Alan
03/16/2010, Cartagena, Colombia

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.

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Alan
03/15/2010, 10 24.46'N:75 32.50'W, Cartagena, Colombia

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.

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Alan
03/15/2010, 10 48.50'N:75 23.02'W, North of Colombia

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.

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Alan
03/14/2010, 11 55.09'N:73 23.64'W, North of Colombia

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.

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Alan
03/14/2010, 12 04.31'N:73 02.82'W, North of Colombia

Today has been a slower sail downwind but the fish sure have been biting, unfortunately no success in landing one though.

This morning just before noon both lines got hit hard and by the time I got to the first one whatever had been on it was gone (only a few seconds) so I went to the other one and there was definitely something big on it. I tried for over thirty minutes to reel it in and I felt like I had made decent progress when the line suddenly parted and the fish was gone along with the lure and leader. The one that hit the other line had also taken the lure and the leader. After re-rigging one line I put it back in the water and within 15 minutes I had a pretty big dorado on the line. This one I got all the way to the boat when the last 8 inches or so of the rod snapped off. Instead of getting the gaff like I should have done I instead tried to wrestle the fish onto the boat with gloved hands. I had the fish out of the water and up to the lifelines when it fought again and in desperationg not to lose the whole thing I took a wrap around a nearby lifeline fitting with the leader, the leader snapped on the first jerk of the fish and off swam about a 40 pound dorado. So the damage for this morning's fishing was as follows: 3 fish, 3 lures, 3 leaders and 1 rod. Not a successful day overall.

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