Description:
This Colombian island lies midway between Costa Rica and Jamaica. It is connected to the smaller Santa Catalina Island by a 100m footbridge. With a long history of pirates and hidden treasure, it's no surprise this is Colombia's major scuba destination.
A scenic and friendly island, Providencia is convenient for a break on passage to/from Panama. Although a district of Columbia, it lies about 135NM east of the coast of Nicaragua and about 500NM from mainland Colombia.
Cruiser Highlights:
Protected harbor; quiet and undeveloped; helpful locals; reasonable provisioning; beautiful scenery; walks and climbs.
Entrance Notes and Cautions:
There is a significant datum offset (more than 200m) for both Navionics and C-Map electronic charting. This applies to Low Cay, north of Providencia and to Providencia Island itself. It may also apply to San Andres Island and to the Albuquerque Cays.
There are several channels leading into the port of Catalina. The primary channel is marked with six buoys and starts with the deep water buoy. Entering the harbor is straightforward
Position:
13° 22'48"N, 81° 22'19"W (Catalina)
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Reported by Sallly Currin:
Observations on our latest stop in Providencia:
Checking in:
We used Mr Bush as our agent. As we were fortunate to have internet on the boat we were able to deal with him using Whatsapp – his telephone number is: +57 311 530 0399. He does have channel 16 but does not monitor it all the time. For those that struggle to get hold of him on channel 16 the next best option is to just go ashore and ask for his office which is only a couple of minutes walk from the dingy dock. His fee for managing the check in for us was US$150 including the visa fees payable in US$ cash. We asked about needing to have a temporary import permit for the boat if we ended up staying more than a week and he told us that for Providencia and San Andreas that we were allowed to stay for 2 weeks in these islands without needing the TIP. We sat on Mr Bush’s balcony whilst the customs officer and immigration officer came to us.
Checking out was equally straightforward by alerting Mr Bush in advance and visiting his office the day before we wanted to sail. We were allowed a 24 hour window after having checked out before needing to sail. We chose not to go to San Andreas so we’re checking out of Colombia, rather than just checking out to move onto San Andreas.
Providencia was very badly damaged in the 2020 hurricane but there has been a lot of new building over the past two years. The dingy dock is a small floating dock between the commercial dock and the new bridge. Ashore there was a good bakery which had WI-FI and a couple of cafes serving local food at very reasonable prices plus two supermarkets and a bank with an ATM. It was also possible to change small amounts of US$ cash at the supermarkets.
We felt very safe in Providencia and hired a buggy (mule) to travel around the island plus Mr Bush helped us to organise a taxi and a guide so we could climb the peak on the island, which was well worth doing as the guide had great knowledge of the local plants.
Anchorage:
The holding was very good. Channel markers are in different places to the Navionics charts. It is important not to be anchored in the channel as commercial boats do come in at night.
The Agent to use when clearing it is Mr Bush; you can reach him on vhf16. Remember that the town closes up for siesta and stores and Mr Bush are not available from noon to 2:00.
Anchoring is good in the bay to your port when you enter and depth ranges from 5 feet to 15 feet.
The entrance channel is very well marked and has many lighted buoys, not the few they show on the charts.
Using opencpn as chart, the buoys locations were marked precisely.
You can take your dinghy to the dock to the left of the main pier; use a Stern anchor or the dinghy will get sucked under the dock.
There are three main grocery stores and many mini stores with hardware stores and variety stores also.
There are a few banks with ATM’s but you change your money at the main grocery stores, they do not take Euros.
January 2018 the entrance fee for boat and 1 passport was 150.00.
The banks do not exchange U.S. currency but the grocery stores do, just make arrangements first and then do your shopping.
The Port Authority also informed me that you must clear in before using Low Cay and then come back and clear out. They do not want you using it without having cleared first.
Make arrangements to clear out a day or so before because not everyone is available at the same time to do all the paperwork.
You will be issued a tourist card which I am told will be valid in San Andres as well.
Everyone is extremely friendly and most people speak English to some degree.
Groceries are fresh and surprisingly inexpensive; The cheapest instant coffee, chicken and bread I have seen anywhere.
Entrance Providencia. (North-western Entrance) There are now 7 or 8 light buoys guiding you in. They are well maintained and all work.febr. 2016) It is easy to enter at night.
The lightbouys ( Red to starboard) are near the dangers so keep some distance. (keep the fairwaterbouy to starboard)