Check in was easy using Mr. Bush's services as an agent (call Bush Agency on Ch 16). An agent is required in Colombia, and Mr. Bush arranges to bring the officials out in a launch to your boat. We paid $20 USD per person for a tourist visa for Colombia. This only needs to be paid once (a year?). The agent's fee for combined check in and check out was $50 USD, paid on departure, making the total for stopping at Providencia $90. We understand that clearance in to San Andreas, the bigger island
50 miles south of Providencia, also requires an agent and a similar fee (even though we have cleared in to Providencia).
Mr. Bush is a source of all the information and services available in Providencia... if you need it, and it's available in Providencia, he can tell you where and how to get it. About the only thing we needed was water, and Bush arranged for us to jerry-jug water from the cistern at the base of the town dock. We paid only a $5 tip to Francisco, the guy that Mr. Bush arranged to help us dispense the water.
One day, Dave and I and Stephen and Josie from s/v Elysian rented motorbikes and 'did' the island. The main road on the island is only 11 miles in circumference, so even allowing for several photo stops, a lunch stop, stops at some dive shops to ask about diving, and a hike out to the big white cross overlooking the harbor, we had arrived back in the town by about 3pm. So we decided to ride back the other way around without stopping.
That was a fun trip. My first time solo on a motorcycle. I was assigned a brand new scooter with automatic shift, and thoroughly enjoyed it. There was virtually no traffic on the road, so it was pretty trouble free. We paid about $17 per scooter for the day. No deposit, no paperwork, we just took them and paid him when we got back.
We had lunch at a place in a beach restaurant called El Divino Nino (the Divine Child), in Southwest Bay, all the way at the end of the beach. Under the palm trees, on a sandy beach, gentle breeze blowing, all we could eat seafood, and a couple of beers, for $10 pp (a single plate of whatever is considerably less). The other place that looked interesting was Rolands, on Manchineel Bay. This was a little less of a shack, and seemed interesting, but we were told by friends that Divine Child was
a 'don't miss' (and we agree).
There's a cute little airport on the island. We didn't inquire about a schedule, but I would assume there's service at least a few times a week to San Andreas, where connections can be made to other places.
In addition to the Divine Child, we ate several times at the patio restaurant that is to the right of the dinghy dock on the main waterfront road. Prices are reasonable (about $1 for a beer and $5 for a chicken meal, $6 for seafood meal).
There is a weak open wifi ('default') available in the area of the dinghy dock. Most of the cruisers sat in the shade (on the ground) on the north side of the bank building. If you have a pretty good wifi receiver on your laptop, you can also pick it up at the nearby restaurant. One of the cruisers there now is trying to get them to get a better antenna and stronger wifi, so it could be picked up in the anchorage, but for now, the only strong signal available in the anchorage is locked.
There are 2 banks with ATMs in the town, we used a Master Card and had no trouble getting money. The currency is Colombian pesos at about 1,800 to the US dollar. Most places in town will take US dollars.
There are cell phones on the island, but we opted to wait til Cartagena to buy a Colombian cell phone chip.
The grocery stores (a total of 3 within a block of the dinghy dock) were OK--typical of a small island. We heard the supply boat comes on Friday, but didn't get ashore to look for groceries til Monday, and by Monday the only fresh stuff we was older and uglier looking than our 2-week-old stuff from Guanaja. So we didn't buy much except bread, a little beer, wine and rum, and some really nice Oatmeal. Decent white wine (hard to find in Central America for a reasonable price) was about $6.50 for
a low-end Argentinian Chardonay.
There is a very good hardware store along the waterfront road about 300 yards south of the city dock, with a large assortment of stainless steel fasteners and brass pipe fittings.
We ended up not diving anywhere. Though the water looked exceptionally clear, and we had fairly good weather for diving on the back side of the island, they were asking $65-$75 USD for a 2-tank dive, but nobody had much info on where the dives were (wherever you want to go, was the answer when we asked). (And we were getting low on water and I was trying to keep Dave focused on the watermaker project).
After a day in the inner harbor (anchored very close to where we were anchored on Island Time in Nov 96 for Tropical Storm Marco), we moved out to a nice anchorage off the little beach on Catalina Island, just outside the harbor. This anchorage is nice... in 20' deep, nice sand, and cleaner water. With nothing much more to do, this was a perfect place to finish the watermaker project. (see next post...)
We did a snorkel or two around the boat. There are several nice reefs within dinghy distance. In 1996 we dinghied around to the two small islands WNW of the harbor which we found "productive". But we did not get out there this trip.
By Monday, we came to a standstill on the watermaker project, and the weather indicated that the wind was going to go lighter in the next few days. So we cleared out yesterday for an early morning departure.
Some Providencia Harbor Waypoints:
13-23.95N 81-23.62W Outer Harbor 'Safe Water' buoy, lit with flashing white light
13-23.26N 81-23.13W In the 'fairway' between Red & Green buoys
13-22.82N 81-22.66W Corner of dogleg to inner harbor (diverges from main channel, but where yachts anchor)
13-22.82N 81-22.43W Inner Anchorage in 7 feet
13-22.96N 81-22.70W Beach anchorage
If coming in at night, you could drop anchor at 13-23.85N 81-22.62W in about 15' sand.
Right now, there are 2 red buoys and a green buoy before the dogleg into the inner harbor. All the lights are working, and we actually saw them doing maintenance on the buoys while we were there.
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