10 May, 2010
Before I begin, a message for Greg @ Dara:
The people who have recently purchased my first TIMESPINNER, Alberg 37 No. 15 contacted me via the last blog issue. If they are following our blogs, could they send us an email at
timespinner@gmail.com. I will be happy to give them the history and details of the boat.
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We left Puerto Lindo, Panama, early in the morning, bound for San Andrés Island, 216 miles to the northwest, and pretty well upwind, which is against nature and always uncomfortable on the open sea. We sailed all day, all night and half the next day, arriving tired and fed up in the afternoon, not at all in the mood for negotiating a long buoyed channel to arrive in a busy harbour for immigration clearance. The chart showed a nice-looking cove on the opposite side of the island, where we thought to enter stealthily, drop our hook and just take it easy for the rest of the day. Tomorrow would be early enough to go around to the main harbour on the eastern side.
Well, so much for stealth. As we approached, intent on spying out our anchorage, there was a sudden roar of powerful engines astern and an official launch appeared out of nowhere to board us. We were surprised--they never do that! But San Andrés and Providencia belong to Colombia and a careful radar watch is kept against drug traffic. They had seen us coming from miles away. They insisted on coming alongside, even though there was a heavy swell running. Despite our fenders we received some minor damage. These police officers were very polite and friendly, though they did give us a (not very thorough) search. Then they sat and chatted for twenty minutes, advised us on the best spot to anchor and agreed that tomorrow would be soon enough for immigration. They left smiling, leaving big bootprints all over our upper deck.
(Fig. B1)Next morning we sailed round the southern tip of the island, wonderfully scenic with unpainted wooden cottages among the palms (Fig. 1),
finding the entrance to the channel about halfway up the coast. While in the channel, we passed the recent wreck of a merchant ship on the reef.
(Fig.4) Nobody seemed to know why it had happened, especially since it had had an all-native crew on board. A cynic might wonder if that was perhaps why...To our surprise the main town, also called San Andrés, looked like Manhattan in the distant, misty light
(Fig. 2), but that turned out to be just a few fancy hotels along the shore. The rest of the town is small and old-fashioned and pretty. (Fig.3) Downtown is hardly third-worldish at all. To my delight, it's full of the sort of little shops that actually sell useful things--not the endless clothes and shoe shops, which make up our towns. That's old-fashioned the way I like it.There are few cars but swarms of motorcycles. You cross the street at your peril. You can't wait for a gap in traffic, you'd wait all day.
We anchored close by a fishing boat with a pretty little sailing boat tied to it, with no mast.
(Fig. 5) We learned that the yacht had been found floating, dismasted and abandoned, on the open sea. Nobody knows what happened or what happened to the crew. There is a bitter legal battle over who owns her now, the captain of the fishing boat or its owner.There was a funny little incident in the anchorage.
(Fig. 6) Some fishermen had evidently picked up some pretty tourists for a ride but when they tried to haul up their anchor found that they had embarrassingly picked up something else: somebody else's anchor along with their own. It took them the best part of an hour and a lot of shouting to get themselves free. We wondered how impressed the girls were.Colombians have often impressed us by their way of doing things efficiently and aesthetically with very little money. The beach bar is about as basic as could be and yet was attractive and seemed to be doing a brisk business.
(Fig. 7) We also loved the wine bottle decoration of the Yacht Club restaurant. 
(Fig. 8.jpg)It was late in the morning when, exploring the town and drawn by the name, we entered the Hotel Casablanca and found a bar with a competent-looking barmaid. She claimed to know how to make a very good piña colada, and that they were. Just what two hot, tired people needed.
(Fig. 9.jpg)A highlight of our visit to San Andrés was during a long walk we did around the northern tip of the island (we had sailed around the other end). Looking for a place for lunch we discovered a magical little hotel, Hotel Harb. Designed, built and run by two Syrian brothers with superb taste, it also offers an imaginative menu. Marie ordered a lemonade and it was like no other: a whole lime blended skin and all with sugar and ice and, the master's touch, fresh basil. Wonderful! We'll work on that recipe.
(Fig. 9B)I don't remember what I was discussing with the waitress in Fig. 9.
Was that the size of the fish I wanted to eat? Marie took the picture and there is a mirror on the wall so that we are both in it.A constant worry when planning a passage in these coral-strewn waters is to avoid arriving by dark. Our next stop, Isla Providencia, was 52 miles away, which is to say, nearly nine hours at six knots, thirteen hours at four knots. But what speed will we actually make good? It might be only three knots, then what? To be safe, we sailed back to the cove where we had arrived and from where we could leave without danger in the dark. We then set sail by moonlight to arrive in the morning the next day.
It was a lovely night to be sailing (Marie was too busy sleeping to enjoy much of it) but we were sailing as close to the wind as we could and when we arrived opposite the island we still had to make a long tack to close the land, arriving about lunch time.
The entrance is a little tricky, being a narrow channel between coral reefs. To port (on the left side) there is a large knob of rock shaped like a head with clear features. (Fig. 11 is the back of it).
Because Capt. Henry Morgan spent some time here, kept his wife here and, according to legend, his treasure, the knob is called Morgan’s Head. At the head of the bay is the hill in Fig. 10,
labelled on the chart as Split Hill, but you can guess what part of Morgan the locals call it by! Perhaps in atonement for this irreverence, there is a very beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary on the hill above Morgan´s Head. 
(Fig. 12)We watched the red boat
in Fig. 14 making its approach and wondered what they were doing as they anchored in the channel. We met the French crew later and found that because the boat draws six meters, they were unable to enter the harbour. This was La Vache qui Rit (Kito de Pavant and François Gabert), which had just finished a transatlantic race in second place. With an utterly unpractical draught and the mast stayed via two enormous outriggers at deck level making it impossible to bring her alongside, she is certainly no cruising boat. However, her average speed across the Atlantic was two and a half times ours.Providencia is well-named, being one of the loveliest islands we've encountered. With gorgeous coral-sand beaches, pretty little villages half-hidden in the forest, many things to do and explore, this should be abuzz with tourists.
(Fig. 13) Happily, it's almost unknown. The affluent Colombians from the mainland keep it to themselves. 
(Figs. 15 and 15A) Crime is virtually nonexistent. The police obviously don't spend much time chasing after wrong-doers. We saw a big fat cop who had unbuckled his gunbelt because it was uncomfortable around his belly and when they both entered the cafe where we were sitting, left it on the seat with the car door open!On arrival in Providencia we did the correct thing, which was to contact the port captain and the shipping agent but nobody was listening on the radio. So we went ashore, looking for the agent. Finding his office closed, we left word with the tourist office and went our way.
There is a bus, La Chiva, which circles the island and we decided to take it as a way of seeing the island. Not finding it in the town and unable to get any coherent information as to when it had left, we decided to start walking and sooner or later we would stop it. After a long time walking in the heat and humidity, we came across a bus stop with somebody waiting. The man told us that he had been there quite a while and the bus should not be long, so we sat and chatted with him in his oddly-accented island English. Finally there arrived, not the bus, but the man's friend to pick him up. He hadn't been waiting for the bus at all! The friend said that he hadn't seen it, so it "should not be long". We continued our walk.
The traditional local architecture is pretty little wooden houses with tin roofs. The rather cute little Roman Catholic church
(Fig. 16) is in the same style but they had to build a monumentally ugly cement one right next door, which Marie shuddered to photograph. Why they did it is a question. There is a tremendous competition between churches. Unlike most of Latin America, Roman Catholics are definitely in the minority because the island is populated with ex-British slaves, principally from Jamaica, who brought Anglicanism with them. Missionaries of every variety of Christianity are tremendously successful and the Catholics' market share is slipping. Perhaps they thought that a new church building would help. We admired the fence in front of the old church,which features fretwork bannisters in the form of chalices. (Fig. 16). Many houses are decorated with nice fretwork 
(Fig. 17), while the plain little cement cottage in Fig. 18
has been nicely painted with windows in bright colours. The owner must have liked the look of his windows because he has added a false one on the plain wall on the left. Another, wanting to spice up his plain exterior, has faced it entirely with conch shells.
(Fig. 19)The bus still didn't come, although several other people said that "it shouldn't be long." Finally somebody told us that the trouble with this bus is that there is only one driver and he gets bored with always going in the same direction round and round the island, so he varies the direction unpredictably. At this news we gave up and stopped a pickup truck. Literally a pickup, since they all act as taxis.
(Fig. 20) This took us to the southern end of the island, where there were supposed to be nice restaurants. Just before we stopped, what do we see but La Chiva parked off the road under a tree and it's driver parked in a hammock outside a nearby house!We got off the taxi at South Beach and walked along the white sand in search of lunch. After a glance at the kitchen we passed up the first restaurant, but a little further on we found one, cleaner and slightly less rustic
(Fig. 21), where they served us a Rondon, the national dish. It's the sort of big pot, fill-'em-up-with-watever's-handy dish found in all poor countries, being a mixture of high-calorie, starchy vegetables, dumpling, assorted fish and shellfish and salt pork (normally a pig's tail) all boiled up in coconut milk. Much more delicious than it looks! 
(Fig.22)We reckoned on getting a pickup on the way home but, whereas there had been many outbound, now there was none to be seen and, of course, no sign of La Chiva. So we walked and we walked, getting hotter and tireder. Still, there were many things to see while walking. One was this gasoline station
(Fig.23) "Will that be whole milk, skimmed or chocolate, sir?"Every society has its social concerns. Often it is drugs, family violence or AIDS. Here it is underage pregnancy, targeted in this rather cute billboard
(Fig. 24) It says, "GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO GROW UP BEFORE HAVING CHILDREN YOURSELF...ENJOY YOUR YOUTH" I'm glad to know it's recognised as a problem and not just accepted as the way things are. Girls of 15 or younger with babies are a common sight everywhere.Just before we had walked all the way around the island we came upon our salvation. Not a ride but a little business renting out motor scooters. We had been thinking of doing that, especially having discovered the unreliability of the bus service. Marie managed to negotiate to have a scooter delivered to the town dock next day and a lift to town right now.
Arriving back aboard, we were met by a dinghy from another yacht with the message that the customs agent had been out looking for us. Next day we collected our scooter and went to see the agent.
This was a genial fellow by the name of Mr. Bush. He had just returned from a meeting in San Andrés, which, it turned out, was the furthest he had ever been in his life. Fervently religious in one of the more fundamentalist varieties of Protestantism, he was greatly concerned with the decline of morality in his island. San Andrés, he thought, was already lost to the Devil. I wonder what he would have thought of Cartagena! Best for his spiritual peace of mind if he stays in the little piece of paradise where he lives.
We had seen a bunch of young toughs in San Andrés
(Fig. 25) who seemed to illustrate what Mr. Bush was talking about. They appear to have nothing to do but get drunk and roar about in their noisy speedboats being a nuisance. In a poor island one wonders where the money comes from.Formalities taken care of, we spent the next two days touring the island by scooter.
Fig. 26 It's not a very big island, and we drove down every single road, meeting the beautiful blue lizard of Fig. 27
along the way.After this we had pretty well "done" Providencia and it was time to move on. We had been there a week. The next leg would be 200 miles to Vivorillo Reef. We'll tell you about that next chapter.
Français
La Chiva
Providencia, le 4 Déc. 09
A Cartagena la Chiva est l’ancien bus campagnard reconverti pour la promenade des touristes ramassés dans les hôtels pour visiter la ville by night. Ils sont vite étourdis par le rhum, les décibels et les pauvres plaisanteries de l’animateur. Pitoyable spectacle censé répondre aux attentes de visiteurs en quête de dépaysement.
A Providencia la bonne vieille Chiva conserve sa fonction d’origine. Facilement reconnaissable à sa couleur jaune, elle sillonne l’unique route de l’île et s’arrête au gré des besoins. Montez nous dit-on et vous payerez au chauffeur les 1250CP.
- D’où part-elle ?
- Ici, ici même. Elle va arriver.
Nous attendons. D’autres voyageurs sont assis sur les bancs de béton bariolés. C’est bon signe.
- Bonjour Madame, attendez-vous depuis longtemps ?
- Bonjour à vous. Non, pas longtemps.
- Quand est passée la dernière Chiva ?
- Il y a juste un moment.
- Oh, zut alors, quand repasse-t-elle ?
- Bientôt. Vous êtes en voilier ?
Pas très bavarde mais le ton est aimable. Continuons.
- Oui, mais dites moi, combien de temps dure le tour de l’île ?
- Ca dépend.
- ½ heure, 1 heure, une heure et demie ?
- Difficile à dire.
Décidément, il va falloir apprendre le mode d’emploi.
- Mais vous attendez la Chiva, vous devez bien avoir une idée !
- Pas du tout. Je n’attends pas la Chiva, j’attends ma mère !
Bon, nous partons à pied, la Chiva nous rattrapera. La route est en ciment et en bon état. Elle est bordée d’agréables maisons couvertes de tôle ondulée dont les plus anciennes sont en bois et les plus récentes en béton. Elles sont largement espacées et on ne sait pas très bien si la luxuriante végétation qui les entoure est le résultat de l’entretien ou… du manque d’entretien ! Ces maisons dégagent un air de contentement sans abondance.
Il fait chaud, (la route n’est pas très ombragée) et nous devons rester attentifs pour nous manifester au cas où la Chiva arriverait subitement. Les motos défilent, certaines sont chargées de familles entières, d’autres transportent du matériel de construction. Jeunes, vieux, hommes, femmes, militaires, femmes enceintes, pasteurs, tout le monde circule à moto. Les jeunes, ayant supprimé le pot d’échappement, pétaradent et tous et toutes roulent sans casque. Bien que nous soyons les seuls marcheurs nous sommes largement ignorés, mais quand nous saluons, on nous répond toujours avec beaucoup de politesse. Rien à voir avec la familiarité des panaméens.
Il fait de plus en plus chaud et toujours pas trace de la Chiva… Nous marchons dans le sens contraire au trafic tout en nous retournant constamment pour la guetter. Quelques personnes à l’ombre d’un arrêt de bus nous invitent à nous joindre à eux sur le banc. Ils nous expliquent qu’elle surgira devant nous et pas derrière comme nous pensions car le conducteur tourne dans le sens des aguilles d’une montre le matin et dans l’autre l’après midi. Tant qu’à faire le tour de l’île, que commencions par la gauche ou par la droite nous importe peu.
Oui mais, dit quelqu’un, regardez quand même derrière vous, parce que le chauffeur se fatigue de la monotonie et il change souvent le sens de sa route. !
Bien que colombiens, les insulaires parlent de préférence anglais. Ils descendent d’esclaves jamaïquains libérés par Henri Morgan, (Sir H M pour les anglais, pirate pour les espagnols). San Andres et Providencia ont alternativement appartenu aux anglais et aux espagnols. Ces derniers, propriétaires lors de l’indépendance de la Colombie, ont insisté pour que les îles deviennent également colombiennes. Les insulaires parlent Patois entre eux (un dialecte fait principalement d’anglais, d’espagnol et de mots africains) et utilisent l’anglais et l’espagnol au travail. Les écoles sont bilingues depuis peu. Ils sont protestants, font de délicieuses pumpkin pies et leur plat national s’appelle Run Down (Rondon pour les colombiens). Leur anglais est difficile à comprendre au début mais on s’y habitue vite et il y a toujours l’espagnol pour sortir d’un mauvais pas. Nous bavardons agréablement du bon vieux temps, sujet de prédilection.
Mais… toujours pas de Chiva ors nous sommes partis il y a plus de 2 heures. Soudain, l arrêt du bus se vide. L’un monte sur sa moto, l’autre interpelle un motard et saute sur le porte bagage, le troisième disparait dans une maison voisine. Nous restons seuls… mais la Chiva ne peut plus tarder. Elle doit être sur le point d arriver nous rassurent-ils.
Reposés, nous reprenons la route. Le soleil tape sur le ciment mais comme nous longeons maintenant la cote est et que les alisés soufflent fort, la chaleur est plus tolérable. Le paysage est superbe. Au loin, nous apercevons les vagues qui se brisent sur la barrière de corail qui ceint l’île.
Elle est longue de 18 Mn et protège de l érosion crée par les vagues. Nous sommes vraiment en haute mer. Les côtes les plus proches sont celles du Nicaragua à 70 Mn à l’ouest. Henri Morgan parle de la mer aux 7 couleurs. Elles sont toutes là, du turquoise au bleu de Prusse en passant par le vert émeraude, jouant avec la nature et la profondeur des fonds. Nous passons devant l’aéroport dont la courte piste accueille le vol quotidien de San Andres (19 passagers max). Bientôt voilà la station service dont le pompiste est …une vache ! C’est l’heure du déjeuner et il n’y a plus personne sur la route. Nous avons bien fait 6 km. Que vois-je à l’horizon ? Un café ! Nous sommes sauvés.*Bières et arepas (Tortillas de mais frites) sur fond de Valletano (Musique populaire colombienne). Charmante conversation avec Luke Beth qui était au café avec ses chèvres... Il est choqué par le manque de sérieux du conducteur de la Chiva. Il interpelle un motard de passage.
- As-tu vu la Chiva ?
- Non, dit l’autre.
Un troisième client dit que ce matin, elle avait été vue dans le sud de l’île.
Nous passons une bonne heure avec eux. Ils suggèrent de prendre un mototaxi, deux moto- taxis. Tout le café s’en mêle.
- Oui, deux, car ils sont 2.
- Très bien, mais comment identifier les mototaxis ?
- Nous les connaissons, mais eux, les pauvres, comment pourraient-ils les identifier ?
- De toute façon la question ne se pose pas, personne n’est passe sur la route depuis une bonne demie heure.
A ce moment arrive la camionnette des flics. Ils descendent prendre un café, laissant leurs armes sur leurs sièges, toutes portières ouvertes.
- Avez-vous vu la Chiva ?
- Ah ! Tiens, non. C’est bizarre. Elle va bien arriver. Quand nous la verrons nous le préviendrons. Ciao.
- Ciao, Ciao.
Ils repartent dans une grande nuée de gaz diesel.
Arrive une petite bonne femme, haute comme trois pommes, les cheveux poivre et sel soigneusement ramassés en chignon sous une casquette militaire. Carrée, elle est tout muscle, mollets, cuisses et fesses. Toute cette viande est moulée dans un caleçon rouge et elle est armée d’une machette de la longueur de sa jambe. De quoi frémir mais, contrairement a toute attente sa voix est douce et harmonieuse.
- Holà …. Que tal ? Les enfants…Bien bien. Qui sont ces gens. Ah, ils sont en voilier. Bien venidos! Ok, je dois filer.
Nous continuons la route. Il n’y a plus personne nulle part. Et après 20 bonnes minutes, un moteur au loin. Un pick up truck. Nous l’arrêtons.
- Pouvez-vous nous conduire à Southwest Bay ?
- Bien sur, avec plaisir.
Nous sautons dans la benne et 15 mn plus tard arrivons à la plage… et, que voyons-nous garé à l’ombre d’un flamboyant ?… La Chiva, la petite camionnette jaune !?!!! Et qui était dans le hamac juste à côté ? Le chauffeur !!!
Il avait pris la journée libre
