We left Santa Cruz Bay at 06h30 on the 27th June and sailed off on a long port tack north of Aruba, which we could just make out in the distance and then out into the Caribbean Sea until we had the angle to tack back towards the Colombian coast.

We do not have many pictures as it was strong winds and big seas and we were just paying attention. More wind than the Predictwind models suggested and higher seas.

When we approached the Colombian coast (about 25NM off), we turned and started to run down the coast towards Santa Marta.

We downloaded a satellite weather routing update from Predictwind, which suggested tacking out to sea again and then tacking back again about two thirds down the coast.

We decided to carry on running. They however, were right.

At about 17h30 on the 28th, the wind suddenly and violently changed direction and intensity (from about 23 knots to above 40 knots) and we were swung over violently in huge seas. There was some fortunately minor damage in breaking a slide on the mainsail but thankfully everything else held well.

We had several such weather surges but other than getting pooped a bit from bigger breaking waves, all went well and we caught sight of the wonderful mountains and soon arrived in Santa Marta, well ahead of schedule.

We had not seen a single other yacht, either visually or on AIS, the entire trip.

Tired and feeling a bit battered, it was great to be greeted by John and Bev of Dandelion, who had arrived some time before from Cuba.