The 5 Bays

Sunday, January 20, 2002

011-19.140 N
074-6.420 W

Columbia is a land of surprises, and very pleasant ones at that. This is by far the most civilized and modern of countries that I've visited anywhere along my treks, except maybe for the US Virgin Islands. If it weren't for all of the internal strife, I would highly recommend Columbia as a tourist destination!

My last report was from Cabo de Vale, which was barren desert. The next day we departed late in the afternoon for a 120+ nm sail to "The 5 Bays". There has been a persistent weather system which has been generating high winds along the Columbian coast, and once again we weren't disappointed. For the first 5 or 6 hours we sailed with only the jib up and were doing about 7 kts. Later that evening the winds died down and we added a double reefed main and had a pleasant, fast sail to the 5 Bays.

As the sun rose we were tantalized with glimpses of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, which is the highest coastal mountain range in the world with 19,000 foot snow covered peaks. These mountains rise right out of the ocean and are very impressive. The 5 Bays remind me of Norwegian fiords, with deep fingers of water surrounded by steep hills covered with green trees, some of which appeared to be coco.

At the end of Guayraca bay, we anchored along a very nice beach and put out lots of chain, as we had been warned about very high winds that blow down out of the mountains at night. We had several locals swim out to welcome us. We took the dinghies into shore and met a man who would take us into the forest to show us the "excavations" of an ancient burial site the next day After a beer at the local beach bar, we headed back to the boats for the night.

The winds that we had been warned of definitely appeared! The winds, which we clocked at up to 60 kts suddenly blast you from any direction for about 30 seconds. This happens for a good part of the night. The noise is amazing and the boat sails madly at anchor. The anchor held just fine, so other than a poor nights sleep, everything was fine.

The next day we met our guide who took us into the excavations, which I would more classifyas the grave robberies. This area, which is a national park, has been excavated for about 30 years by the locals. Their whole purpose is to find the ora (gold) and ceramics with no attempt to preserve any record of what was found. The whole area is pockmarked with deep holes where they dis-interned large pots containing the remains of Arawack (?) Indians who were buried there in the 1500s. He also showed us beautiful gold and ceramic pieces that he had discovered and had for sale. As much as I would have loved to have had a piece, I couldn't bring myself to be part of this travesty.

After the tour we decided to head off to Rodadero to escape the high winds. We were treated to 30-40 kt winds and 10+ foot seas, but made the trip just fine. To say that we were amazed when we rounded the point to Rodadero and saw high rises and beaches packed with vacationers would be an understatement. But I'll write more about this later.

Log ID: 158