accomplishments

the day after we arrived back on the boat we were lucky enough to run into the local sailmaker, Steve.  he offered to help us take the jibs off the boat for inspection and sure enough we had chafe and deterioration that needed to be repaired before we leave.  the sails were rolled out on the beach for inspection before taken down to Steve's sail loft in a shopping cart.

last friday was water day.  before 9am we took the launcha to the dock, caught a taxi to minka (the huge mercado in callao), bought 6 5-gallon jugs of water, carted them back to a taxi, loaded them onto the launcha and then onto the boat.  jim said  it was a lot of work for a drink of water.

yesterday jim found the replacement batteries with the help of gonzalo and is brother felipe.  this was quite an accomplishment.  jim started at 8am by taking a bus then a taxi to gonzalo's house, then a car ride to the battery store, then bring the batteries to the dock, to the launcha, and onto the boat.  but wait we're not done yet.  the old batteries need to come out of the box to be replaced by the new batteries.  then the old batteries get loaded onto the launcha, taken to the dock, carted to the car and loaded.  oh, and each battery weights 66 lbs. EACH.  a relaxing lunch at the yacht club was the reward.  and we don't know how we would manage without gonzalo's help.