11:39N 74:56W at 1830 GMT 6-7 knots under genoa, wind F5-6ENE.
Ooh, my first visit to South America looms. We’ve slowed up to go in to the
port at first light tomorrow. Meanwhile I’ve been playing the theme from
“The Mission” by Ennio Morricone to get in the mood, and sometimes whistling
that haunting pan pipes tune that they always use to try and convey that
this bit of the film is set in South America.
The pilot book says that Cartagena is excellent for provisioning, so I am
hoping that the shops will be slightly better than just an extended version
of Camden Market, selling itchy-stinky woollen jumpers and godawful
carved-wooden tat. There’s bound to be some of that though, isn’t there?
Or maybe Cartagena Market is full of ethnic junk from other places, like the
UK. Hum.
Actually, I do have detailed - albeit secondhand- knowledge of South
America from my son, who visited some years ago as a participant in one of
those slightly pointless and somewhat flippin expensive school trips,
probably bookable through Free-holidays-for-teachers.com . He came back
and reported that South America was “alright”. Sometime later the other son
went and he made an identical judgement. Of course, their full report was
somewhat more extensive than that – something along the lines of “Oh yeah
that, well, it was a bit of a dump here and there but yeah it was kind of
like, yerknow, alright.” It’s this sort of first-hand knowledge that is
invaluable for any traveller, and well worth the several thousand quid I
must say.
Lovely sunny day today, clear blue sky now we’re away from the squally
mid-caribbean. Full moon again – this morning was ethereal as the moon set
in still-dark sky in the west on the starboard side of the boat, and the sun
rose in blue-pink sky on the port side.
Unless something fairly amazing happens, such I think of a decent joke at
last (ie better than that one when the guy sez to his mate Aw I got bad news
from the doctor - it’s the big C! And his mate sez What, cancer? No,
dyslexia….) then this’ll probably be the last posting from being at sea,
but as promised (well, Bx told me) I’ll be posting some pix if I find some
internet in Cartagena. Perhaps even a video too.
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