The last hurdle of the passage is crossing the mouth of Rio Magdalena – Colombia’s largest river. Like at any other large river outlet, the current exiting the river meeting the ocean waves attempting to push into the river create confused seas, but we’re fortunate that the wind has dropped to 20-25kts by the time we reach the brown, silty runoff from land.
And a few hours later, Oso drops anchor in the shelter of the long sandbar at Puerto Velero and the trip from St Martin to Colombia is complete.
With the current US military activity along the coast of Venezuela, we were a bit more apprehensive than with a typical passage. Angie found an military email address that could be used for vessels in the area to file a float plan – we did so, but of course received no acknowledgement. In the end, despite being less than 100nm from the coast of Venezuela near the end of the trip we were a little bit surprised to see absolutely zero sign of any military activity – there were no abnormal boats sighted, no strange returns on the radar, and no aircraft buzzing around the skies. Just the way we like it!
Any landfall after a multi-day passage is sweet, and this one is no exception. We’re greeted by friendly waves and thumbs-ups from a fishing panga as we enter the bay, and once the anchor is down we savor the satisfaction associated with having our home in a new country on a new continent.
Passage summary
Total distance: 833nm
Total time: 4 days, 6 hours
Average speed: 8.1 kts (that’s an average of ~195nm/day for 4 days in a row – really fast for a heavy cruising boat!)
Maximum number of flying fish on deck at sunrise: 8 (probably a record!)
