San Andres
We are so happy to have finally made it to San Andres, but the wind and the rain followed us. It has been blowing upwards of 30 knots here in the anchorage all night, but our CQR is hanging in there. It reminds me of the picture of the cat that says "Just hang in there" as I picture this little tiny thing with this length of chain laying on the bottom as we twist and turn and bob and weave.
I put up our Christmas tree yesterday. That really picked up our spirits. Our dinghy engine bit the dust on the way out from the dock 3 days ago, so we have been hitching rides or Jerry has been rowing. It's been good for his waistline and for his sleeping. Yesterday we splurged and bought a new engine even though the old one is in the shop. We don't have a lot of faith in the service department of Joaquin's shop. Today a guy on a PWC came out; he needed 25$ to order a part from Bogota. Oh well! Who knows? They say they can fix anything in Colombia!
Buying our new engine was a kick, although trying at the time. We couldn't use our credit card; our money was on the boat, and it was windy and blowing the wrong way for rowing; the banks were about to close. Ruiz, of Ruiz' Importadores said that Occidental Bank would be open a little later, so we dashed there, but they wouldn't accept Visa, the only card we had with us. We went to another bank with an Automatic Cajero which would take our Visa. It gave us 200,000 pesos at a time. After 5 times, it said "no mas." We went to another bank which gave us 250,000 pesos at a time until it said, "no mas." I had $200.00 American in my purse and Jerry had our lunch money in pesos. We finally came up with 2,587,000 pesos and they delivered our spankin' new Yamaha to the beach. It was dark and rainy and blowing. We took our new engine out of the box, mixed the fuel, and took off across the great unknown. Without the harness which was still on the old engine, we managed to lift it to the deck, secure it, and feel as though Santa had come early. And the rain came!
Celebration Brie, crackers and box wine.
- December 21, 2001