Slow boat to nowhere

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I have had a strange few weeks since my last blog. I was due to leave Catagena and Colombia at the start of May but we have had a few boat problems and so far each time we set out for a test run some thing has gone wrong. I left my hostel on the 9th of May to board the boat and we planned to set off on our test run to Las Islas Rosarios a few days later. We went and bought the provisions and got the boat shipshape but only got as far as the fuel pontoon and back before we started hearing a funny noise. It turned out to be the alternator belt and on going down to change this (which was only a quick job) Guy found that the transmision was leaking fluid from a gasket. It took us a few days to fix that then we went out for another test and found it was still leaking but from a different seal this time. So back to the anchorage and another few days to fix it. It all seems to be OK now and we have done all the other little jobs in the meantime and today we got our passports stamped to say we are leaving the country in the next 24hrs. So I have everything crossed that its 3rd time lucky.
I dont have time to write any more right now but here are some photos for you. I'll finish this entry off another day and from another country....hopefully!

UPDATE 21/05/08....
got as far as the open sea yesterday, passed the last channel markers, set the autopilot for Honduras....and then the transmission blew all its oil again!
Turned round came back, had a large rum and coke. Off again today.....probably

UPDATE 2/06/08...
Finaly set off from Colombia on the 22nd and arrived in Honduras on the 30th after quite an adventure!

So now have a little time to spare I can go back to the beginning and fill you in on the whole story.....

My first night on the boat it was all I could do to keep my excitement underwraps and not jump around on deck with joy. I sat looking out at the water and the lights of Cartagena and the skyscrapers of Bocagrande all lit up across the water. I was so happy to be on board and even though things didnt seem quite ready to go yet I decided that I was happy to just hang out on this boat wherever it was going for the forseeable future. Of course it turned out to not be going anywherefor a while at least.
I tried to make myself usefull around the place and luckily it was really easy to fit in with Guy and his wife Claudia and their young son Bobby, so I didnt feel to much like a spare wheel. Bobby spent most of his days with his grandmother and somethimes came to visit the boat and stay the night but I was sleeping in his room and we were pretty busy truing to get things ready to leave so there wasnt much time for entertaining small kids. On the second day I was there Bobby and his grandma came to stay on the boat as they were joining us for a test run to the islas Rosarios which we were planning for the next day. They had only just stepped on board when Claudia managed to drop the boarding steps overboard. Nothing is ever Claudias fault so she tried to blame it on her mum for bumping into her. Anyway, we were no where near ready the next day and so while gGuy was still changing enine oil and such like Claudia and I hunted down a dive tank I went in with Guys slightly dodgy looking regulator, 4kg lead and a long hose upto the tank on the deck to see if I could find them. We were only in 10m of water but the visibility was about 1m so I dropped the dingy anchor in and swam increasing concentric 1m circles around it. It was a bit wierd swimming round down there under the boat on my own and without any tank or boyancy jacket, and all I saw was a couple of fish. After not coming up with anything we dropped the anchor a bit further towards the bow and on only the second circle I spotted them, with only the top sticking out of the mud. I came up with them held over my head like the lady of the lake and earnt myself a few brownie points with the captain.
The next day we set off on our first abortive jaunt to the Rosarios. Disapointed to have got no further than the fuel pontoon we returned to the anchorage to fix the alternator problem but planned to try again in a few days.
Over the next few days I happily became a bit of a water taxi ferrying Claudia, water and shopping to and from the boat in the little dingy and getting to know a few people at the club. There was a lovely old couple from Sweden and the states, Harry and Sonja, Captain Don who I had met before when I went to the club to leave my advert for crew available, Carmen who was a tiny, chain smoking, extroverted Colombian married to a french man. I noticed that it was all older guys with boats and their younger wives, Guy and Claudia included. Guy is my Dads age and Claudia is younger than me, he spoils her rotten and lets her get away with murder, she takes hours to get ready to leave but throws a hissy fit if he is late to pick her up, she steals money from his pockets and uses his credit cards, and he bought her a fantastic set of boobs that it is very difficult not to stare at.
We all get on well though which is a relief, Claudia is a bit scatty though and Guy gets very irritated with her. He doesnt seem to be too patient which doesnt bode well for the sailing, I find lots of sailors get very shouty in stressfull situations and its always the crew who bears the brunt of it. Sailors also like telling stories and Guy is no exception to that, I also get some horror stories from the other people in the club of big waves and high winds, pitchpoling, pirates and sinkings which are making me a little nervous about the trip.
Our second attempt at a test run did nothing to lay my growing concerns to rest. We had decided that we didnt have toime to get to the Rosarios now and it was only on my insistance that Guy agreed to sail outside of the sea wall built just under the water line at the entrance to the cartagena lagoon to keep out the Spanish ships. I wanted to get to know the boat because if I was goining to be on watch alone I needed to know which ropes were which and how to work the auto pilot etc. I didnt want to be waking Guy up at 4am to ask something basic like how to turn on the radio or work the microwave.
Since Claudia couldnt get a visa interview untill the 24th of July we were leaving without her as Guy didnt want to be in the Caribbean too late into Hurricane season which officially starts on the 1st of June. There was another friend who was thinking about joining us as he was fed up of working on a boat fixing problem where he was having problems getting the money from the owner, but just days before we actually left he was to cancel on us as the owner had come up with the cash, so it was pretty important that I know as much as possible in the event that Guy had a heart attack or fell over board or something. This time we managed to get just outside the sea wall before the engine stopped working again and we had to go back! In the short time we were sailing I hadn´t learnt much, Guy had put up the sails without explaining anything and he didnt do much to answer many of my questions, he didnt even know what his boats deviation from the compass was. His boat is a 52 foot, steel hulled ketch (meaning it has two masts) and the fact that it is metal means it affects the compass that you use to navigate so you need to nknow by how much so you can compensate for it. Fairly essential you would have thought. I had also asked about a grab bag which you fill with things like fish hooks, compass and chart, hand held radio, food and water, incase you have to abandon ship into the life raft. Oh yes that reminds me, we¨ll have to make one of those¨, he said. After returning to anchorage after the second failed attempt I didnt have much confidence in ever getting out of Cartagena.
I didnt want to give up on this last adventure of my trip though and fly to central America to go home, it felt like that would be a really crappy end to my journey so despite my worries we entertained ourselves for another few days with Bobbys birthday, a trip to the Castillo de san filipe, scrubbing the boat in a rainstorm, an exciting moment when we dragged the anchor while guy was messing with the tranmission in reverse and nearly crashed into the boat behind us and shopping to provision the boat again. We all knew that there were not going to be any more test trips, we were running out of time and once the transmission was fixed again, we just had to get out of there. My Colombian visa was about to run out but we set a new date to leave and even commited ourselves to it by getting our exit stamps sorted. I was even begining to hope that it would run as far as open sea and the point of no return so that we just had to keep going to Honduras under sail. Meanwhile Guy also decided to give the boat a quick coat of paint and so on the morning we were due to leave, again, we were still peeling masking tape off the deck! We waved Claudia and Bobby off and filled up with fuel, I took a photo of the statue of the virgen mary as we left the channel to Cartagena and got as far as the sea wall....when you guessed it, the third and final gasket on the transmission blew, why he handt just changed them all the fist time I dont know. The problem is that Guy and the boat have been sitting in Cartagena for 8 years hardly moving and the boat has become a house so of course it should have been totaly overhauled before atampting a journey of more than 600 miles.
This time on the way back in we discussed me finding a different method of getting to Mexico but luckily we got back and got a mechanic straight on board, we had the problem fixed by early the next day meaning we didnt have to go through inmigration again. This time I didnt wave goodbye, write any emails or take and final photos until we were almost out of sight of the land, convinced I had jinxed the previous departures this way.
And this time as we made our way out and past the sea wall it was a great relief to see the skyscrapers of Bocagrande finally fading into the distance, but I can tell you I was still holding my breath for a long time after that!

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