A Little Work, A Little Play

With the 24v alternator working again, we turned our attention to our bow pulpit. We had the base reinforced to take the upward pull of the Code Zero halyard, including welding a piece of tubing from the bottom of the pulpit cross bar to the bow fitting. Should be able to lift a truck with it now. Meryl and I picked up the rather unwieldy pulpit at the Club Nautico dock (it’s always interesting doing business with vendors when we don’t speak a word of Spanish). We struggled at the dock trying to get a messenger wire through the pulpit for the bow lights, but had no luck. Ended up having to drill a new hole and after a lot of effort got a messenger through that. The next problem was getting the pulpit into our small dingy and back to the boat. The pulpit was almost bigger than the dingy so Meryl and I just kind of sat inside of it as we very slowly motored out to the boat.

We had to add another stainless steel plate under the original plate, along with a vertical bar to handle the upward load of the new Code Zero sail that will fly off of the pulpit.

The next problem was getting it from the dingy up to the bow. It can be extremely rocky at the anchorage with the big cigarette type fairy boats going by, but we managed to slowly inch up onboard using a halyard as a safety line. Once we got it on board we began a rather long struggle to get the pulpit to fit down into the female deck fittings that were all set at an angle. I tried pounding with a dead blow hammer on all the cross bars to get it to set, but I was worried about popping a weld. After about an hour we had made some progress, but we still had about ½ “ to go on the aft most stanchions. I was fairly exacerbated at that point when Meryl made a great suggestion:  “It needs to be pulled both back and down (I had just been hammering down). Why don’t we run two big lines back to each genoa winch and slowing crank it back. The angle of the female deck fittings should guide it into place. Sounds like a plan to me since my plan wasn’t working. The winches are very powerful so we decided to put a moderate amount of tension on them and leave them for the night (it was getting dark anyway). Amazingly, when we awoke in the morning the fittings were in exactly the right position to fit the cross screws in. Thank you, Meryl!

While Monica shops for a bag, Meryl explains to Phil why we don't have any room onboard for even a potholder.

As an early Christmas present, Monica buys her musician husband a toy saxophone.

Phil is one of those guys who can play any musical instrument, making even this toy sax sound good.

Columbia is one of the major coffee exporters in the world, and many feel Columbian coffee is the best.

With two big jobs out of the way we decided to go explore the city some more with our friends Monica and Phil off of Miss Molly.  Cabs are very cheap in Cartegena. Every time we get in a cab we tell the driver the destination and then say “Seis mil,” which works out to about $3 US. Such a deal. Wandering around town with them was fun. It’s always good to get another cruiser’s take on things. Phil used to be a bass player in a rock band in England, so Monica got him a great deal on a toy saxophone that actually sounded fairly good.

Dinner at El Bacon was a treat, especially when you can share it with friends.

We found a great restaurant, El Bacon, recommended by friends of Phil and Monica’s that served an incredible steak in a bed garlic mashed potatoes and spinach with a blue cheese sauce. The restaurant features a balcony that overlooks one of the more popular squares in Cartagena, and by that time of night it was rocking.

We wandered back through the myriad of little streets until way and behold, Walter’s nose let us straight to La Paletteria. Well we couldn’t let our friends leave Cartagena without tasting the best ice cream bars in the world, could we?

We ended the night walking all the way back to Club Nautico. Try that in any other city late at night.