From Santa Marta to Cartagena, we had a stop at Rodadero and Puerto Valero
leaving the bay and the skyline of Santa Marta playa Lipo a little south of Santa Martaour first anchorage just a couple of miles around the corner, Playa El Rodadero, this place was a very touristic place, lots of Colombian tourists come hereand many boats came buy to take a picture of us🤣, not many sailing boats stop therethose guys even asked if they could take photosand a first sunset back at anchorRodadero at night
DOLPHINS!!!!!!!!!approaching the anchorage of Puerto Valeroat anchor in front of the little marinalooking south direction Cartagena early in the morning on our way to Cartagenaapproaching Cartagena
Our first evening in Cartagena
very sportive peopleClub de Pescaand another beautiful muralStreet in Getsemani, a pretty quarter of Cartagename admiring the building ?
anybody need some boots?Getsemani by night
Dismantling of the steering pedestal
opening the tight big screwsfrom top down removing gently all the instrumentsand the gear clutchhere we reached the bottom Altimate without steering pedestal
We did not explore a lot of Cartagena. Most of the time we were working on Altimate to get our projects done. Still of course sometimes we sneaked out of the marina and jumped into the bustling city.
Plaza de la Trinidada typical street vendor, sausages were on his menuerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrra fiesta at Parque Lácides Segovia in Manga, here with some of the Occ members after meeting up at Club de PescaMuelle de los PegasosPuerta de Reloja fountain next to El Centernario Plazaside entrance of the cathedral Santa Catalina de Alejandriaa typical street in the historical centrePlaza de Bolivarsomebody famous at Plaza Bolivarhaving a coffee at a cafe using their wifi like in Santa Marta the locals often use simple hand trucks for transportationpretty balconiesearly morning workout at the fort of San Sebastian del Pastelillo just next to thye marinanot a bad view to do your workoutPlaza de San Pedro Clavermuseum de San Pedro de Claver Plaza de la Aduanahe was visiting us each day at our platformPlaza de Santa Teresa at the south east end of the wall the view from the anchorage of Cartagena direction old cityhigh tide and the streets and parking lots were flooded each timea night out with the crew of Ruffian, Iain and Fiona
Some more projects…
left corner done, yeah!right corner done, yes!chaosbackbord side done, coming to an end…and bam! all done, yipppeeeeeeeelots of bits and pieces to set together before sewingfirst frame done, two more to go and finally sewed on top of the bimini
After all the work was done we went out for a free city tour with Ruffian. That turned out to be the most boring tour ever. We sneaked out of the group and had a coffee instead. Result was I only took two pics
Cartagena “fruit” women trying to make some money of tourists with taking pics of themwe were all happy to have escaped the city tour… off o find a nice coffee bar
Leaving Club de Pesca to sail to Manzanillo Marina Club to do the big refit
Fortunately we had an airbnb back in Manga. The nice quarter were also Club de Pesca was located. Manzanillo was a rather scary area to be. The Marina was safe but the surrounding was not safe at all. Especially after sunset it was recommended not to be outside as some narcos groups were controlling the area. So we just came and left by taxi, like everybody else. Not interested in any trouble. I was the lucky one as most of the time I stayed in Manga. It didn’t make sense that the two of us would be at the marina as the work was mostly done by the marina staff. My duty was already buying non-perishable groceries for provisioning, preparing some other sewing projects and looking after El Capitano when he came back late at night😉.
leaving Club de Pesca, the fort at Cartagena anchoragethe view to the old towna bit hard to see, passing a submarinethe big container harbourBajo de la virgin, in the centre of Cartagena bayhe followed us …the giant giraffesreaching Manzanillo Marina Club – it was a pretty entrancethe poor guy had to jump into the not so clean looking water to dive underneath Altimate to get the strings to the other sideand out she wasmany barnaclesyes, she needed a new antifoulingfirst day at the marina we ordered the local lunch, fish or beef with rice, beans, salad, a soup and beverages for only US dollar 2,50 the view from close to our airbnbjust prettyour tiny airbnb, I think it used to be a garage. The shower was underneath the staircase, it was smaller than our head on Altimate😂eventually the lifting keel got removedbecause he had time, El Capitano sanded the cockpit tabler, it looks so much better!!!!after a lot of sweating and struggle the first slider was removed a holder for the slider, don’t know how to explain this pictureall the sanding done in between all those busy days I was lucky to have.a girly day out with Fionafinal preparation for the first layerlooked so much better back in Manga in the evening again high tide, the street was floodeedon my way to another supermarket I passed Castillo de San Felipe de Barajasit was so funny to find that in the supermarket, not that we wanted it but stillthe last parts to be sanded and painted -where the support legs were mountedall done and back in the water, some of the workers of the marina crewand finally back at anchor in Cartagena bay, El Capitano inflating our new dinghy we bought a couple of month ago in St Martin
SY Altimate 
Woww all these photos are wonderful and this place is very beautiful 🙂
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