Aruba to Colombia

The seas behind our boat.

Christmas winds.  Growing up in landlocked West Virginia I never heard the term.    Sailing down to the southern Caribbean, if I heard it I paid it no attention.  Researching information on the Internet about the passage from Aruba to Colombia the term started popping up more frequently.  When we finally left Aruba, I understood:  Christmas winds.  For those of you still living a non-seafaring landlocked life who may be unfamiliar:  Christmas winds get their name because of the time of year they arrive ... Christmas time.  During the late summer and fall the trade winds weaken with periods of light winds.  Around Christmas time the trade winds blowing all the way from Africa pick up and intensify, bringing strong winds across the Caribbean at a sustained 25-30kts or more, lasting for weeks at a time.

They say experience is the best teacher, and it certainly makes concepts sink in deep.  We had heard about these Christmas winds, even talked about them as we planned our passage from Aruba to Cartagena, Colombia.  Somehow though the reality of them didn’t quite sink into our little brains very solidly.  We had experienced week after week of mild weather and somehow thought there was still more yet to come, tossing the whispers of Christmas winds to the back of our consciousness.  The passage from Aruba to Cartagena is known as one of the five worst passages in the world.  In heavy winds the seas can build quickly and become dangerous.   Many boats have left Aruba with what sounded like a good weather window and found themselves in 40-50kt winds, 30ft seas, even seeing breaking waves and confused seas with waves coming from different directions.  As we watched our weather windows, to make the 400-mile passage, disappear we started to realize the true meaning of Christmas winds.  We also realized that we had broken our own rule, and made plans to meet visitors in Cartagena on a specific date.  Although they did have fair warning that buying their tickets in advance there was a possibility we wouldn’t make it there.  However even though they were warned I really want to see them and I don’t want to spend another month waiting for a weather window!  So instead of the 10–15kt winds and 4 ft seas we had hoped to have for a 4-day passage, we were now looking at 20-25kt winds for the foreseeable future.  Time to change our plans. 

We chose to take advantage of a 2 day weather window of 20kt winds and 6 ft seas, that would get us to the coast of Colombia where we would duck into an anchorage for a day or two until we got more “settled” weather.  It seems that once the Christmas winds kick in 20kts is about as “settled” as we can hope for.  Since leaving Grenada we had been traveling with Dave and Wendy on Elysium, although we had planned to make the passage to Cartagena together at this point we both made different decisions.  Elysium wanted to wait for a 4-day window that would allow them to stay well offshore and travel straight to Cartagena, and we decided it would be best to take advantage of the 2 day weather windows and hop along the coast to assure we would arrive in Cartagena before the 13^th of January.  Sadly we said good-bye to our traveling companions, but at least we look forward to seeing them again soon in Cartagena.

With the winds behind us, we had an easy passage with the boat gently rolling from side to side.  Unfortunately my stomach does not appreciate the gentle lolling and retaliates until I medicate.  We made to into the anchorage at Bahia Honda the next morning and were recommended by our weather guru, to stay put and not continue on, as the winds were to build during the day and overnight.  So stay put we did; but not happily.  We had trouble finding a good spot to anchor.  The bay is very wide, about 6 miles, and the mouth is also very wide, allowing the ocean swell to roll in and nearly fill the bay.  We had read a post from other cruisers who were recently in this bay and loved it, of course I didn’t know exactly where they anchored and I don’t think they saw the sea conditions we did.  It is a pretty area, very remote with nothing around but arid desert plateaus.  We finally settled on a spot in the northeast corner that was out of the swell.  The water got shallow while still a couple of mile from the land, getting as close as we could to shore we anchored in 9’ of water choosing to deal with the wind chop that was blowing in.  It was not perfect but it was comfortable enough for a night of sleep.  So we thought.  We thought wrong.  During the night as the seas built so did the swell in our anchorage, wrapping around the edge of the bay 4ft waves rolled in directly toward our boat.  At first light we were up, we needed to leave.  We waited long enough to get a weather forecast, pulled up anchor and headed to sea.  The forecast didn’t thrill us, but it was better than where we were and Chris Parker gave us the go ahead to head to Santa Marta.  We had 20-25kts of wind with 12ft seas behind us.  With 10-second intervals the seas were comfortable, much better than the anchorage we just left, and we settled in for the 160-mile journey. 

Throughout the day the wind and seas subsided, and eventually so did my stomach.  By the end of the day I was no longer medicated and even cooking, well sorta .. I put stuff in the oven and turned it on till it was hot; at sea I think it counts.  We were even visited by a pod of dolphins, the first we had seen in a very long time.  One had a young calf with her, and one had no dorsal fin, he must have an interesting story.

The following morning we checked with Chris for the possibility of continuing on to Cartagena, but he recommended staying in Santa Marta over the weekend as conditions were going to be building throughout the day.  Within 2 hours the seas were building up to 9ft and winds gusted up to 30kts and above.  We were happy to stop.  As we pulled into the bay the water was calm and the mountains blocked the winds.  We contacted Marina Santa Marta on VHF 72 and got tied up to a slip: our home for the next week.