Living the Boatyard Dream

Our flight from Bogota to Cartagena was cancelled leading us to spend the night in Cartagena because we got in late. We spent the evening grocery shopping and stayed in the best little hotel near the airport. If you find yourself in need of a place to stay near the Cartagena airport Hotel Mangler is the place to go. Our hosts, Ingrid and Edgar, were so helpful and welcoming. They let us use their fridge for our groceries, made us coffee the next morning, made us Colombian flag bracelets, and even drove us all the way to our boat!! Such amazing people, we are constantly taken aback by the warmth and real hospitality of Colombians.

Our hostess Ingrid 

Once we arrived in the boatyard we were met by Jose the foreman. He helped carry our groceries and welcomed us back. We were a little nervous to see what was in store for us as we hadn’t been aboard in four months. We were very pleasantly surprised - other than being incredibly hot down below (our saran wrap melted!) there didn’t appear to be any issues and the boat barely even smelt moldy! We spent the entire day putting away all our belongs that had been packed away. The extreme heat definitely takes some getting used to and caused us to move a little slower.

The next day we met Eduardo, a Cuban guy who works on the barge next door to our boat who offered us the use of any tools we might need or any other help. It seemed like the guys who work in the yard were quite happy to have new people around and all day people came and went to say hi and ask where we are from. The yard even has the most adorable little cat who is so affectionate and playful - of course this is animal number one that I want to adopt going into season three ;) 

Best boatyard cat

Getting my morning cat love!

Eduardo has lent us a few things and has brought us a bowl of ice cream when were outside working and even brought us pizza for lunch one day! When we made him coffee one morning he returned the mug along with an apple :) Several afternoon we hear a knock on the hull and he throws us an apple - we're hoping to see him in Cuba when we go this year!

Pizza Lunch

We have been in the boatyard for 15 days now and while all the guys who work in the yard are so friendly and nice we are definitely over the place and dying to get back in the water. For those of you who don’t know what a boatyard is, picture a train yard where old trains go to get repaired. There are around 50 guys in jumpsuits all working on different projects - most of them noisy projects. On the barge next to us where Eduardo works, there are at least 5 guys welding so all we see all day is bursts of blue and orange light. They only turn the welding off when they have to hit the metal as hard as they can with a mallet - pretty awesome. The barge in front us has metal grinders going ALL day. There are two travel lifts hoisting boats in and out of the water and since we are right next to the dock the travel lifts pass us constantly.  We have to wear hard hats whenever we’re not on the boat. Even a simple thing like going for a pee involves finding our hard hat, climbing down the ladder and dodging forklifts to get to the toilet. To top it all off, it has been 44 degrees celsius most days!

We have crossed some important projects off the list which is a great feeling. We painted the bottom and boy did she need it. We had been agonizing over whether to paint the bottom navy blue to match the new enclosure we hope to have made in Panama or grey to match the stripe around the hull. We didn’t need to worry as when we went to buy the paint the guy told us “we have black or red”! Seeing as the old colour was red and we both hated it, black it was. I was afraid she would look like a biker chic pirate ship with a black bottom and burgundy stripe around the hull but it’s definitely an improvement over the last colour. 

"Before"

"During"

"After"

Of course as all boat projects go everything take three times longer than you think it will and as one project gets finished you discover something new that has broken and needs immediate attention. We’re so close to being ready but now we’re stuck waiting on people to return or finish items we had sent out to be fixed. These were all things that were “one day or same day” repairs but 6 or 7 days later we’re still waiting. 

The good news is, we have a launch date of tomorrow! It was supposed to be today but apparently they were “too busy” for us to go back in the water. We still have several projects left and hope they go smoothly as another week in this place might be the end of me! With the "extra" day yesterday I even painted our dingy.

All ready for Season 3