The weather has been a major factor this week in Cartagena. Once again, lots of rain and clouds. The main issue with rain in Cartagena is the flooding. The marina has a pump out system to help with the flooding but most of the time, it does not work well. The dockhands are down on their hands and knees attempting to unblock the drainage system and as soon as they stop, the system clogs again. Rather than working in shifts, one works while the others stand in knee deep water and watch. When he gets tired, they all take a break….thus defeating the initial progress that had been made. Getting out of the marina during flood times is also a challenge. The water does not puddle, it rivers. All the streets are at least ankle deep and it takes a day of no rain for the streets to drain. The good news in the rain is that all our new windows seem to be sealed well! One window was leaking like a sieve so I devised a catchment system to try and keep the water out of the electronic panel that is on the wall under the window. Bill surmised the leak was more than likely one of the screw holes in the upper helm station so we removed the side panel of the dodger and duct taped the holes. Since leaks on a boat are very difficult to find, we sat with fingers crossed that the tape would stop the waterfall. When the rain started again, we stood expectantly, staring at the window. Waiting, waiting. No drops! We were very pleased that the window was sound and the leaking area had been so easily discovered and temporarily patched. I know our window guy will be glad the mystery has been solved because he was tired of taping trash bags everywhere.
In between rain events, we had a diver clean the bottom of the boat that had grown quite a lovely green, slimy beard around the water’s edge. Once a boat’s hull has been cleaned, hundreds of fish gather around to have a buffet of krill and seaweed. Evidently, word gets out around the marina on which boats have had the bottom cleaned because the next morning at 5:30am, we heard talking just outside our cabin window. Two men had thrown fishing lines into the water and were sitting 4 feet from our bed! They proceeded to fish under our boat for the next 4 hours. We do our best not to interfere with the locals’ way of life so we did not interrupt their fishing. We decided that if they show up at 5:30am again then steps will need to be taken! We took one day to adventure into the old city to see the Museum of the Spanish Inquisition. The description online stated there was information on torture and mayhem…right up my alley! The museum was housed in a beautiful old building with amazing architecture. When we arrived at the ticket booth, the woman informed us the museum was under reconstruction and most of the plaques were still in Spanish. Given we can read key words in Spanish, we opted to go in to learn about torture and mayhem. As we entered room number 1, we learned the Spanish Inquisition in South America had three headquarters….one in Cartagena, one in Mexico City and one in Lima. The Inquisition lasted about 300 years and during that time, less than 10 people were executed. Seriously? That’s not much torture and mayhem! Most of the crimes seemed to be based on “reading inappropriate books” which was funny because we had a hard time believing the native tribes had any books at all…much less “inappropriate books” and the ability to read Spanish. The other popular crime was devil activities which encompassed most of the tribes’ religious rituals. However, it seemed as if the Spanish were more terrified of being burned at the stake than they were for saving the tribes’ souls from burning in hell so not much was ever accomplished. Rooms 2 and 3 consisted of a bunch of woke preaching nonsense which irritated us. When Bill checked the website this morning for a detail I needed for the blog….the information on the website had been changed from “torture and mayhem” to “Inquisition chambers, human rights and coexistence”. Hold my hair…puke. The coming week will have some light boat projects so there may or may not be a blog next week before we leave on our trip to the States. I’ll do my best to find something interesting to write if possible!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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