Friday, November 14, 2025

Suledub, 206NM SW of Cartagena

The second wind did indeed come, and we were able to sail with a pleasant light beam reach until just past midnight. Then it was engine on, and nose towards Puerto Obaldia.

We made landfall at dawn, with a beautiful misty and mountainous rainforest landscape opening before us. This is the famous Darien Gap. We just had to play some Vangelis.

Anchor went down at 7:00. Then a quick shower, coffee, and the dinghy into the water. We landed at the local beach and went through the Panamanian border formalities. Immigration, maritime authorities, and the border police later we had been stamped them into the country.

The Puerto Obaldia anchorage was quite rolly, and so three hours after arrival we packed the dinghy, hoisted anchor, and motored on into Guna Yala proper. This is an autonomous region inhabited by the indigenous Guna people.

We sailed past the bay of New Caledonia of the ill-fated Scottish Darien Scheme, and were soon met by the dinghy from Plan B. They guided us through the pass into the Suledub anchorage. Now we have a beautiful archipelago to explore!

• Distance today: 77NM
• Lunch: chicken with rice
• Engine hours: 10.4

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Caribbean Sea, 129NM SW of Cartagena

During the evening and night the wind both picked up and veered, so we could sail first on a beam reach, and later on a broad reach. Seas were quite lumpy, but the windvane kept us nicely on the course. There’s some shipping around, mostly from the Panama Canal to Cartagena, but radio traffic was at minimal.

In the morning the wind slowly reduced, until we had to start the engine just before noon. Panama is known for its light winds, and being able to sail even 2/3s of this passage meant this was a good weather window. Let’s see if there’s another patch of wind before we reach the coast.

A notable milestone for today is that we crossed 90°W on the Gothia Meridian (77°W on Greenwich).

• Distance today: 106NM
• Lunch: pea soup
• Engine hours: 4.5

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Caribbean Sea, 23NM SW of Cartagena

Our time in Cartagena de Indias was amazing. Last night we had an excellent fairwell dinner at Club Pesca with Graham and Mandy from Mir.

In the morning we cleared the boat into sea condition and dropped the mooring ball and headed out, this time through the Boca Chica. There you need to get your timing right with the traffic, as the channel is narrow and the other boats big. After getting through, we hoisted the main and genoa and are now slowly tacking towards southwest wind on the nose.

• Distance today: 23.2NM
• Lunch: salad
• Engine hours: 2.2

Friday, November 7, 2025

Cartagena - Cartagena

The first two weeks in Cartagena de Indias have gone quickly. Of course some boat projects, but mainly enjoying the sights and the offerings of a proper big city. Especially the Halloween out in Getsemani was quite memorable!

Next week is the celebration of the city’s independence, and because of this, our anchorage will be closed. So today we hoisted anchor, visited the quite attractively priced fuel dock, and picked a mooring close to the Club Nautico.

The mooring field is less protected from the wake of the tour boats, and so early morning and around sunset is quite the washing machine. The no-wake zone of anchorage Foxtrot was nicer for that.

• Distance today: 0.5NM
• Engine hours: 0.4

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Cartagena, 466NM WSW of Spanish Water

In the night we got to enjoy yet another free shower. In the darkness we could see a shape of a rain cloud, so genoa went in and mainsail down just as the downpour began. This time luckily without significant wind. The rain kept pouring for good couple of hours until it subsided to a mere drizzle. The current against made our progress slow, but finally at 7:30 we passed the Boca Grande sea wall! I’m thankful for whoever decided to open a small vessel entrance to it by blowing up a hole to it, as it made our arrival faster.

At 8:00 we were passing the naval base of Cartagena de Indies and were greeted by a whistle and the national anthem as the navy had a flag hoisting ceremony just as we passed. What a way to come in!

Soon after we found our corner of the anchorage, close to the old city wall. This anchorage is still on a no wake zone, and it was recommended to us by the lovely crew of Breezen. It is always best, when you have the lay of the land before arriving.

Now we are in the middle of entry formalities and have a bit of time to get the boat sorted back to life at anchor. There is still time to kill before continuing our way westward.

• Distance today: 53NM
• Engine hours: 10.4

Monday, October 20, 2025

Caribbean Sea, 413NM WSW of Spanish Water

The brisk sailing winds of the day picked up to a full gale at night. We dropped the main completely and kept sailing downwind at 6-7 knots pulled just by the staysail. Big seas, but self-steering was able to keep things under control.

Passing the Magdalena river, our blue Caribbean waters turned into a grey muck. We kept sailing on, keeping a watchful eye for the occasional floating debris. Our timing had worked out getting here at daytime.

Winds here in Colombia seem to be a feast and a famine. The 40 knot winds of the night ended like a wall in the morning, and since then, we’ve been alternatively motoring or sailing slowly towards southwest. We have to bide our time in order to have a daytime arrival.

• Distance today: 113NM
• Lunch: pyttipannu
• Engine hours: 3.2

Sunday, October 19, 2025

Caribbean Sea, 300NM W of Spanish Water

As the night came we prepared for increasing winds by putting a second reef in the main. The night flew by with the wind pilot steering us reliably.

The night was dark and filled with flying fish going everywhere. TWO even managed to fly straight in from the companionway. It is a weid wakeup when a fish is flapping on the floor next to your bed.

The current is still pushing us a long making this a very fast day.

• Distance today: 145NM
• Lunch: lentil coconut curry
• Engine hours: 0

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Caribbean Sea, 155NM W of Spanish Water

The pleasant sailing conditions carried on until midnight. At that point, the ominous flashing in the horizon caught up to us, and the thunderstorm delivered a whopping 45kt gust. Thankfully, the genoa had already been rolled away as precaution, and the mainsail was reefed.

After a very wet sail stowage operation, we proceeded motoring west. There was intense lightning all around, but none came directly above us. But they did steal our wind.

And so motoring continued in nearly millpond conditions. In the morning, a pod of dolphins came to see us. This time stayed for quite while, playing in our bow.

Finally, just before noon, the wind picked up enough to sail. Now, we are passing by the northernmost cape on Colombia under wing-on-wing, with a speedy current powering us along.

• Distance today: 120NM
• Lunch: feta salad
• Engine hours: 12

Friday, October 17, 2025

Caribbean Sea, 35NM W of Spanish Water

The day started with making the boat sailing ready. Even though we had already few days ago started stowing everything to its correct place, there was still a myriad of things to do. After such a long break we were glad of our checklists to support the poor little brain struggling to change from a land lubber back to a sailor.

As we were through with the list Henry and Adele from A Touch of Destiny came by with a pot of coffee and four cups. “This is a mandatory coffee break time” they proclaimed. And what a good idea it was to have a nice little break in the midst of the preparations.

And then, we were so far. It was time to hoist the anchor! Our trick had worked ok, the anchor was not quite as full of growth as on Monday when we let out seven more meters in hopes of the chain rattling against the sandy bottom would rub itself clean.

As we waved our goodbyes to Spanish Water and the friendships we have created during this time, we were off to the sea again! We were greeted by a glassy calm see with just enough of breeze to sail, so we could hoist the main and roll out the genoa and enjoy the first miles of sailing in a loooong time.

Later the wind dropped down to next to nothing , so we motored for four hours.

While motoring, a pod of dolphins came to inspect the miracle of Lille Ø on the move. Now we are sailing to the sunset on a beam reach after a lovely dinner trying to find the sea legs that have clearly fallen asleep in Curaçao.

Kippis Bernhard and Allison!

• Distance today: 35NM
• Engine hours: 4
• Lunch: spaghetti with avocado sauce

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Project Season

The saying goes: when the ToDo list for your boat is empty, it is time to sell the boat because you clearly don’t love it anymore. No fear of that for us in the hot climate of Curaçao. In the past five months, Lille Ø has undergone a major transformation. The biggest undertaking we took was to build a hard dodger instead of the sprayhood that was quickly falling apart in the unforgiving bombartment of tropical sun.

While in Curaçao we finished the following projects:

Structural / hard dodger

• Moved bridgedeck higher by 20cm and shortened the lower washboard
• Built a cockpit box for the liferaft
• Removed teak deck from hatch garage
• Glassed the front part of hatch garage shut
• Built a hard dodger
• Installed gas struts for the hard dodger safari window
• New custom sun tarp between the hard dodger and the solar arch
• Custom 3D printed solar panel mounts for the hard dodger
• Added amber LEDs outside the dodger for improved visibility at anchor
• Built a center console above the companionway for instruments
• Added amber LED behind the center console for mood lighting
• Set up a kitchen garden under the dodger
• Fabricated and installed new external chainplates for the aft stays
• Glassed the old instrument mounting holes closed
• New aft stays with sta-lok fittings

Electrical refactoring

• Moved autopilot controller to the aft end of the cockpit and simplified wiring
• Installed new cable channels between hanging locker and the head
• Installed new cable channel between hanging locker and the battery compartment
• Installed new cable channels between hard dodger and technical compartment
• Moved FLINsail and bow panel MPPTs to the hanging locker
• Upgraded aft arch MPPT controller to 100/30
• Upgraded bow panels to 2×100W bifacial
• Upgraded stern arch panels to single 300W bifacial
• Installed the 2×120W panels previously on stern arch on top of hard dodger
• Installed rigging-suspended Superwind 350 wind turbine
• Added Shelly relays to turn NAS and info display on/off
• Added fixed 12V charging station for the Dyson vacuum
• Added fixed 12V charging station for the handheld VHF
• Added fixed charging station for two T1000-e Meshtastic trackers
• Switched info display to be powered by a SH-RPi hat

Communications

• Installed a Meshtastic node for the boat, with telemetry and alerting sent to crew nodes
• Installed a solar-powered Meshtastic node on the mast for increased communications range
• Wall mounted the logbook printer
• Installed LoRa APRS iGate on the boat
• Installed Icom IC-718 HF radio with an antenna tuner and a SignaLink sound card

Interior and comfort

• Installed a latch for the bar cabinet top lid
• Custom 3D printed a cork for freshwater canisters during water making
• Built a wind scoop for the forward hatch
• Added a shoe bag for the deck
• Homebrew setup for making ginger beer
• Installed air-only dorade vents for the saloon

Dinghy

• Built a new standing lug rig with carbon fiber mast
• Built a deck bag for the new rig
• Installed a Meshtastic tracker for the dinghy

Software

• Built a new plugin for integrating Signal K with the Meshtastic LoRa mesh network
• Built a new plugin for raising Signal K alerts for discovered MOB beacons
• Built a new plugin to combine values from multiple Signal K paths
• Built a new plugin to compute the Maidenhead locator for the vessel

Fixes and maintenance

• Sent mainsail for maintenance
• Replaced sheared bolt on the Watermaker body
• Replaced broken USB-C power outlet in saloon
• Tightened loose mast top wind indicator
• Rewired anchor light that had a bad contact
• Fixed broken FLINsail mast slider
• Replaced broken Superwind blade
• Replaced fridge compressor and evaporator
• Re-soldered broken galley light
• Replaced failed DC-DC converter on the info display monitor
• Changed blown fuses from the hydrogenerator controller
• Rewired aft navigation light that had a bad contact

The ToDo list has now been depleted, but it is not empty. The first tasks of things to do when certain parts come available with a reasonable price are already waiting.

Spanish Water has had a quite fun cruiser community, with plenty of activities from beach bonfires to wing foiling and pizza cookouts. But as the hurricane season winds down, the boats are starting to scatter towards all compass directions.

The forecast looks light, but that is how we like it for the first sail with the improved version of Lille Ø.

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