SailingKnitter

Goodbye Cartagena! Goodbye Carmen, our favorite fruit vendor! Carmen pushes her cart through the neighboorhood offering fruit for sale. Then, in the afternoons, she stops by the marina, loads up her fruit in a large pan and carries it on her head! She walks the docks shouting out the types of fruit she has for sale; mandarinas, banana, avocados, pina, and my favorite, melon.
I can be a boat vegetable all day and still get my fresh fruit!

And speaking of the boat, Take a look at our new handmade teak yarn and cupholders. We had a local craftsman make these for us and I love them. We have one on each side of the helm seat so now there is plenty of coffee cup, binoculars, beer bottle, and yarn skein safe stowage. When we are underway, the rocking of the boat has knocked our drinks every which way and made quite a mess. The one cupholder we had on the boat was out-of-reach in an awkward location. And then there's the yarn balls that would roll around at times. These little additions will greatly enhance our quality of life.

The same craftsman also mounted the freeform tiles that I made in a class many years ago at UC Davis. Yup. That's our last name. I always wanted this by our front door at our land house, but never got around to mounting them. So now it is safely attached to the interior of the boat.

I've had a few requests to show you the inside of our boat - some of the living spaces. So I'll start with these...here is the "wet bar". You can see where we've mounted my tilework. Nope, no booze in these cabinets. Instead that's where we store all of our paperback books. Right now it is packed full to get us through the next few months. We cruisers exchange our books whenever we meet up. So there is always a good variety.

The gauge and the curtained area are the watermaker that Jonesy installed. There used to be an ice machine here, but it died. Ice makers are for dock queens as they suck up so many amps - too many for cruisers. So this became a convenient place for the watermaker (reverse osmosis) equipment and controls.

Next up is a photo of the port (left) side of our salon. That's where I have sat all summer working on my computer. The table has wine racks underneath but we don't drink wine and besides, if there are bottles in those racks you hit your knees on them! There is a bunk along the back wall there if you remove the back cushions (for narrow people only like our son Brett). Hey Brett! See that teak bar across the back shelf? That was your idea to prevent all the stuff from falling on you when the boat heeled. The local carpenter made that for us this summer.

And...hidden behind the setee is the majority of my yarn stash. This is one side of the locker. My stash is crammed along the entire back wall which makes for great insulation. Really.

So, off we go! Our first anchorage will be Bahia Cholon on the island of Baru. This is still in Colombia and is only 18 nautical miles away. Just a short hop, but is supposed to be very Caribbean and quiet. After spending a few days here, we'll move on to the Rosarios, then out to the San Bernardo islands - all still in Colombia. Then there will be an overnight sail over to the mainland of the Panama/Colombia international border. After dealing with the paperwork cha-cha in Obaldia, we'll cruise along the remote San Blas Islands of Panama (Kuna Yala). Until we have internet again - SEA YA!