When we returned from our last trip, we found the marina full of new cruisers. Some cruisers sail alone. Some cruisers join large groups. Most cruisers form a group of like-minded sailors and you join, leave, rejoin the group, leave, etc until the group is so far spread across the world that Facebook updates are about all you get. We met our main group in Luperon, Dominican Republic, when we were there for the first 5 months. Some were added along the way but the core group stayed about the same. We never planned travel as a group but we always seemed to end up in the same places. Our group has gone with the wind over the last year and we have been on our own again. One couple made it to New Zealand but are selling their boat to go be better grandparents. One couple flew back to Australia for a year and are now in Mexico. One couple had a situation where the wife did not want to be on the boat anymore so she is in Mexico and her husband sails during the season and lives with her during hurricane season. Another couple sold their boat and are building a house in Idaho (also near the grandkids). As a result, our Colombia stay has been pretty uneventful until recently. When we returned from Argentina, we found Tuesday Burger special night at the restaurant invaded by a group made up of six or seven boats. They ranged from people from the US, Canada, South Africa, Egypt and the Philippines. They had all traveled as a group from Mexico to Colombia. Bill and I had ordered our burgers before the crowd arrived. They all joined us at our table and it was quite a scuffle as tables were added and chairs were shifted. When the waiter came out, he looked as if he was going to cry. In his broken English, he explained, “We have nine burgers. We had eleven but now nine.” Bill and I kept quiet with our knowledge that we were the ones who had stolen two of the eleven burgers as the others figured out how they were going to split 9 burgers among 14 people. After some shuffling, they figured it out and all was well.
Besides just the enjoyment of meeting new people with different stories, new boaters mean unexpected perks. Our neighbors had just purchased a new boat in Panama and he was ordering an updated Starlink system for his boat. He had a used Starlink which he did not want anymore so we quickly told him we would love to buy his old Starlink. After a few negotiations, we loaded the Starlink onto Galt, plugged it in and it is amazing! Hats off to Elon Musk! We have not had internet this solid since we left the States. The good news is that whenever we get to the next country, I just go online and change our country and our service continues. It will work on the water as well so that is an extra safety feature for us. So nice not to worry about communications as much anymore! Graceful Sally fell off the boat again a couple of weeks ago and yes….I had my just-purchased-in-Chile phone with me. A dockhand walked by and waved at me and said, “Hello!” as if I was just in for a swim fully clothed. I told him I needed help which took a bit of Spanglish to relay. The marina has no ladders so it makes it difficult to get out of the water unless you are a 20 year old male who can just hop up on the back of a boat without a thought. He pointed to the neighbor’s boat because their sugar scoop (the back step on a catamaran) was lower than Galt’s swim platform and he said something in Spanish that I interpreted to be “pull your old ass out of the water onto the neighbor’s boat”. When I gestured that I was a wuss and had no upper body strength, he then jumped onto the neighbor’s boat and hauled me onto the deck. Just then, the neighbors emerged to see what was going on and my humiliation was complete. They noticed I was bleeding on my leg so they brought me an icepack (rich boat with an ice maker….good choice for me!). Meanwhile, the wife grabbed my week old phone and shoved it into a bag of rice hoping to save it. When Bill wandered back from the store, he helped me get back over to Galt and we spent the next few days counting bruises and wondering, “now how did a bruise get in my armpit?” We wish we had the fall on film because there are so many unanswered questions! The rice did not work so I had to go buy another new phone. No more phone off the boat without a water proof bag! As May rolled around, many of the boat gang sailed off to the Eastern Caribbean but they left behind a few stragglers to keep us company for a while. The restaurant has figured out their supply chain so everyone gets a burger on burger night. No need for a mutiny. We are spending our days on boat projects and I’ll keep you updated over the next few weeks with some pictures. No pictures this week because the chaos on the boat is hard enough for us to stand without holding the image forever in a picture! May the 4th be with you and Happy Cinco de Mayo!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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