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Well its my turn to write a blog (Liz) as John wrote the last one. This one will have less sailing terminology in I promise! We are in Cartagena, and have been for about a week. We are tied up in the marina here (we found out yesterday that we are tied up in the expensive marina here - the other one which is not in the pilot book is about half price! We will know better next time!) on a visitors berth which means that we are alongside the touristy promenade. It is a bit like being in a goldfish bowl, as apparently a touristy thing to do here is to wander past the boats and stare at them shamelessly for lengthy periods. Still, we have met lots of Brits who have seen our flag and started up conversation. All the ex-pats from round here have come to Cartagena this week as there has been a big fiesta celebrating the battle between the Romans and the Cartagenians. There have been reinactments, fireworks, juggling, and more reinactments. Half the city seem to be dressed up as Romans, some of the outfits positively kinky! All the costumes are however fantastic and the attention to detail is incredible -but somehow wasted as they are all constantly smoking fags, chewing gum and chatting on their mobiles! Ellen and Anna have been enjoying the fiesta - Anna sometimes with her hands over her ears, and comments like - wait mummy wait, now mummy they are going to do the acting bit, Ellen thoroughly enjoying all the fancy dressing, and in the day time the empty stages just waiting for her to get up and dance for us!We stayed in Mazzaron long enough for John to fix the overheating engine (well done him - although it was just the cap for the cooling water which was leaking), and to discover that one of our enormous flexible diesel tanks was leaking. Mazzaron was a lovely place - the Marina was still being finished so all nice and new, the beach was great and just next to the marina (Ellen did some very brave swimming in big waves - I was proud of her), and the town has a spacious feel to it. There was a huge storm, well actually seemed to be about 3 storms all around us for a few hours and I was busily putting white light round the boat so we didn't get hit, while John Ellen and Anna marvelled at the lightning. As there were no chandlery shops in Mazzaron, we and our leaky diesel tank made the 3 hour trip to Cartagena to try to order a new tank or something. However we were told that they were no longer made so we set about patching our broken one. Suffice to say we have now patched it, lined its cupboard to protect it from fibreglass shards and hope with everything crossed that it will be ok (we have also discovered that if needs be they are still manufactured).Tomorrow we are leaving to head to the Mar Menor, where we hope to anchor for a while (thereby offsetting the cost of being tied up here for a week). We have been told it is beautiful by some people, and very built up by others, so will just have to see.Other snippets of news are that Ellen has been very keen on doing her school work, most of which is colouring, but includes writing numbers 1 - 4 neatly, and Anna as ever is loving books, particularly 'cloudland' by john burningham.We met a lovely French couple on an Endurance 35 so I got to practise my French a lot (they said I spoke very well!!!).Ellen made a friend for a day - a girl on an Italian motorboat moored next to us - they played on her boat for ages and Ellen was chuffed to bits! I had anxiety about her being on a boat with people I had never met and couldn't speak to but we could see her all the time and were both poised to run over at any minute. In the end we had to drag her off to bed at about 10pm!And lastly for those who hadn't heard John has passed his honours degree with a 2/2 - hooray for John!
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