Well what a very busy last few days we have had.
Wednesday was just full on doing laundry, going backwards and forwards all day long.
They have a laundromat here at the marina, but only have a few machines available for the public to use, of cause I needed to do about 4 loads, so every half hour or so I did the hike, up to the laundry, even getting on and off the boat is a challenge in itself, they have two cement blocks one on a crate and they expect you to climb onto this, from a fair hight, it scares me every time I have to use it.
In between running back and forwards I tried to clean the boat some, but I never really got much of a chance.
The Captain was busy doing some repairs on the boat all day as well.
Thursday,
Today I just got stuck into cleaning the boat, in shocking heat, but man is she shining now, it took all day, I even polished the floors a bit, it so nice to have a clean boat, and smells like lavender, this, The Captain thinks is a bit Gay...hahaha
This afternoon the new crew arrived from their yacht, the one that are going through the canal with us.
We met up at the restaurant here at happy hour time, and had a few drinks with them, but it looks like the couple, Grant, and Carly, have changed their minds and may not join us, but will find out for sure the next day, which is cutting it fine, we are not real happy about this as we feel let down and it means making a million phone calls tomorrow to try and find someone at the last minute.
Leo is the other one who is French, but talks Spanish, and has been through about twenty times, what a nice guy, he is only 24 but acts so much older, he has dreadlocks and we can only just understand his English, but a very funny guy we were instantly friends.
The Captain of the yacht, is Ben he is just doing a delivery of this boat as he lives in America, well he is one funny guy as well I wish he could come back through with us too, but he needs to get back home.
Friday
Supplies shopping this I hate but we were told its cheaper to get grocery's on this side of the canal and also we needed to stock up on enough food to feed all this lot for two days.
So The Captain, myself Ben and Leo all caught a free bus ride from here to town.
Ben and Leo had to go to customs and check in, they dropped us of at the supermarket .
We had about two and a half hours before the bus came back to get us, and we were running to catch it I can tell you.
Armed with two trolleys and a list two pages long, everything here is in Spanish, so I had all the Spanish names for stuff as well.
Which is why it took so long, as we had to read almost every label, not to mention if it had garlic or nuts in it.
Then to the check out, a very nice guy came to help us he unpacked everything and another guy was packing it all up for us, of cause we had no idea what they were saying.
They carried on a lot after it had all gone through the check out we had no idea what they were saying, than Leo walks in and comes to the rescue.
Apparently they wanted a tip, but they were swearing to us and calling us all these names in Spanish, they had no idea Leo could speak Spanish.
Well that's when all hell broke loose, Leo was so angry with them and would not allow us to give them a tip, he just said grab your trolleys and go, well these guys were having none of it, they are trying to grab the trolleys back, screaming at us in Spanish, Leo is screaming back at them. We had no idea what was being said, and I think I was glad that we didn't.
Well they followed us all the way to the bus, which was a fair distance away, still screaming in our faces, when we got to the bus, people where getting of the bus yelling at them as well, I thought Leo was gonna punch them out by this time.
Now we really had no problem giving them at tip except the first guy gave us his card to use we thought it was a discount card, it ended up being just him getting a fair amount of points for him to use later, like a Fly Buys card.
So The Captain refused to give him a tip, he said that the points he earned on his card was more than enough tips.
In the end I said just give them a tip, and lets get out of here, so The Captain, gives the guy $4 and said two for each of you and that's all, well no way was that enough for them, this starting another screaming match, by all. In the end we just got on the bus, and left them still carrying on, talk about stressful, we felt like we had gone ten rounds with Muhammad Ali, I tell you.
Oh and the great thing on the bus right to and from we crossed one of the Canal locks, this was our first time of seeing it, man I tell you we were looking up at these gates that they let the water in and out of they are huge and very scary looking.
Am so nervous about going through.
So after all afternoon of me packing and sorting out all this food, The Captain and Leo organising extra line handlers, we now have friends of Leo's coming with us there is a lady and a guy and her son who is 15, so that in itself is a boat load than we have the pilot and he or she is bringing a trainee we think with them as well.
Man what a boat load.
So Ben and Leo came over for a chat and a few drinks, at around 5pm, which lasted till about 12am, man what a night a bit too much drinking happened, but we have never laughed so much for a long long time, they are just the funniest guys, but am sure there will be a few fragile bodies around in the morning.
Well tomorrow is another day.