Cruising Daydreams | Colombia

Thanks to the Graphics Fairy for these awesome clock images!

While I'm sitting here in Indiantown Marina waiting out hurricane season and wishing Scott would get back from Scotland, I spend my time daydreaming of places we might go once we get back out on the water. Like I did for Cuba, I've been doing some research on the internet, checking out blogs from people who have been to Columbia, as well as other resources.

I use the term research loosely here. Research is one of those dreary words that reminds me of my days in graduate school sitting in the library leafing through dusty books on French colonialism in West Africa. That was a real slog, which wasn't helped at all by the fact that the librarians never let you eat chocolate chip cookies while you were studying. Nowadays, my idea of research is to lounge inside my air conditioned boat surrounded by various snack food items and goof around on the internet for hours. Some people might say that this kind of research is actually a form of procrastination from boat projects. {Or, should that read "procrastination of boat projects"? Grammar can be a real pain sometimes. Sometimes, it's hard to believe they let me in grad school given my issues with punctuation and prepositions.}

If you're looking to do a little research on Colombia or just want to do a bit of procrastination from {or of?} some horrible and tedious projects you have on your to do list, then check these links out below.

Cruising in Colombia Links

S/V Earthling - S/V Earthling is seriously one of the best boat names ever! Of course not as good as S/V Tickety Boo, but that goes without saying. The Earthling landed in Colombia in 2013 and Captain Reza describes the hassles and cost involved in clearing in on his blog. 

This American Girl - Normally an overland traveler, "this American girl" took a five day sailing excursion from Panama through the San Blas islands to Cartenga, Colombia. Turns out she picked the wrong boat - no showers, no fridge, no ice and plenty of seasickness. (Sounds a bit like the boat we had in New Zealand, minus the seasickness part.) The captain took drugs and forgot to collect everyone's passports. An interesting account of how not to sail to Colombia.

Caribbean Compass - An overview of cruising in Colombia written in 2011. Lots of useful information including the Spanish phrase, Hable despacio por favor, which I think means can you please speak slowly. Only one problem - I don't speak Spanish, so no matter how slowly they speak, I still won't understand.

More Joy Everywhere - Back when Scott was trying to convince me to chuck it all in, buy a sailboat and go cruising, he told me about this blog. It was the first sailing blog I had ever read. I think it was probably the first blog of any kind I had ever read. I loved it and started to think Scott might be onto something with this cruising notion of his. The crew of More Joy (who sadly aren't cruising anymore) spent many months in Colombia. They've got a whole slew of posts about their time there. Well worth a read.

Fortunes Afloat - Laura and and her husband first sailed to Mexico in their 20s. Now they're retired and back out on the water. They have a number of blog posts about their time in Colombia. I found the one on getting prescriptions filled at a drugstore in Cartanega particularly interesting. It always amazes me how much cheaper medical care and prescriptions are outside of the States.

Sundowner Sails Again - Tate and Dani recently cruised in Colombia on their Westsail 32 (they're currently in the San Blas Islands in Panama, another place we want to go). Their pictures of snorkeling at Providencia Island are amazing. Definitely on our to do list.

S/V Orion 1 - Deb and John are currently cruising in Colombia and have also explored parts of Colombia by land.

Noonsite - A great resource for all things cruising. It's reassuring to hear them report that patrols by the US Coast Guard on the Caribbean coast have made this area one of the safer places to cruise in the world. Having said that, there was an incident last month in Islas del Rossario where a Dutch boat was boarded and one person killed.

Do you have any Colombia travel resources to share? If so, leave details in the comments section, send us an email or connect with us on Facebook so I can add them to the list.

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