Jan
3 2014
Greetings,
Well, once
again I’ve put off writing for too long so I will do this update in sections.
First the time in the yard; second our trip to Bogota; and then the Holidays.
The yard:
We didn’t get everything we’d hoped
done while we were hauled out. But the most important jobs (The bottom sanded
and painted, the prop shaft seals replaced, thru hulls cleaned out and ball
valves serviced, anchor chain remarked every 25 feet…) got done. We launched on
the 16th and headed back to the anchorage. With the bottom and
running gear clean and barnacle free we slid through the water with ease. Going
into the yard we were going 5.6 knots @ 800 rpm, burning about 4 gph. Coming
out we were doing 8 knots @ 800 rpm, burning about 2.5 gph. So much
better. And our dripless shaft seals are
dripless again. Yea!
An amusing anecdote from our yard
time is; the first evening we were there the guard came by and told me
something in Spanish. I knew it was something about a dog but I wasn’t getting
it. I told him in Spanish I was sorry but I didn’t understand. He kept trying.
Whatever he was saying was obviously important. So I kept trying to get it.
They were looking for a dog? Had I seen the dog? No, that wasn’t it. Then I
started to catch on. I was aware that there were guard dogs in the yard at
night (the first night we were tied to the wall, before we were lifted one of
them had been barking at a fishing boat for half the night). What he was
telling me was not to come down off the boat after 9:00 at night until 5:00AM
because they let the dogs loose in the yard and it was dangerous. I was so
proud of myself when I figured it out and the guard seemed very relieved. My
Spanish still sucks, but I’m making progress.
Bogota:
We left the
boat for five days while it was out of the water to go up to Bogota, visit
Kevin and see the sights. Bogota is in the mountains at 8500 feet. It sits in a
basin surrounded by higher mountains. Being so close to the equator, the temperature
there stays between about 50 and 70 degrees all the time. We have been in the
tropics for long enough now that, for us, that’s cold. We’d brought jackets and
jeans but we were still chilly most of the time we were there.
Bogota is a
beautiful city. It’s the capital of Colombia and houses many government
buildings, the presidential palace, many universities, museums, historical
churches, etc. We stayed with Kevin and he was a wonderful host. We arrived on
a Saturday afternoon. On Sunday we drove up to a quant village on a lake. It
was a historical village that had been moved and restored when they built the
dam and flooded its location creating the lake. We had dinner on the way back
down at a restaurant on the side of the mountain with a great view of the city
below. Monday we went into downtown. We were planning to go to the Museo Del
Oro (gold museum) first but it was closed on Mondays. So we walked around
exploring. We went by the presidential palace, which had guards in fancy
uniforms like Buckingham Palace, on the way to the Botero art museum. Botero is
a famous Colombian artist and they had a lot of his work but they also had
Monet, Picasso, Degas, Renoir, Toulouse- Lautrec, Pissarro, Manet…it was an
amazing collection. We were going to go back to the gold museum another day but
the Mayor of the city was fired that day and for the next several days there
were protests in that area and the streets were closed.
Kevin took us
to an older part of town where we had dinner and a lovely stroll in a plaza
that was all decorated and had entertainment for the holidays. We also took the
cable car ride up to Monseratte, the church on the mountain overlooking the city.
The view from there was spectacular. We got there late in the afternoon and
enjoyed the sunset with a good cup of coffee (or hot chocolate for Johne) then had
dinner looking over the lights of the city (extra lit for Christmas). It was a
very good trip and I’m really glad we got to go.
The Holidays:
We celebrated
the solstice in our usual style with a cocktail party aboard Second Star. We
had a fun group of cruisers come and one “repeat”. It was for our solstice
party last year that we first met Sharon, so it was also the first anniversary of
a great friendship.
Daryl and Marcy
arrived back on Christmas Eve to spend another week aboard. We did the potluck
with the other cruisers for dinner that night. For Christmas dinner Sharon
joined us here. We did a non-traditional steak and lobster with garlic/herb mashed
potatoes and salad. The food was awesome and the company even better.
Over the
weekend we all went to the Fort for the tour and to the beach on the other side
of Boca Grande. Daryl and Marcy had to leave on Monday, so for New Year’s Eve Sharon
came and we had dinner and managed to stay up long enough to watch the great
fireworks displays going off around half of the harbor.
Now we are in
prep-to-move-on mode. When we get a good weather window, we’ll be headed along
the north side of Colombia and over to Curacao. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions,
but if I did, mine would be to write as things happen and update the blog much
more often. We’ll see if I manage to do it.
Happy New
Year!
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