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Limerence Update # 51Isla San Andres, Colombia -
to the Bay Islands of Honduras-to Cancun
May 2003 Lat. 16d 20'N Lon. 86d 26'WTemperature
Air 89F – Water 83F Isla San
Andres morphed during Easter week from a dreamy island paradise to a noisy tourist
infested nightmare. As Colombians poured in from the mainland, the harbor became filled
with obnoxious jet skiers. Our sublime anchorage was transformed into the scene of all
night parties. Three huge tour boats carrying hundreds of screaming and dancing people
wove in and out of the anchored sailboats day and night. We were part of the scenery! The
parties lasted until dawn, and we couldn’t figure out how the revelers could survive
the volume of the music, stay up all night, and torment us all day on jet skis. We finally
resorted to wearing earplugs to bed. After Easter, it was time to move on to Isla
Providencia, another Colombian island fifty miles northeast.
We sailed
out of the reef encircling San Andres, and headed toward Providencia accompanied by our
friends Bill and Melinda on Sovereign. It was slow going in 20-knot headwinds and six foot
seas on our bow. This is called “slogging”. Within a few hours, Sovereign
radioed us that their transmission had failed and they were heading back to San Andres.
What bad news!! We continued on knowing that their repairs could take weeks. A few hours
later we had our own problems. Our tough Roberson Autopilot failed. We resorted to our
backup Autohelm that did fine in the conditions. We would have to think about solving the
autopilot problem in Providencia. We arrived
in Isla Providencia after dark. It was a slow trip averaging four knots in heavy seas. As
the day wore on, we became nervous knowing that we couldn’t make it into the harbor
before dark. We had been told the entrance to the harbor is “doable” at night.
It was a white-knuckle experience inching through shoals and around coral heads, following
the red and green buoys for a half-mile toward the shallow bay. We reminded ourselves to
NEVER do this again. Friends on Ensueno and Mystique were waiting in the anchorage and
helped guide us in on the VHF radio. We collapsed with relief at 10pm after anchoring
safely in eight feet of water.
Providencia
is a delightful island with laid-back people who claim English buccaneer heritage. The
services are minimal but we welcomed that. There wasn’t a jet ski in sight. We spent
almost a week enjoying peace and quiet. We did a little snorkeling and visited often with
friends in the anchorage. It was fun to discover that the local delicacy here is
“crab”. During the rainy season the crabs migrate from the hills to the ocean to
spawn. The roads are closed as a carpet of pink crabs moves down the mountain covering the
hills, yards, and roads. All the tiny rustic restaurants offered crab soup, crab claws,
crabmeat sandwiches, and crab salad. While
anchored in Providencia we e-mailed the Robertson factory in Miami. They answered us
immediately and helped us diagnose our autopilot problem. The electric drive motor needed
to be repaired. It was a miracle to find the teacher of the technical school in
Providencia able to make our repair. What luck!! Our next
passage was a long one. We planned a two-night trip north around Cabo Gracias a Dios and
then west to the Bay Islands of Honduras. We watched the weather carefully as this passage
would be through shoals and treacherous reefs. We chose to go north around Media Luna Reef
and just south of the Gorda Banks. The weather was predicted to be relatively mild with
twenty-knot winds and 4-6 foot seas. The wind came from the east-southeast as we left at
dawn on Saturday. We were
comfortable the first day and night, making fast time. As we turned west toward Honduras
the weather conditions became much more intense. The seas grew to 8-10 feet and the winds
were steady at thirty knots. At least we were going the right direction. We’d hate to
try to bash east. The second night was dark and gloomy with wind gusts up to 35 knots. We
were very focused on controlling Limerence. The night seemed longer than usual. We had
three reefs in the mainsail and a tiny jib out. Limerence was hunkered down and moving
like a roaring train with the rail in the water. When we arrived in Guanaja – the
first of the Bay Islands of Honduras, we had made a record 55-hour passage. We averaged
6.5 knots for the 363-mile trip.
The first
thing we noticed after anchoring in Guanaja was that many of the trees on the mountains
were dead sticks. The locals told us stories about Hurricane Mitch that hung over the
island for 55 hours almost five years ago. Everything on the island was stripped away and
the people suffered terribly. Over ten thousand people on the mainland of Honduras were
killed. Fishing and shrimping had to be stopped for a year because the nets pulled up a
gruesome haul. The coral reef was destroyed. The economy of Honduras will suffer for years
because of Hurricane Mitch. We empathized with local residents who told us their personal
stories of horror. We joined a
group of twelve sailboats at anchor in a quiet bay east of the Guanaja settlement village.
We have never seen such a village. It is in the center of the harbor on a coral reef. The
tiny clapboard houses and stores are side by side with canals running through the village.
Many of the buildings teeter on stilts over the water. We assume the settlement was built
this way to take advantage of cooling winds. The friendly people were helpful and we even
found a woman to do our laundry. The tiny grocery stores had a surprising variety of foods
and fresh vegetables. Over the week we spent in Guanaja, the winds continued to build and
blew at near gale force day and night. With friends
Ensueno and Mystique, we broke away from Guanaja and sailed ten miles southwest to the
island of Roatan. We anchored in Port Royal. The trip was very fast with large following
seas and high winds. The Bay Islands of Honduras continued to be thrashed with
unforecasted high winds for the next three weeks. We felt like prisoners in Paradise. The
days were sunny and bright, but the wind was relentless. We couldn’t swim or snorkel
in the conditions, and dinghy rides were real soakers. In the late afternoon, the wind
blew harder. It was always gale force at night with gusts over forty. Our anchor held
tight, but we felt tense and concerned about the conditions. Limerence became salt
encrusted and we got irritable and grouchy from lack of sleep.
A highlight
of our time in Roatan was a Sunday barbeque at a tiny oasis in Jonesville Bight called
“Hole in the Wall Bar”. The bar teeters on stilts over the water and looks like
a scene from Gilligan’s Island. We took a van down island and met many cruiser
friends whose voices we had heard on the SSB radio. After a delicious lunch, a local
cruiser’s group called the “Back Before Dark” band serenaded us. The winds
slowly calmed to twenty knots average, and it was time for us to leave the Bay Islands and
begin our trip north to Mexico. Because of the high wind and sea conditions, we decided to
forgo visiting Belize. Our passage to Isla Mujeres/Cancun Mexico was very rough for the
first 24 hours. We clipped on our life vests and harnessed ourselves into the cockpit
enduring very steep breaking waves until latitude 18 degrees north. It was with great
relief that the seas calmed after passing the Chinchorro Islands of Mexico. We caught a
1.5-knot current that carried us north with only a small jib flying to Isla Mujeres. When we dropped anchor in the gin-clear waters of
Isla Mujeres/Cancun, we had completed another record speed passage. Our next trip will be
to Key West Florida. Fair winds
friends, Doug and Judy |
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