Author: Juan

By the time we had all the paperwork in order in Colombia, we were more than ready to leave the country, but then the weather didn’t cooperate. It was Thursday, and it looked like a good weather window would not open until the following Tuesday. Problem was, because bureaucracy and weekends don’t go together, if you want to leave on a Tuesday you have to start the exit paperwork to get a zarpe (an exit clearance document) four days earlier. And if you end up not leaving, then you are up for a lot more paperwork because, technically, you’d be reentering the country (yes, without leaving port). Relying on a forecast five days ahead was too much of a bet, so we decided to leave on Saturday. Destination: Panama, some 350 nautical miles away. Even though we were going to get rougher conditions than if we waited, we like certainty, and we avoided a scenario where, if the forecast for Tuesday changed, we’d be forced to choose between even worse weather, or more delays and headaches to undo the failed zarpe and get a new one. To dodge the brunt of the wind, we scheduled a stop in Puerto Velero—we’d rest for night and take refuge from the near-gale winds that blow almost every night on the Colombian coast. We believe it was legal for us to do a rest stop there, but preferred not to ask too much.

The Colombian authorities keep a tight control of their waters. I forgot we had to announce our departure from Santa Marta; we had barely left the marina when we were called on the radio and asked about our intentions. They are very friendly though.

Next, several hours later, we encountered the mouth of the mighty Magdalena River, which meets the Caribbean Sea near Barranquilla. When you approach it, you can see a sharp line that divides the deep blue sea water and the murky brown water from the river. Even though I had been told the transition is incredibly sudden, I was still surprised. When you cross that line you know that, one, the seas are going to get rougher, because the current opposes the wind, and, two, you have to pay extra attention for possible obstacles that, they say, may include school buses dragged by the river’s powerful current. Since it was the end of the dry season we didn’t really see much debris, save a log or two.

The waves did get steeper and more frequent, and the ride got quite shaky–much like the rinse cycle of a washing machine, if you’ve ever experienced that. To get the most favorable wind angle we were tacking downwind, and in one of those tacks we were pointing to the shoals on the river’s East bank. Of course we were going to switch tacks long before hitting the shoals, but before that we got a call from the zealous Barranquilla Control Station advising us that we were headed to a dangerous area. We made it to Puerto Velero at the end of the day. Once anchored I dived to get our speedometer unstuck, but the water was so murky I could barely see beyond my nose. Puerto Velero is one of the ugliest anchorages we’ve visited, second only to Willoughby Bay in the Chesapeake. I guess the only reason people use them is because they both offer good protection in a very convenient location.

From there it was two days and two nights to Panama. During the day we had a gray, overcast, featureless, boring sky. The monotony was only broken by a flying fish that somehow managed to fly straight through the slit of a barely open window to land on my foot. It scared the beejezus out of me. At night we had the noctilucas show that lighted the path behind us.

As we approached Panama the last night, big ship traffic increased. We had to call two cargo ships to make sure they wouldn’t run over us. The helmsman of the first one cheerfully offered with an Indian accent to change his course by 15 degrees. The second helmsman with an Eastern European accent said “don’t worry, we’ll pass almost a mile from you”. Okay… I hope you’re right.

Soon after sunrise of the second morning, we could see land again, and were greeted to Panama by a playful pod of dolphins. What a delightful welcome committee!

With a new country came new formalities. We anchored in Linton Bay and went first to Ports Authority to get a cruising permit. From there we had to take a taxi to Portobelo, a small and sleepy town, to do immigration. Next, to complete the process (and this is a first) we were sent to… the town’s pharmacy! I’ll take your guesses as to what we had to do there.

We welcomed ourselves to Panama and went to rest to be ready to continue to San Blas early next morning.

The sun had already set behind Klein Bonaire island, but there was still a hint of twilight. We kept waiting, wet and cold, drinking hot tea in Ñandú’s cockpit. We were still in our wetsuits, after setting a weighted line dangling from the dinghy, and practicing diving down the line with our eyes closed. We were waiting for the total darkness of a moonless night to jump back into the water.

40 minutes after sunset, we donned our fins and masks again, and jumped in. The scene was spectacular. The disturbance we created in the water stimulated the luminescent noctilucas (noctiluca scintillans, or sea sparkle). We were immersed in a galaxy of thousands of bright stars moving and floating around us, everywhere. The effect was magnified by the darkness and our eyes adapted to the conditions. It wasn’t what we expected, though, so I dived down the line in search of the mysterious ostracods, but didn’t see much of a difference down there.

It was a scuba diver friend in Chile who relentlessly insisted we had to see the ostracods when she saw the picture below and figured we were in Bonaire. She claimed it was the most incredible thing she’s seen underwater. Ostracods are small crustaceans that squirt a luminescent goo as part of their mating ritual. The show lasts for less than one hour, and starts promptly with total darkness for a few nights after a full moon, peaking on the fifth night. She experienced them by scuba diving to a coral reef after sunset and quietly waiting at depth for the show. It wasn’t clear you could witness the ostracods display without scuba gear, but we were not going to fail by lack of trying.

We kept enjoying the amazing noctiluca show until Kathy shouted “Snake! Snake! It tried to bite my fin!” Since we were anchored in front of town, the street lights provided just enough illumination to distinguish shapes close to the surface. Even though I thought she had mistaken a piece of rope by a living creature, I quickly followed her out of the water.

After a few minutes we hesitantly went back in, motivated by a new form of luminescence that we started distinguishing occasionally here and there, more in line with what we expected from ostracods. It didn’t take long until I myself was attacked by the sea monster, as if punished by having doubted my trusty partner. I saw it coming straight to my face. The former piece of rope was now a fast and furious whipping serpentine of undeniable flesh about two feet long. That marked the abrupt end of the show for us. Night’s tally: half a dozen faint ostracod lights (but thousands of bright noctilucas!).

We did our due internet research the next day, and concluded the attacker could not have been a sea snake, as they don’t exist in the Caribbean. It was most likely a sharp nose eel, even though they rarely leave their burrows at the sea bottom, and this thing was at the surface, eight meters above the sea floor—and crazily attacking harmless humans!

The next night we executed plan B: rent a car to try another location, farther from the lights of town. We also rented a diving flashlight from a scuba dive shop and asked the attendants to recommend a place we could see the ostracods close to shore. They seemed kinda lost but did suggest a diving site that had coral reef not far from land. We drove there, waited under the rain for nightfall, performed the dancing ritual to get into our wetsuits, and halfheartedly entered into the water in almost total darkness. It was a rocky shore and there was some small waves breaking, making things unappealing. There was only one obvious point of entry, and my concern was that the current could move us around and make us miss that point at the time of exiting. In the background there was a faintly illuminated house that I registered as a reference to identify our exit point. We swam perpendicular to the shoreline until we saw coral under us. We turned the flashlight off, held hands, and waited, looking down, breathing through our snorkels while floating weightlessly. And waited. And waited some more. We saw nothing. Just plain and uniform darkness. Night’s tally: zero ostracod lights.

So, another night, another plan. Plan C was a rather lose one: just go to our favorite beach, enjoy a romantic evening with wine and cheese and improvise from there. And boy, did that pay off! The evening and sunset at the beach was indeed lovely—we don’t need no stinky ostracods to enjoy that. After sunset we had the entire beach to ourselves. A quiet, dark, starry and positively romantic night followed. And then, on a hunch and with no expectations, we hiked to a lookout point on the rocks at the end of the beach. The point juts out from a low cliff, so you are right above deep water. We were rewarded with the most striking show of sea lights we have seen… and without even getting wet! The only thing we couldn’t understand is why we were the only ones there. Night’s tally: hundreds of ostracod lights!

I don’t have pictures of the ostracods show, but in lieu of them I have more picture of Bonaire. Now, what are we doing back in Bonaire? Well, the seas between the ABC islands and Colombia are known for the potential to offer the worst conditions in the Caribbean, and by some accounts the passage ranks among the top five worst ones in the world (although to be fair, I presume that’s valid only if you’re crazy enough to do the passage in the wrong direction: west to east). So we’re just waiting for milder conditions, that typically start in April, and decided to do part of that wait in our beloved Bonaire (and part of it in California, where we flew to spend a few weeks).

Carnaval, another Bonairean colorful display

Washington Slagbaai National Park