Islas del Rosario: good times, bad times

July 24, 2024

Writing in the main cabin while drinking coffee.  Natalia is on the other side of the round table reading the news on her IPad.  Marina is in the galley making pancakes and sausages.  BEHEMOTH is almost still charmed by a gentle breeze from the north.  I just came back from a short swim. Life is good. 

We’ve been at anchor on the north side of Isla Grande since Thursday, 7 days after Natalia, Marina and I arrived to Cartagena.  That is how long it took to get the Blue Monster working again.  A few weeks before traveling from Thailand to Ecuador Hector reported having had trouble when moving the boat to paint the starboard top sides.  The engine’s revolutions suddenly fell under 1,500 and eventually the engine wouldn’t start.  Alexander, the engineer whose team rebuilt the Blue Monster after I purchased BEHEMOTH, concluded that the engine overheated, most likely a lack of anti-freezer as a result of a leak.  The boat doesn’t have alarms and Hector wasn’t checking the temperature.  For some reason the starter motor and solenoid also failed….

Bottom line, whereas the original plan was to stay at the marina in Cartagena for a couple of days, we ended up staying for a week.  Thankfully, Natalia and Marina were in good spirits and we had fun walking around the old city, having drinks at sunset on the boat, dining and wining at night.  They also went shopping a couple of times and got a couple of pillows for BEHEMOTH’s main cabin, a French press, a beautiful tray to serve appetizers, and computer covers made of suede, all local industry.   

Cartagena is full of restaurants and bars yet is it not easy to find good ones.  The many recommendations you read online are not to be trusted even when coming from the  New York Times.  We tried several and liked the most, for lunch or dinner, Buena Vida, Carmen, Apogeo, and Samball, and for a night cap, Alquimico.

The trip to Islas del Rosario from Cartagena was uneventful; ~10 Knots from the South West (our course), we had the main up with two reefs and the Blue Monster running at 2,300 RPMs. We exited Bahia de Cartagena through Boca Chica which is well marked and reached the north side of Isla Grande in 3 1/2 hours.

Anchoring was another matter. The Navionix charts I use in iNavX are not accurate and I wasn’t able to find  recent guides for the islands.   I had the Guía Naútica de Colombia which offers a few way points but it’s not up to date, and  some oldish blog telling you to find your way through the coral with good visibility because all buoys were gone.  The fact is that there are now green and red buoys that mark a channel of sorts, if you are able to figure out the start.  When we entered the anchorage we didn’t follow the right channel and almost run aground (we got it right when exiting).  One of the pics shows the place where we anchored and the channel. 

The anchorage is lovely but for the motor boats full of day-tourists that anchor on the west side of the island between 10:00 and 15:00.  Afterwards, we have the anchorage to ourselves.  Only once there was a catamaran close-by but didn’t stay for the night.    

We spend our days swimming, reading, napping, cooking, eating, and enjoying cocktails and wine on the boat.  One afternoon a fisherman brought lobsters he had just plugged out of the water.  We bought two big ones that ended up in a salad.  Marina and Natalia felt some remorse and wanted to throw them back at sea but it was too late for the crustaceans.  It was their idea to buy them in the first place, yet I became the executioner. I used a knife.  

Twice we’ve taken the dinghy to venture into town.  All the tourism hasn’t done much for the local economy.  Most of the gains seem to go to the hotels/resorts around the island.  There are only a couple of small household enterprises — restaurants, bars, and grocery stores. We bought some beer, tonic water, two bottles of wine, and a toucan and starfish made out of wood by a local artist.  

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Alas, the vacations that started with an engine failure ended with what seems to be a propeller failure. The day we returned to Cartagena we were sailing at 7 knots over placid swells.  Natalia was a bit seasick but otherwise conditions were perfect and BEHEMOTH was splendid.  When entering the channel at Boca Chica the wind died but the Blue Monster was running smoothly.  I was down below informing the authorities on channel 16 about our destination when, suddenly, the RPMs  increased. At first I thought that by accident Natalia had pushed on the throttle but no, something happened to the transmission/propeller.  The Blue Monster continued to run but BEHEMOTH was on irons, she couldn’t go forward or backwards. We had to be towed back to marina Club de Pesca at an exorbitant price.  Once you’re there in the middle of the shipping channel you have no bargaining power. 

I am writing this while waiting for Alexander to find out what happened.  One of the divers here at the marina tells me that the propeller seems to be disconnected from the shaft.  Something might have gone wrong when they changed the cutlass bearing at the boat yard.  It shouldn’t have happened but better here than on my way to Panamá.  

Natalia and Marina  are gone.  I fly this afternoon to Ecuador and tomorrow back to Bangkok.  I am nostalgic about the days we spent together with BEHEMOTH and wish my mother could have joined.  We sailed with her and my father from West End to Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas during the Christmas holidays of 2015.  She always wanted to return.    

I’ll come back in early November to sail to Panama.  My hope is that by then all the mechanical and electrical issues will be resolve