hey gringo...!

esteban had a very memorable experience in the san felipe castle. when we were coming in, there was a school trip coming out. the students must have been around 13 years average. when they saw us, (or my very blond blue eyed husband I should say) they started screaming at us: “hello, hello, hello… !!” even after we replied in our native spanish many times.. they started taking pictures with esteban. It seemed they were having a blast, specially the girls!! he turned red but decided to give the girls what they were asking for.. so he posed for them and in front of lots of little cameras and cell phones (I am sure much more sophisticated than ours). we were also having fun. what would they do with the pictures I wonder… ? it is funny when this happens.. for us a second time after a paparazzi session where we were nothing short of being celebrities in borneo sometime ago.

san felipe

this castle is amazing. not only provides for an spectacular sight but it has the most wonderful tunnels all over and within the walls. we walked in all of them and explored through the underground maze with zero visibility, except for the weakest little ray from the cheapest cell phone in the market which is of course the one we own (absolutely positively no i-anything for us). it was hard to imagine the people back in the 1600s actually using these bunkers to escape, kill the enemy and store their food, probably in the same area where their bodies would dispose of it. the smells must have been awful. they are very long and not tall at all. we loved the adventure, definetly a highlight of cartagena.

visitors from argentina

esteban’s parents came to colombia for a short visit. we had not seen them since november 2009 in argentina. we were very happy to see them again and the timing could not have been better. just last week the city hosted the summit of the americas attended by most presidents of the continent. the city officials did their best to clean and beautify the place for the VIPs. as a result, barco and sonia enjoyed a very clean city, with everything painted, flowers blooming, hardly any unpaved spots on the roads and just about everything neat and proper. it was great timing. the boat was also perfect. just before they arrived esteban put it back in the water after painting the bottom, so both city and boat were on their very sunday best!! and to put the finishing touch… they brought with them a new stock or argentinean flags for the boat. very timely; to replace the ragged and discolored ones on board. It was all too pretty! they sailed around the bay and went sightseeing around the city. they stayed on board and enjoyed the boat, albeit the heat. it was a lovely week.

bottom job

we had not taken the boat out of the water since before departing back in the US. It had been over three years and we do not know how many miles with the same bottom paint. but now, floating in the liveliest of all the bays where barnacles grow by the minute, we could not procrastinate anymore about this project and urgently needed to paint the boat again. we went to marina todomar, hulled it out and worked on it for 10 days. I was in the US while esteban painted. he also fixed some other stuff like the beaten rudder which we managed to hit with a rock in the bahamas back in 2009 (the death trap); and the transom which was damaged in greece… (the med-moor fiasco); and checked all thruhulls and plates. everything seemed in pretty good shape, even the paint. we did do some changes but overall it looked pretty ok. work on the yard was from 7 am till 6 pm. at this time not only work needs to be stopped but also everyone must be on board.. like a curfew. at night, the security guard lets a couple of mean dogs loose around the marina to help him do his job. the warning worked for esteban… no late trips to the bathroom. better to use a bottle on board if needed than run for dear life, especially after being warned. so day in and day out, and with not the best gourmet restaurants around this neighborhood, esteban got it done and splashed puerto seguro back home in time to welcome his parents on board.