Monday 14th May

Cartagena

10 24.735 N
75 32.607 W

It was a calm night thank goodness and we woke to a sunny day. Once we had run the generator to top up the batteries, added a container of water to the water tank, collected up all the laundry (I wanted the covers from the sofas in the salon washing as they were sticky with salt and humidity), gathered our computers up to take ashore we dinked in to the dock. Gerry got rid of our trash and too the laundry to the ladies who do it whilst I set up the computers, we had been getting very low speed connections which wasn’t right and we were trying to figure out why and what we could do about it. Once we had the internet connection established Gerry spoke to the club manager about the speed, we found that we could get good speed on one computer but not the other. This was the first time we have had such a problem and the computer that we normally use was the one with the low speed – not good but at least I could use the other one to do my blog stuff and emails. The problem appears to be with the club and not our computer as several other people are having the same problem, not that it helps us but at least we know! I added some photos to the blog site for the past week – sorry they are a bit grey but that’s how the sky has been! Once I had done my computer stuff Gerry took the computers back out to the boat and collected our passports to give to the agent so that we could get clearance to leave (he needs them for 48hrs prior to us leaving here). Once we had off loaded our passports it was time to strike out for the old city. We walked along the harbour road and over the bridge into the old city, it was a fair distance and the sun was extremely hot; by the time we reached the city walls we were drenched in perspiration. We passed through the gates in the outer wall and began to meander through the streets. It is quite picturesque with ancient buildings which open up into courtyards. A lot of the buildings have been turned into shops, bars and cafes. We made our way to the Cathedral which is near the Parque de Boliver, and went inside for a look. We were accosted by a tour guide who for $10 offered to give us a personal tour of the cathedral, the Palacio de al Inquiscion, the gold museum and the surrounding places of historical interest. We agreed and set off with him. All through the tour he told us of the history of the place and pointed out various items of interest, he was worth the money. Unfortunately the gold museum was closed for the day (apparently only on Mondays!) so we didn’t get to see that but I figure we already know a fair bit about gold from Gerry’s work so maybe it wasn’t such a loss. At the very end of the tour he deposited us in an Emerald Factory store where we browsed and learnt about Colombian Emeralds. After that we were left to our own devises and first stop was to find somewhere to have a cold drink and something to eat. We found it quite expensive to eat in the old city but we were beyond caring at that point – any food and drink would have worked! Once refreshed we wandered around by ourselves for a while, making our way to the museum of Modern art (the sculptures outside captivated me but the “fine art” inside left me wondering what anyone sees in it). We then wandered to the Maritime museum but unfortunately the “Monday closing” seemed to be operating here as well even though it didn’t say so on the hours of opening sign, disappointed we made our way back to the city entrance where the horse drawn buggies were beginning to gather in preparation for the evening tourist trade. We were quite foot weary by now and decided to head home, the walk back seemed to go on forever but we made it, collecting our laundry as we passed through the marina on the way to our boat. Whilst we were gone a new boat had come and anchored between us and our nearest neighbour, the neighbour had already spoken to the new arrival about how close he was to both of our boats and the probability of a disaster if we have another squall like yesterday’s but the new arrival was apparently very “off hand” and uncaring about anyone else. Our biggest concern is that he appears to have dropped his anchor over the top of ours and if the wind changes direction and we swing we will probably hit him, let’s hope it stays in the same direction until we leave here on Wednesday. Back on board it was time to cool off and relax before having a shower and going into the club for dinner.