Cartagena

Osprey
John Bowering
Sun 1 Aug 2010 07:35
31st July 2010. What a wonderful place - full of history and culture. Lindsay left to find Easyjet at 0800. We have not heard from him since so can only assume that he made the flight and got back to the UK suffering from the related collateral damage! A walking tour of the near city was tremendous with much time at the old bull ring and arsenal. It being Saturday the waterfront came alive at about 2100 with parties everywhere including Spanish guitarists and fireworks. It was still in full swing at 0530 and the need for the Spanish siesta becomes readily apparent. Cartagena is still an active naval base with several frigates and a submarine currently here. There is some sort of naval vessel construction facility in a huge shed but we have yet to figure out how it works as there is no apparent access to the water from the shed. In the port the weather is terrific with a constant easterly wind - the same one that would cause us so much difficulty if we were at sea! There is a Burger King within 100 metres of the boat so that was sampled on return from the walking trip - fascinating trying to work out what is what in Spanish - but it tasted the same. We had a number of visitors on board late evening including a beagle called Toby and his owner. He walks past morning and night and inevitably we got talking and he came on board for a drink. Sunday we will try and get the boat ready to move around to the marina. We now have a large catamaran astern of us and a big power yacht in front so we will have some fun getting away from the berth and will have to capture some marineros to assist.