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.