Officers Club

Not a great deal done yesterday morning. Something to do with the night before. Around 12:30 we dinghied ashore and caught a taxi round to Derek and Martha’s apartment to join them sailing Sunfish at their local club. It turned out Martha was good friends with a retired Colombian navy admiral and their club was the private naval officers club on the tip of Castillo Grande (we published pictures of the fort and lighthouse their a few blogs ago as we left for the Rosarios).

A mind game I often play with myself is to try to imagine oneself ten years ago believing what you’d be doing this day ten years later. Most days while cruising this is fun but this time, sailing solo on a sunfish out in the Bocagrande bay out of the Colombian navy’s officer club would have registered high on the scale of disbelief.

This was the first time that Helen and I have sailed anything so small. I managed to fall in twice and Helen once but we had a great time. After our time out we were treated to a late lunch at the ‘mess’ which was very nice. Later while Derek and Martha went out for another sail we were able to walk round the private grounds and marvel at where we were, what we were doing and how lucky we were to live this life.

Following a (hilarious) conversation from the previous evening Martha also gave Helen a gift of a necklace of small pearls and a similar one to give to Dianne. So very generous. A big thanks to Martha and Derek for the few days we’ve had of their company, hospitality and friendship. We said our Au Revoirs. They hope to go cruising in a couple of years. Perhaps we’ll see them out there somewhere.

Today we’ll begin the process of leaving Cartagena. This morning I will find our agent so we can clear out on Wed or Thu. Tomorrow is a public holiday so we need to get the ball rolling today. This afternoon I’ll pick up the dive tanks which I dropped off last week to be filled.

This evening we’re off on the Xmas light tour which should be interesting. Each night we’re out we see more and more so I doubt we’ll see everything. What we’ve seen so far is pretty good so we’re looking forward to this.