We ate dinner tonight with Graham and Sue on their boat, Chandrika.  They are a very young couple, (29 and 33 years old).  Graham is a Landscape Architect and Sue has received her doctorate in Molecular Biology from Vanderbilt.  But, they have a passion mountain climbing, and are using a sailboat as a means to travel to places they want to climb, while enjoying sailing.  Their plans are to transit the Panama Canal in November, then on to Galapagos, Taiwan, and Asia.    Such a dream....they are young....and they are out here doing it on a very limited budget. 

We invited Que Linda! and Chandrika over this evening to Valentina.  

It was good to get together again.

S/V Fia (Firefighters in Action) was on their way here from Puenta San Bernardo.   They called on the VHF and we went out the channel to meet them in the dinghy, as it was getting dark.

On the way to Roberto's, I fell in the dock.  Yes, in the dock.  I was walking on the edge and the board was not nailed down, so it flipped up and I flipped down.  Ouch!   I am OK, just have a big goose-egg on my leg.   Put ice on it and it is getting better.

We took turns giving each other haircuts.  YIKES!  Sonny cut probably 7 inches off mine.  He did pretty good though.  Our daughter, Stacie is a beautician, and I think he has been watching her.

It is Monday, and there is a new boat in the Bay of Cholon, S/V Fano from France with Luke and Janet on board.  So we had a get together at Roberto's with a potluck dinner.   We went down to the local tienda, Jaime's, and bought enough chicken for everyone and I made a big bowl of potato salad. Linda on Que Linda! made some rice and delicious brownies, Carmen made a broccoli salad, and Janet on Fano made a Greek salad.   Sonny grilled the chicken at Roberto's.   It was wonderful!

S/V Gigi with Ellis and Leta arrived in Cholon, but today is Leta's birthday, so they decided to celebrate on board Gigi.   We all sang Happy Birthday to Leta on the VHF radio.

While in town, we saw a soccer game

and some children, possibly in a day care, called out the window for us to take their photo.....so, of course, we did.

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥	♥  ♥  ♥  ♥	♥  ♥  ♥  ♥	♥  ♥  ♥  ♥	♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

Cute, cute kids.  Big smiles and sparkling eyes.  For a village that is so very, very poor, the children are beaming with life, love, and laughter.

Just makes me so very thankful and grateful for so much in my life.   We take so much for granted,    These kids melted my heart.   Our daughter, Stacie, would love the kids here.

Speaking of thankfulness......we were glued to Roberto's television showing Hurricane Ike pounding into Galveston and headed up the Houston Ship Channel to Kemah.  Our hearts go out to our friends in Kemah and Houston and are praying for them.    We are so thankful to be here.

Baru does not have a water supply system.  A water barge comes from Cartagena and pumps water into your tank for a fee.   Sonny assisted Roberto's crew in installing rain gutters on the front of his house with a huge roof. Actually, the crew did a great job with very little supervision.  But, it was fun and interesting. When God provides the wonderful gift of pure water, we gladly accept it.

We love Baru.....we consider it our home.  We have met such good people here, lifelong friends that we thoroughly enjoy spending time with.

So, after the potluck, we went to the Caballero's for Dr. Gilberto's famous paella.   It reminds me of a huge stir-fry, but with about 30 ingredients.

Dr. Gilberto first dons the apron, has a glass of wine, has music playing in the background and grabs the large utensils and begins the ritual by igniting the fire on the huge propane cooker, .  The cooker has one set of flames on the outside, with smaller flames in the middle with a very large skillet on top at least two feet in diameter.

He continues adding ingredients until the paella is finished.

It was both interesting.....and delicious!

A very special evening!

We arrived, and immediately began on our list.   We had two pages of things to do, stuff to get, before we could return to Baru.

We went to the grocery store to start on the reprovision list.   We also bought a year's supply of our medicine.  So much cheaper here.  For Sonny's prescription and my prescription, for one year....the total was $45.  No insurance...total price.

We went to the Macro supermarket and began marking things off our list.   We returned to the Yamaha dealer at 2 p.m., hoping they had already diagnosed and fixed the problem.  Juan Pablo said, "We will look at it a 4 p.m., then let you know the problem, and the price, and you can return tomorrow for it to be fixed".   We were a tad bit frustrated, at this point.   Anyway, we waited until the magic 4 p.m.     Juan Pablo finally came to get us to test drive the motor.   It did run good.   They just cleaned the carburetor (again) but with a air hose, confident  they fixed the problem.    We were so surprised they went ahead and fixed it.

Juan Pablo took us to his office for payment.   He speaks only Spanish, so he typed a message to us, using a program on his laptop with an English translator.   He said it was a "regalo".   No payment.....a gift.

Wow....we were so thankful.

Debbie (S/V Runner) and I met at Club Nautico at 7:30 a.m. and took a taxi to Mega Tienda, a local supermarket and met Carmen.   We shopped and hauled our groceries back to our boats.

In the meantime, Sonny walked a couple of miles to get some fuel filters for the dinghy.   Then, he jerry-jugged gas, diesel, and water, to top our tanks off and took our propane tank to get it filled.

We walked then, all over town, trying to find the things on our list.   It is a scavenger hunt.

We met Roberto, Carmen, and Reggie and Debbie (S/V Runner) for dinner at Dana's. 

We helped Damon and David (S/V Bruadair) with their lines as they pulled out of the marina.  We are going to Baru together.

After the storm, although our anchor did not budge, we did not have a good feeling about it...... thinking we might be snagged on something below.  We have previously heard other cruisers say there is a sunken boat in the anchorage. {great, I think we found it}

When we anchored on Sunday, and dug in, it was a different tug.  We anchored in 30' of water, but our depth meter kept saying 2 or 3 feet under our keel.  Crazy....so, today, we decided to go ahead and see if we could get our anchor up.  Sure enough, we were hung on something, and both of our depth meters read 2'......3'.....5'.....10', then, finally....back in 30 feet.   We had been set free.   We are so thankful!   We thought we would have to pay a diver to get in this nasty water, to free our chain and anchor snared on the sunken boat.

Valentina and Bruadair are now both anchored out, and ready to depart in the morning for Baru.

 

A U.S. Navy Ship "Saturn" was docked near us at anchor.   I am always interested in the code flags the ships still use for communication.  I have to look in the book to see what they mean.

This one..... Pilot on Board and Do Not Come Near

At 9 a.m., we pulled up anchors and headed out the Boca Chica Channel towards Baru.   Out our cockpit, you can see the old fort used to protect Cartagena from pirates.

Underway, Sonny is at the helm and Kay is fishing.

But, about an hour later, our friends on Bruadair came on the radio and said, "Fish On"....so we slowed down.   We were about a mile ahead of them when I could see the fish jumping out of the water behind them.   So, we turned around and headed their way to take some pictures.

Damon snagged a 53" Wahoo......It was so exciting!

They had so much fish, they fed all eight of us at Roberto's potluck, and then gave all three couples a bag of fresh Wahoo fish steaks.

In the anchorage, there are only three boats, Dragonet, Bruadair, and Valentina.   All from Kemah, Texas.  We had a Texan reunion at the potluck.  Roberto wore his cowboy hat and Carmen played Willie Nelson (her favorite) songs.

Ye-Haw and Wahoo!

Dr. Gilberto came to his Cholon house from Cartagena today and we invited him to come out for dinner on Valentina.  Sonny grilled some of Bruadair's delicious fresh Wahoo.   We sure enjoyed our time with him.   He is learning English (with a Texas accent, of course) and we are continually learning Spanish so we practice with each other.

Kay stayed on board and started making rain-proof panels for our cockpit.

We enjoy taking showers in the rain.

Sapzurro is 150 miles south from us on the Panama/Colombia border.   Due to propogation in Sapzurro, most people near him in the San Blas, cannot hear him on the SSB, so we relay for him.

	Later, we took our dinghy to the Rosarios (4 miles away) and had lunch and relaxed for the afternoon.   Damon went with us and Roberto and Carmen took "Mister"s launcha.

About 25 minutes later, he called us on the SW Caribbean Net and we were able to get an update.    He said the 6' gash in the hull is just cosmetic.   It is not leaking, but he has a 6" square spot that is leaking, similar to a bad packing gland.   His bilge pump is keeping up and all is OK.    He is still requesting 5200 or epoxy, if any boats are headed that way.

Dan and Trish on S/V Eventyr volunteered and are checking on gathering up supplies from other cruisers in the San Blas and make the 100 mile/24 hour trip to Sapzurro.   

Peter on S/V PIP is in Panama City and he is obtaining epoxy and possibly 5200 for Don.  He is going to put them on a plane to have shipped nearby to Don.   It is scheduled to arrive on Sunday.

This morning, on the Central American Breakfast Club Ham net, Queen Mary had called for traffic with us.   They said they are pulling up their anchor in Curacao and heading this way.   It will be so good to see them!

We are checking in with them on the SSB at 5 p.m. and midnight.  Then, we will check on them in the morning.

We made a dinghy trip into Baru to get another phone card so we can call Don.

We are going to go to Sport Baru to upload the website, then later, we are going to have a potluck at Roberto's. 

We rode into Baru with Damon in his dinghy today.   While in town, we saw our friend, Kathy Kay (a 12 year old local girl we have become attached to).  She was riding on the back of a moto, along with four other people going home after school.   A few minutes later, she was there beside us.   She had  gotten off the moto and came back to ride with us in the dinghy.  We take her to a dock near her house, then it is about a 10 minute walk.

She said she wanted to come see our boat so we told her we would need to talk to her mother first.   So, we all went to her house to talk to her mother.   Sure, it was OK.  So, off we went.

We enjoyed her for the afternoon. 

Later, Bruadair and Valentina gathered on Queen Mary to hear the details of their long trip here.