Ponce

We cleared in fine. I am not allowed to dump garbage from cuba here. I have a cruising permit which is good for here and the us virgin islands.going back a little, you may remember that i had an issue with the windlass, well when i had to go alongside the day before yesterday it meant picking up the anchor by hand and using a winch on the mast, it worked fine but is harder than using the windlass, as one might expect i suppose. Having cleared in and gone back out to anchor i was doing some jobs, putting sail covers on etc  wondering how to proceed when jim, an american from the boat at anchor beside me asked me to phone gary who was organising a rope to be brought down from san juan for me for my furling line. We sorted this out, it was to arrive at 1400 and i had an invitation, along with jim for lunch with gary on his boat at the marina. I just had time for a shower and to put the cycle in the dinghy when jim arrived in his dinghy to tow me into the marina. Oh, in amongst all this i had changed the black box which is essentially an inverter on the. Fridge taking 12 or 24 volts and changing it to 40 v 3 phase and, hey presto the freezer works again. Brilliant.   We had a very convivial lunch with jim gary and the girls - twins and anita garys daughters. Gary used to be a film maker and writes, jim is semi retired from road laying and the girls with gary make films - public service broadcasts of an uplifting kind which they manage to sell to various tv companies around the world, all from the boat. Gary also writes and the twins are teaching themselves to  make jewellery, some finished pieces i saw were to a very high standard. As we arrived aboard they were cleaning some bits and pieces in electro baths, copper on one side some magic solution as electrolyte and silver on the other with 5 volts difference between the metals. The boat is a beneteau about 5o ft i would think and they all live aboard, they have aircon and quite a lot of film making and jewellery making equipment but the boat, if full, is very clean and comfortable. Anyway a very convivial lunch was had, various world  and religious issues discussed and at various points jim and i were filmed chatting about boats and things. We left at almost, sunset,  my rope had been delivered by. Now and jim towed me to the shore to show me where i could dock the dinghy without annoying anyone and he left me there assembling my bike. I then cleaned  up on the boat a little, had a cycle    Around the local area then cycled into town. The town is a little disappointing, all big roads and big stores and fast food joints. They have the most amazing cycle traps, drains, parallel bars about an inch each with about an inch between them and laid in the direction of travel, you have to keep your wits about you, when one appears, you have to ensure you dont go over it at anything other than a reasonable angle ie 30   Degrees or something so that the wheels dont get caught inm the gaps. It is essentially america here and americans dont understand bicycles.{Yesterday ithought i would spend 20  minutes getting the windlass working and then rent a car and buy batteries. The windlass job took about 3 hours but by12oo i had a car. A lot of cursing was needed to get my phone to connect to the car, the first time this is expected, but not every time i turn the car off and on again. Getting batteries was far more complex than expected. I went to batterys plus, somewhere graham had found on google. They had one appropriate one. I then went to anther one whos name currently eludes me but it turned out tobe a distributor who didnæt deal with the public. I then tried tyre and battery places and found some a bit too small but  maybe ok - batteries seem to come in models, i needed a 31 and 27s and 24 s were easy to find. Eventually i found what i needed in a car spares shop. not cheeap  though, i was expecting stuff  to be cheaper  than the uk and it is about 1.5 times the price of the uk. Anyway having bought the batteries and some nuts for the connections i went to walmart for various things but couldnæt face it, too busy. Then went to a supermarket and tried to find a laundry but they were all closed by now. I returned to the boat, fitted the batteries and bingo, they lasted all night without needing the engine. Hopefully the sun will charge them over the day too.

I have the car for a couple of days so am going ashore for an expleore and to re cycle the old batteries and to the laundry, hopefully open now.   Sent from my iPad