Living on Simplicity,

Colombia!

February 25, 2024

Where are we now?

Enjoying our life as Live-a-boards/Cruisers!

Santa Marta Marina, Santa Marta Colombia

2024 is starting off with big moves from the Windward Island to our present location of Colombia. We loved our times in Grenada and the Windward Islands. Sailing, people, diving and making new friends and acquaintances was awesome. We spent two months in the ABC Islands and have moved on to Colombia.

We had been in Santa Marta and I made a quick trip to Scotland to help Erin move from Glasgow to London. She is the European Marketing Event Manager and the European Headquarters is in London. After 3.5 years in Glasgow living and working from her flat she is excited to be back in London, enjoying the social life, and activities.

Hugh met me in Cartagena upon my return and we spent a long weekend here. The history in this country is amazing! Colombia is a large country and we have found it to be friendly, safe, great restaurants, artists from clothing designers to basket weavers, to painters it is extraordinary.

The cities of Santa Marta and Cartagena have significant infrastructure, modern high-rise apartments and condominiums with amazing views of the Caribbean Sea. Sunsets are beautiful. The wind here is different as it comes through the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, the highest coastal mountains in the world. It strongly reminds us of traveling the California coastline. Wow, did I forget to tell how wonderful the coffee is here! It is magnificent. By the way the chocolate is pretty darn good too! People are friendly even with the fact that are Spanish is terrible we are trying hard to learn. Google translate helps a lot and Babbel the language app is a start.

Both Erin and Kelly have visited us recently and it was so good to hang out with the girls and do some diving with them. The best diving we have found so far - Bonaire / Turks & Caicos! The water here in Colombia is around 78 degrees. Healthy reefs and marine life.

We plan to be here a bit longer as we are planning a “haul-out” in April in Cartagena. We will give you an update then.

We want to acknowledge that there was a tragic situation in Grenada and hearts and prayers go out to the family of another Simplicity, whose owners were kidnapped and killed by escaped prisoners. Over all, this lifestyle is very safe, and this situation is terrible and could have been prevented. Grenada officials need to recognize that there inability to properly fix a lock on a door allowed these prisioners to go free. There is a lot of good, and wonderful people in Grenada, it is our hope that the Grenadian Government wakes up and recognizes the importance of “cruiser population” to their economy of $100’s of millions of dollars per year.

We both completely love our life on the boat, our Ocean Dream is truly a dream come true. It is possible!

Seeing the world at 5 knots.

We live an amazing life our ocean dream, it truly was a dream and today it is a reality! Put this in the books - Dream realized!