The Secret Cove

(Continued from Post 1     and 2   of sailing to Colombia)

The seas grew minute by minute we raced to the boat and managed to pull up the anchor in record time. Especially considering that the swell of the seas had gotten so rough that the bow was now dipping into the sea before coming up high enough to see the beginning of the keel. With John man-handeling the anchor, Paul on the wheel and me waving a bunch of kids foolish enough to be swimming out to us away Sunrunner headed back out to sea. As we wearily watched Riohacha fade away behind us we prepared for another all-nighter until the next possible anchorage. Though we did get a few smaller squalls and some drenching rain falls in the early half of the night by the time the midnight watch was winding down the wind had disappeared completely. It is said that you always have either too much or too little wind when out sailing. This night was a case and point. My watch was from around 2 am for three hours, but as John had to practically pull up the anchor by hand in Riohacha, due to the rough sea conditions, I decided to let him sleep longer. Plus, I have always loved night-watch all alone with my trusty shuffle providing the background music. Enveloped by the dark night and sea with only Orian as your fellow company is not a bad way to spend a few quiet hours of your life.

With no wind we were barely making a couple of  knots. It did not truly matter  as we were off schedule anyway with the mad-dash out of Riohacha it worked out better to be barely moving and just waiting for the sun to rise. We were looking for Rio Palamino and were sailing only a mile or two offshore. In the dead of night as we were very, very slowly approaching land I started to see lights from shore. Not knowing the topography it was very disconcerting to see red lights hanging in various heights along the coast. Normally at sea you can tell a lot by the lights you see on the horizon. Red, green, and white at dirfferent alignments can tell you what type of ship going in what direction even if you can see nothing else. Thus seeing random placed red lights up high and low with randlomly flahsing white lights was starting to play games with my mind. When the sun finally began to rise I saw the reason for the floating lights, the land rose dramatically out of the water and shot up into mountains. The lights were from power poles strung through the mountains. The long and tiring night was rewarded by one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. From the ocean looking east onto land we saw rising up, white beaches, then lush tropical green jungle hills, then behind it the snow capped mountains of the Andes. We all got on deck and watched in awe for at least an hour while we slowly sailed along the coast.

Daybreak on Andes If you look closely you can make out the snow capped peaks

Sunrise

Unfortunately the river we were looking for was not visible from sea, meaning it was obviously too small for us to enter. Having watched the amazing landscape for several hours where we had hoped to anchor and explore this area (and also get some well needed rest). We continued sailing down the coast of Colombia all morning long. The landscape was one of the most dramatic I have seen from a ship before. Cliffs, mountains, beaches, palm trees, water falls, and jungles fought each other for our attention. After another spot we had hoped to explore turned out to be impossible to navigate, we headed for the five bays of the Tyrona National Park, one of Colombia’s biggest national parks. Since we were close to shore we were able to look into all the nooks and crannies that line the shore, hoping to find a good anchorage before the popular third bay where everybody was headed. As we were sailing past the first of the bays that looked iffy on the chart Paul looked back and realized that the bay actually went further back in between the cliffs. He turned the boat around to check it out and as we got closer and closer we all held our breaths…we were watching the depth meter closely…I climbed up onto the mast a little ways to get a better look…because it looked too good to be true. At the back of the bay was a small white sand beach lined with coconut trees with thatched roofed bungalows half hidden in the palms with not another soul around. “It looks like a movie set…” someone muttered.

Glimpse of "Secret Cove"

The BeachAn Excited Alyson

By the time the anchor was set John and I were re-energized enough to jump into the clear water and swim to shore. This is what we were looking for!

Sunrunner Happily Anchored

We spent some 4-5 days in this spot and named it “Secret Cove.” The area inside was a mystery to us, the compound must have been a holiday resort-camp site at one point. There were half-finished Tiki huts, half abandoned and falling apart Tiki huts, a house with a puppy and girly posters on it that looked like no one had been there in a few weeks but could come any moment, but with no road leading in or out. The mystery of where the grounds-men (we just assume) came from was partly answered on our last day there when an old man and boy appeared out of the jungle on donkeys with even more puppies in tow. But until that last day we had the place for ourselves and enjoyed it to the fullest.

Tiki Hut

Colombian Jungle

Jungle Girl

We swam, snorkeled, hiked the overgrown trails around the area, cooked out on the beach one night, made friends with a skittish puppy, pretended to be Robinson Crusoe with huts already made, drank coconut milk, and just played around in the water as if we were kids again. On one of our exploratory hikes in the jungle around the area we kept coming upon large holes in the grown, since they were overgrown we thought it was just where the land had caved. Later on we found out a more interesting story behind the craters. Before the Spaniards arrived in Colombia there was a tribe that lived in this region, not well known and had mostly disappeared without much historical trace and forgotten about until the 1970s when people began discovering artifacts that they had left behind. Broken pieces of pots, tools, but most importantly gold. The holes in the ground come from modern day “grave diggers.” For several decades until regulation stepped in all sorts of people, from weekend tourist just digging for fun or more dedicated men dug around the park looking for gold. Though forbidden to dig today, there are rumors of clandestine grave diggers still. Too bad we didn´t know about this story while we were tromping around the place, I would of kept a much sharper eye on the ground!

mini-sailors launching!

One day we got the hard dingy out and got her all decked out in her sails and went for a sail around the bay. After a while I asked John to drop me off on the beach and while he continued to sail around (we had hardly a breath of wind ) I began collecting the large flat volcanic rock and went about building a camp site. I even found some flat boards left over from the construction of the huts and made us some little benches around the camp fire. By the time John got back from his sail I proudly displayed my handy work to him while we figured out what we had left in the fridge we could use to cook on a fire. I had found a rusty old blade of a machete laying around and a few coconuts. So while we sat around on the beach, John hacked open the coconut and with a cup made from a bamboo stem we had found, we enjoyed some very natural refreshers. The beach BBQ was set for the next night with ribs found still frozen in the bottom of the fridge. John and I went up early to the beach and got the fire started ( the best step) to “slow-cook” the ribs on hot stones. A few hours later Paul showed up with our last bottle of wine and we sat around the fire enjoying our ribs (which came out pretty good for a beach fire) and sharing the bottle of wine. Naturally we had remembered everything except for glasses!

Skills Learned From Robinson, Aly Proud with her beach set up

Coconut Milk With Bamboo Cups

Fresh Coconut

Captain Paul Relaxing

We were even were treated to a giant rainbow...

The bay was tranquil while we were there but due to the fact that it opened up into the north I imagine that when the wind blows like normal it would not have been as comfortable an anchorage as we enjoyed.

 After the forth or fifth day with supplies getting a little low, no more wine or beer onboard! We decided to head out and check out the “main” anchorage of the five bays. It was only about five miles away and in a few hours we set anchor in the third bay. Having not seen anyone other than ourselves for the past week it felt as if we had entered into civilization because of the seven other cruising yachts and a small village on shore. Though we were planning on staying for a few days the Coast Guard showed up around four in the afternoon informing us that since we were still not cleared into the country we had to leave by four in the morning. Though the Coast Guard was well within their rights and were decently polite, every cruiser and yacht was disappointed to leave the safe and picturesque bay. We debated stopping along some other points on the way to our final destination, Cartagena, but ended up deciding to just do an over-nighter and arrive in the morning in Cartagena.