Thursday morning was supposed to start with an 8am pickup of both the A/C guys and the stainless steel guy. I dinghied in with the trash and waited but none turned up. I 
gave in and went back to the boat to wait it out.
Back on the boat I learned that the big news of the morning was that the previous evening a sailboat had been boarded and robbed while entering Boca Chica around sunset. This was the same entrance we had taken returning from the Rosarios just a few hours earlier. We knew it was not at all safe to anchor there but to be boarded is another thing. We have emailed and warned some of our friends on the way here.
I decided to head back to the dock around 8:30am and immediately ran into the first of the A/C brothers. We waited a few minutes for the other brother to show up before hopping into the dinghy. Just as we were pulling off the stainless steel guy appeared so I was able to take them all together.
The morning ended up with a lot of running around. The A/C reinstallation seemed to take longer than it should and was a little worrying as they kept popping the circuit breaker when testing. In between supporting the A/C guys I was helping raise the wing gen mast. After a couple of hours of this everyone finished together so I was able to drop them off with a single trip.
My next stop, after a quick bite to eat, was to head over to Panda to help them extend their boat network. I was there for two hours and we made some progress but only in the direction of identifying some specific issues that required resolving or circumventing.
Back to Dignity at 2pm we were getting ready to go to the notorious open air market when our son Ben skyped us. He’d already spoken to Helen while I was out. It was nice to see him as he’s hard to get hold of.
After this chat we headed ashore with Dianne and Gerald and took a cab to the open air market. It was quite an interesting place; vast, crowded, hot, filthy and often smelly. Helen and Dianne both bought some cheap young girls jewelry as hand outs for when we reach the Marquesas. I bought a hat. We ducked into the Caribe Mall for some sanity, cool air, ice cream, rotisary chicken, beer and wine before heading back to the boat for a quick wash and minor clear up before heading back out to meet Derek who’d emailed us the day before.
We didn’t have to wait too long, Cartagena standards, for him to arrive in a taxi to take us over to their apartment in Castillo Grande on the other side of the bay. There we met his wife, Martha. They had a wonderful apartment and served a great meal. We chatted about a whole bunch of things. They were particularly interested in our transition and our lifestyle as they, being avid sailors, are planning to head off around 2012. Later in the evening we walked the 2-3 miles to the Old Town where we sat in the Plaza Domingo (check) drinking fruit juice. They regularly make this trip, several times a week in fact, and are well known by the owner and the five piece band that serenaded us with three Colombian songs.
We parted company after midnight promising them dinner and a show around the boat on Saturday evening. Being many hours after our normal retirement time we fell asleep instantly upon arrival.
We woke late too so I missed my normal slot for doing the blog. Shortly after 8am I dinghied Helen over to the other side of the bay again for her dentist appointment. Back on Dignity I was joined by Gerald who’d offered to assist with installing the wind generator.
After a couple of hours work we had the unit atop the mast and the cables run down through the mast and into the starboard transom through a rubber seal.
It then took me another two to three hours in cramped sweaty condition down inside the transom wiring it all up with a cut off switch and breaker into the same box where we have the breakers for our solar panels.
Then came the testing. With Helen on the inside calling out the amps being drawn/generated I turned the unit off and on several times. Not sure what the wind speed was but it wasn’t great. We were still making 2-4 amps which was not bad considering a lot of wind gens in the anchorage were not turning. The unit is pretty quiet. We can’t hear it at all in our cabin although it can be heard in the starboard aft cabin.
Now I’m relaxing. Working in that sweat hole is exhausting but I’m glad it’s done. Tools are still strewn everywhere so the clear up still needs to be done. We’ll probably head back to the big mall today to start stocking up on Xmas essentials (ie, lots more beer and wine).
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