The little pleasures in life
Everyday life becomes more varied. Now the bicycle tour is part of the routine. The route:
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On the way back over the kilometre-long motorway bridge with cycle/footpath, a mountain biker rode in front of me, who was obviously outdoors to do sports (on a women’s day!). With my turbo gear I inevitably came closer and overtook him. Admittedly, he was probably taking a short rolling break, as he was busy with his mobile phone. Nevertheless, I smiled and imagined what he must have been thinking when a raging grandmother on a folding bike came from behind. Hooray for the electric support 🙂
On the third tour the track seemed to be much less strenuous and a lot more fun. The only downer is that we are not allowed to go out until the afternoon and therefore I have to motivate myself for this action from 3 pm onwards, a time when usually sofa time is about to start.
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Parcel without address
Poste restante – This is a concept from the pre-Internet times. I remember an episode from our youth. Back then, when you still had lecture-free time as a student, when you didn’t have to write exams during that time and the time could be used for work or other pleasant activities, Mathias and I made our first bike tour together on a tandem. We had planned the tour to last 8 weeks and went to Scotland. In the end the tour lasted “only” 5 weeks because of too many breakdowns, but that is another story. Contact with the family in Germany was through letters, the kind that is written on paper, written in the evening in the tent and delivered to the post office in a town the next days. One could roughly tell where one was and would be arriving soon. High up in the north of Scotland I had somehow the intuition to ask the post office if there was mail for us and lo and behold, they had a letter poste restante from my mother. Could be considered a telepathic connection or a crazy coincidence, it definitely was a pleasant surprise. Some of you spontaneously offered to alleviate the pudding emergency with a care package, we were very happy about it. Unfortunately, in times of Corona even a package is no longer an easy matter. Due to the restriction of air traffic to Panama, no more parcels are transported into the country. The curfew would make it difficult to pick up a parcel from the post office and even in normal times you have to expect that a parcel gets stuck in customs. That would be an interesting new problem for us 😉 So far we have been counting on visiting friends for such supplies. When the children come, they have full suitcases with them, but there are only few clothes inside. 🙂 So maybe we have to hold out until autumn or Christmas for the replenishing of the pudding supply.
The flight ban has just been extended until 21 August. It does not apply to cargo planes, but the normal small mail probably comes with the passenger planes, at least DHL does not deliver to Panama at the moment. With small packages in freight mail I made bad experiences. Such shipments are often lost.
Other things can be organized here. Mathias has now placed an order for technical parts with the help of an agent. That’s a common way for people on yachts here. Since you don’t have an address, the agent takes care of the order and the customs formalities. He orders more often and can therefore negotiate a discount with the companies, which he keeps as a commission. A system that benefits both sides.
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We have ordered paint and more fans. With the temperatures here and without air conditioning the fans run frequently. But the fan in the kitchen hangs in a corner where I don’t spend much time. Therefore, I got an additional fan whose air flow can reach me while cooking. We replaced the fan in the bedroom by one with a timer. So far, one woke up after a while because the noise is annoying. The new fan is also a bit quieter in its running noise.
We have also ordered a scuba tank system that works with small tanks that can be filled with a hand air pump. It supposed to take quite a long time to fill them, but that’s fine as we have a lot of time. This solution sounded better than getting even more huge equipment on board. After all, snorkeling is usually enough for us, we only dive to clean the underwater hull or maybe check the anchor. I’ll keep you posted about the experiences.
Our neighbouring ship has successfully received a food order from the supermarket. The delivery address was something like: “We are waiting in front of the Felipe Motta wine shop”. This possibility is useful if we want to replenish the basic supplies. That way I wouln’t need to transport so much by bicycle. But for the daily things I prefer to cycle to the supermarket, after all it’s a good reason for some exercise.
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Small catastrophes
The anchor chain bridle came loose on one side – the shackle was broken. This of course happened when there was a bit more wind. We started the engine and recovered the bridle. During the effort a new problem occurred: The batteries are not being recharged when the engine is running. Honestly, we are just lying around here, nothing is really stressed, but the alternator allows itself the right to break down just like that. The world is unfair 🙁
In compensation, a positive message: We now have a small inverter 24 V to 110 V, i.e. we can see what results our ice-cream making machine will deliver. Keep your fingers crossed that a pudding substitute will appear here 🙂
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Second shipment arrived
Help! – Mathias has a spring scale that can measure up to 300 kg. I see a flood of readings going to happen. All to verify the anchoring catenary. Hours of activity beckons. Time when he can’t work for me 😉
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What else happened:
Thanks to the fact that they had Gouda cheese in the shop, the homemade pizza does not run out.
Our electric motor is doing well. Nice quiet driving and going at a leisurely pace.
My hair’s shorter again. Mathias had to dare to cut it after all.
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