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Colombia - Isla Providencia

November/December, 2007

We spent a few more short days in San Andrés getting last minute provisions (groceries and little bottles of rum ... you'll find out why later - read about the Cayos Cajones also called the Hobbies), helping our friends on Helen Louise (Chuck & Pam) med moor so they could top off their fuel (they returned the favor for us), enjoying internet access, assisting our friends on Cyrano (Tom and Cassie) with hoisting their foresail and doing other various last minute things. Thanksgiving was postponed for a couple of days because on Thursday, November 22nd around 6:30 a.m. we raised our sails and had a fairly nice day sail to Isla Providencia, Colombia. We arrived in Isla Providencia around 7 pm after dark, so we followed the well marked, lighted buoys into the harbor where Helen Louise was already anchored. Once past the buoys, we dropped our speed and slowly eased our way into the anchorage with an eye on our depth gauge. At this point, there were only three boats total in the anchorage and one was unoccupied.

The next morning we went ashore and since we had some time to kill before our check-in we took a look around. We had a leisurely stroll across the colorful foot bridge which connects Isla Providencia and Santa Catalina. The foot bridge leads to a boardwalk which runs along the east side of Santa Catalina with a view of the harbor. The boardwalk then continues up a slight incline to the old cannons located on the hillside. The boardwalk continues to the opposite side of the hill but then ends at the shore. It was a fairly short walk but very scenic and peaceful. It gave us our first view ashore on Providencia and Santa Catalina.

We checked in with the port captain and immigration, of course, with the assistance of Mr. Bush. There were no issues and the process was quick and painless. Helen Louise had a short stay in Providencia and were leaving the next day, so we took a quick island tour via a local taxi. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we (Helen Louise and ourselves) grabbed a taxi which meant hopping in the back of a pickup truck and took off for a trip around the island which takes about 40 minutes. We then enjoyed a bit of lunch at a beach front restaurant.

Helen Louise left the next morning for the Cayos Vivorillo, however, we were able to spend a bit more time in Isla Providencia enjoying the quite peacefulness of the people and their lovely island. We quickly fell into island time again (after all we just came from the bustling big island of San Andres) and took a nice dinghy ride (about 15 minutes) out to Crab Island located on the north coast of Providencia for a little exploring and snorkeling. We first dinghied to Crab Island and was surprised to find quite a bit of construction on this small island. It looks like this island will be changing soon and we're glad to see it before the transition was complete. We hiked to the top of Crab Island (about a 5 minute hike) where we captured this spectacular view of the coral and aqua blue water. From atop of the Crab Island we scoped out our potential snorkeling spot and hiked down. Unfortunately, it was fairly windy and it made snorkeling difficult, so we decided to do a little dinghy exploring. We traveled around the west coast of Santa Catalina and spotted a couple of caves where we thought we could possibly snorkel on another day. We also spotted Captain Morgan's head. Before arriving in Providencia, we read that Isla Providencia was where Captain Morgan hid some of his treasures and that you could see his head as you entered the harbor. However, since we entered at dark we could not see it, but sure enough it's there ... a rock which is shaped like Captain Morgan's head (see below).

We decided it was time to rent a scooter and tour the island ourselves. This gave us the flexibility of stopping anywhere we like. So we were making our way through town headed for the grocery store (that's right the grocery store ... because that's where you rent the scooters) when a lady asked if we wanted to rent her scooter. We were surprised, but what the heck, we negotiated $5 an hour for the two of us and told her we'd return it in three hours ... a done deal. Her name was Julia, but I am not sure if she even knew our names and we didn't fill out any paperwork. Julia just gave us a quick scooter orientation like how to start it, how to open the gas tank, etc. then handed us the keys and off we went ... what a deal and it was cheaper than the grocery store. We spent three hours traveling around the island stopping for ice cream, various photo opportunities and returning friendly waves to people as we passed by on our little scooter. Now, Rankin and I are pretty tall (okay, we're big) and we thought we were a bit crowded on our little scooter, but we often saw three people to a scooter. We enjoyed our personal tour of the island and captured shots of a few lovely churches as well as a swimsuit photo shoot on the beach (yeah, eat your heart out guys).

We spent two wonderful weeks in Providencia exploring and getting to know the people, but it was time to continue onto Honduras. So after a quick overnight stop at the lovely island of Lo Cay about an hour north of Providencia by boat, we traveled to Quita Sueño Banks.

If you wish to continue the adventure, click here to read about our experiences at Quita Sueño Banks or take a look at What's Happening to get the latest scoop.