Switzerland & Colombia

Having returned to Cartagena from my overland trip through Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, I am going diving to Taganga, before flying to Switzerland. Taganga is a very sleepy fishing town with ok dives sites, but not breathtaking. It is low season and three dive masters join me for the dives and I start talking with one of them after the dives. The discussion moves into dinner and a three day excursion in the Tayrona national park:) Monica is auditor, quit her career to certify and work as dive instructor. We fall in love then and there and the flight to Switzerland comes at a very untimely moment!

I am living in Switzerland with my sister Sybil and her family in Hedingen also this year. It is an ideal base: I can spend time with her and her family and am close to my friends around Zurich and Luzerne. Only to my parents it is a bit further. But getting around Switzerland is really easy with the Swiss railway and I only borrow my dad’s car twice. It is incredible how fast cars travel on motor ways when your normal speed is walking speed:)

Winter has a strong grip over Switzerland and I enjoy many hours with my family and friends sharing memories and stories. I even more enjoy joint-activities like the tour through South Germany with Frank to find old Volkswagen Beatles, the powder sessions with Henning in the Ischgl mountains and the snowboard excursion with Katja, which ended in ski pants and t-shirt on the lakeside walk in Ascona due to adverse weather. These excursions will in themselves create lasting memories. I am also spending a lot of time on the snowboard in the mountains, see a live Spengler Cup match and can instruct my God-child Marius in his first steps on the snowboard. Too bad, that I sprain a finger, which will never be straight again without operation;)

The Christmas days are a welcome break in all these activities and I enjoy not too quiet Christmas days thanks to the children of Sybil and my best friend Tomas. I am celebrating New Year for a change with thousands of people in Zurich in the open air under steadily falling snow flakes.

On the way to Cartagena I briefly stop over in Miami to complement my kite surf quiver with a wave board and a new kite. Getting it to Cartagena was unexpectedly difficult: The airline didn’t want to transport it due to the Christmas season and once they accepted it, lost it for a few days:( But I got it finally.

Returning to Blue Bie, I only repack my bags to spend time with Monica in Bogotá. She lives in a relatively new suburb some 20km from town center (Bogotá has 7mn inhabitants and is pretty big!). It is very green with many apartment blocks, stores and a big shopping center so that I only go to the town center to visit the not really special colonial centre and the spectacular Gold and Botero museums. I am introduced to the Colombian family life through Monica – picture perfect:) We visit together Villa de Leyva and the salt cathedral of Zipaquira, which is built into a former salt mine.

As sad I am leaving her as happy I am returning to Blue Bie after 5 months on the firm land. Blue Bie has been suffering a bit and is very dirty and it takes some time to get her ready to launch. The crane, which puts her back in the water is huge – a look at the cable drum on the picture might give you an impression how big it really is. But after some stretching and yawning every thing works on Blue Bie – I only have to change the die of the autopilot, before she is ready for a test cruise to the Islas Rosarios.