15 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
We did a few jobs in morning – Glenys got on with washing clothes and I did some admin. We fly back to the UK in six weeks’ time, so I’ve got to start to get things ordered and delivered to Glenys’s brother ready for us to pick up. The most important bits are a replacement seal to fix the generator oil leak and some new bearings to fix the annoying clunking rudder. I prepared various emails and then dinghied over to an internet café to send them all.
In the afternoon, we went for a walk on Santa Catalina to Morgan’s Head - it was only a short one mile walk, but goes along a pleasant path, which has painted tile pictures dotted along the way. When I spotted the rock outcrop, I just HAD to check out if it was climbable. It took me ten minute or so to get to the top – I’d rate it as V.Diff (when done in sandals). The climb down was the worst bit as usual.
16 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
We hired a scooter today – a bargain at $20US for the day. It’s been over a year since I was last on a bike, so we were a little wobbly for the first hour. We circumnavigated the island to orientate ourselves – it didn’t take long because it’s only 10 miles around the island. Back in the main town, we bought some drinks and a pastry to fortify us on a hike.
We whizzed around to Freshwater Bay (in the opposite direction for a bit of variety), where we parked up and went for a walk following a signpost that pointed up a track. The trail led to the island’s reservoir, which is has a very low water level – they’ve obviously not had much rain recently. We followed a path that led down the right hand side of the dam and a mile later, we’d got half way up one of the hills, but were stopped dead by a barbed wire fence, so no nice panoramic view today.
However, it was good to be hiking again and we saw some brilliantly coloured blue lizards plus some of the black land crabs that are a favourite delicacy on the island. Glenys had the misfortune to brush against one of the evil thorn bushes, which nasty biting ants live on. She was bitten by two of the tiny little buggers and she said it was like a wasp sting.
Back at the scooter, we wandered to Freshwater Bay but everywhere seems to be closed up, so it was onto Manchineel Bay where we had lunch at Roland’s Roots Bar, which was a huge seafood platter that we shared for $20US. While we were sitting on the driftwood table staring at the incredibly coloured sea, Glenys complained of being bitten by no-see-ums, but strangely I didn’t seem to be affected, so we ignored it.
In evening, we went to “Lonely Planet” for sun-downers, where we noticed that we both have lots of small bites on our legs, but there aren't any lumps and no itching, which is fortunate.
17 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
We had a chill out day after yesterday’s exertions. I spent most of the morning listening to music and working out some tunes on the guitar. During the morning, the thirty or so bites on my legs started to itch, so I put some antihistamine cream on them. Glenys doesn't seem to have been affected as much. I reckon that we've been bitten by sand flies on Manchineel Beach.
We went snorkelling in afternoon and saw quite a few Lionfish – they’re all over the Caribbean now. I went to the Internet café and ordered the spare parts for the generator and rudder bearings.
18 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
Both of us had a restless night with the sand fly bites itching like mad – Glenys now has over 100 lumps on her legs, arms and back and she’s not happy.
I did a few jobs this morning – mopped out some sea water from the engine compartment – there was about a litre of water sloshing around. It’s definitely sea water, but god knows where it’s coming from. It’s weird because we can motor for 24 hours and the bilge is dry then other times there’s loads of water.
I cleaned up the oil that has been sprayed around the generator. The oil absorbent pads that I arranged around the crankshaft pulley have caught most of the oil, but there’s still a fine spray over everything. In particular, the alternator belt was very sticky because the oil is obviously rotting the rubber, so I changed it for a new one. I don’t have another spare belt so I cleaned the old one up as best as I could and kept it in case the new one breaks – hopefully it will last until July.
We ran the water maker for an hour and then I stupidly left the back wash valve open and was flushing our newly made water overboard for an hour. Fortunately, I remembered before we dumped the lot overboard. What a plonker –this is the third time in two years that I’ve done this.
I did some admin work in the afternoon and backed up my laptop and moved some data onto a portable hard drive, so that I can take it back to the UK and store it at our son’s house. I back up my data on the laptop fairly regularly, but that will be no good if we sink because our backup disk is (eerrrr…) on the boat…
19 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
It’s Sunday today, so we had a chill-out day and went ashore for lunch. Most of the small town was closed up, but we found a nice little eating place on the water’s edge called “Miss Lucys”. To start with, they served us with the ubiquitous chicken soup, which is made in a huge two-foot diameter pot. It’s obviously been on the go for years and they keep adding stuff to it - it’s delicious. This was followed by Conch Curry and Pork with Rice and washed down with a couple of nice cold Meeyas.
After two beers at lunchtime, I’m completely useless, so we read books and napped for the afternoon, then watched a movie with a bottle of wine in the evening – a perfect Sunday.
20 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
I bit the bullet and changed the engine oil – I’ve been putting it off for a month, but it all went smoothly. After the disaster with the generator alternator belt, I thought that I’d change the belts on the engine, but the spares that I have don’t seem to be quite right or are old used ones. I’ll have to buy three of each when we get to Panama City.
We went into town and saw Mr Bush. He gave us our immigration visas and we paid him a whacking $140US for his services - apparently it’s $80 for him and $60 for the visas. We read somewhere that around 200 boats go through here every year, which earns him a tidy $16,000 per year, plus he also clears in any tourists who visit the island by the ferry.
Glenys did some shopping while I caught up on email at the internet café. We were planning to leave on 23rd or 24th, but it looks like there’s some squally, wet weather heading our way, so we might have to hang around for another week.
We chilled out in the afternoon, then Jim and Laura from “Nilaya” came for a beer. They’ve spent the past five years travelling between Colombia and the Rio Dulce, so they know Panama very well. They gave us a lot of useful information on the Bocas del Toro in Panama, which is where we’re planning to spend two or three weeks on our way to Shelter Bay marina where we’ll leave the boat when we fly back to the UK.
21 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
We had arranged to go walking up the highest peak on the island this morning, but it threw it down last night, so I cancelled the hike because we think that the paths will be really muddy.
I woke up with a blocked left ear. I guess that I’ve had some sea water trapped after going snorkelling which has done something to the wax in my ears - it doesn’t hurt, but it’s bloody irritating being deaf in one ear.
I pottered around for most of the day checking my spares inventory and doing a few jobs. We now have a long list of filters, alternator belts, impellors, hose clamps, etc, etc. that I need to buy in Panama before we head off down to Ecuador in November. Once we leave Panama, we’ll be in places where it will be very, very hard to buy parts for the boat, especially in the Pacific islands. We’ll probably not be able to buy much until we get to New Zealand next November.
Glenys has also be looking at our medical supplies and making a list of things to buy. We’re going to have to buy much better antibiotics and painkillers. All the drugs that we have are over-the-counter items and we’re hoping that we’ll be able to buy much stronger stuff in Panama.
22 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
My damn ear is still blocked, so I put some ear wax removal drops in. Unfortunately, this stuff softens the wax making it expand and blocks the ear even more. I’ll just have to suffer for a few days.
We’ve been getting some water in a bilge in the back cabin and not been able to figure out where the hell it’s coming from. Glenys mopped it out yesterday and today there was a more water in there and it’s definitely sea water. After a bit of investigation we eliminated all of the hoses in the area including the engine exhaust, but we could see water slowly collecting on the bottom of the bilge. Glenys jokingly said that it might be coming up through the hull, so I inspected a rough looking area and lo and behold the water is coming in through a hairline crack in the bottom of the bilge – we’re sinking!
It looks like the previous owner, Sergio has bodged a repair and plastered some kind of epoxy putty along the crack, so I’ve sent him an email and asked him about the history of this problem. I also dived down under the boat and inspected the hull – the leak is roughly above a moulding that holds the propeller shaft tube, but I can’t see any serious cracks. There may be some hairline cracking on the port side, but it’s difficult to tell with multiple coats of antifoul. I’ve sent an email to Hallberg Rassy to ask their advice – another job for when we haul out in Panama.
I spent the afternoon on pumps. We’ve got five old pumps that have been hanging around in a locker for two years and have been swapped out sometime in the past. If these were all working, we’d have spare pumps for our fresh water system, the shower pumps, the bilge pump and the deck wash pump, which would be very handy. I built a little test rig and checked them. They all appear to run, but don’t pump correctly and have a few other faults. I managed to repair the spare fresh water pump, but most of the others need parts that I don’t have – some more things to buy in the UK.