Part Arrives!

We stayed in Cartagena a few days longer than originally planned because we were waiting for a part to be shipped to us. Our primary fresh water pump died an ignoble death on our passage down to Cartagena. It had been giving warning signs for some time, and I have no excuse for not having bought a spare earlier. We thought the original problem was simply a broken diaphragm, which was the subject of another parts shipment back in the Grenadines. We performed the diaphragm replacement and the pump stopped leaking, so we thought it was fixed. But, there was another problem.

Anyway, we identified a company which said they could get the part we ordered (two of them, one as a spare) in the US delivered to us in a week. But, they were not very good at "tracking" the package's progress. We essentially did not know if they actually had the product here in Colombia until Monday night. Then, we didn't hear from the until late last night - but, around 7 PM they finally delivered it to me at the marina. Whew! By 8 PM, I had removed the old pump and installed the new one. And, it works beautifully!

Now we'll be able to leave soon for the San Blas archipelago in Panama (click on thumbnail above to visit in Google Maps - Google doesn't have high-res aerial photos of the area - yet). These islands are some of the most beautiful tropical islands in the Caribbean. There are supposedly 365 islands there - one for each day of the year. The islands (and surrounding tropical forest-lined shore) are occupied by the Kuna Indians who believe in keeping their lives simple, live off the sea and the land, do not use modern technologies, and keep their culture separate from foreign influences. They are reportedly very friendly as long as you don't harm their environment or violate their rules. For example, each Kuna family owns specific coconut trees (they use coconuts as a form of trade, and a source of food and supplies). It is forbidden for visitors to pick up and use coconuts for this reason.

We are looking forward to being able to jump in the waters again. The port here at Cartagena does not have very appetizing water, so we haven't been swimming in nearly two weeks! We'll have a to wait a bit for a weather window and to get cleared out of customs.

As I've mentioned before, we will have VERY limited Internet connectivity while in San Blas during the next couple of weeks. I'll still hopefully squeeze out a few blog posts - but, you'll have to wait until we get to Colon, Panama for me to upload photos. We won't be able to reply to our E-mails during this time as well. It will be a vacation!