Hey everybody, with the changes that have taken place over the past few weeks I have been pretty bad about updating this blog. I have managed to update the Blogger address a couple of times but there is no built-in position report on that blog. I plan on updating the position reports on this blog very soon but I will also be looking for another way to post these types of updates while at sea so stay tuned...

I am beginning to enjoy Cartagena already, all I need to do now is become fluent in Spanish! I hope to be posting blogs on Blogger while we're here.

We just arrived in Cartagena and it is quite a change of scenery from the flat islands of the Netherland Antilles not so much due to geography as architecture. This is the first time in quite a long time that we have approached a big city from sea. The anchorage here seems to be right in the middle of town so hopefully that will translate into convenience for whatever we need to get done while we are here.

One thing that I will be working on while we are here in Colombia is repairing a sail. Earlier today we decided to put up the older of our two asymmetrical spinnakers partially to see what condition it was in after a while with no use and partially because it is slightly smaller and easier to handle. After only about thirty minutes there was a now-familiar POP and the sail floated out ahead of the boat and down into the water. After retrieving it we looked up and realized that the entire head of the sail had torn off only a few feet from the top. I plan on attempting the repair on my own so we shall see what that results in.

Tomorrow we will be off on the usual errands of clearing the boat in and checking in with immigration and soon I will find out how much of my Spanish I have retained from the Dominican Republic and how much I can confuse the Portuguese that I learned with the Spanish that I have learned. For now it's time for a dinner of tuna and a good night's sleep.

Very early this morningt the Furuno chart plotter on board clicked over to 10000 nautical miles on the trip odometer, this is the mileage that Chantecler has traveled since leaving Louisiana sometime around August 2008.

Beside that little tidbit there is not much to report today, we should arrive in Cartagena later tonight and right now we are motor-sailing with emphasis on the "motor" part of that. It's been a good day to read a book.

After all of the failed attempts today I finally caught a fish! About a 25-pound dorado, not as big as the one that broke the leader this morning but not too shabby. Grilled dorado is the fish of the day on Chantecler's menu and it's gauranteed to be fresh! Time to do some cooking.