! Oh the joy! So nose towards Cayman Island as we all needed a rest. The trip took us 5 days instead of 2 and just shows you that it’s not bloody worth it to go against the nature.
Arrived in the morning and started to wash and tidy up. Lovely to be anchored.
Went ashore for a wonder and of course what do we see? A McDonalds and we were not going to get past it. Have to say, I did enjoy it as well. The supermarket was so well stocked, never seen half of the stuff that they sold there and of course the beers in the seafront bar. It felt good to be on land.
Now though we had the long trip to Colombia ahead of us and we had to press on. Weather looking good so after 2 nights off we went but this time lots of goodies with us like garlick bread, pastries and lovely fruit. The sail was good, took us 6 days to get to Santa Marta but of course something had to go wrong.
The Colombian coast is known to be blowy. Not unusual to have 30-40 knots and rough seas about 24h from the coast. So yes, we got it and the headsail cleat broke with a loud bang which meant that the big sail just flapped in the wind. Oh great. So in it comes and the little headsail out. Lucky now and not earlier.
So there it was then. The Colombian coast with high mountains. Beautiful. We made it! The joy of knowing we are going to be here for awhile. But of course Janis flight had gone…2 days before. Anchored outside the marina as Chris took the dinghy to check it out and eventually we got in, Chris beautifully getting the boat in its place and lots of friendly faces and holas! I knew I would like this place :)))
X
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moodyfinn 