Wednesday 20 July 2011

sailing to independence

Sam was not the only dude on San Juan and we booked a trip to see the independence day fireworks with an incredibly mellow dude indeed. During the day we went into town to enjoy the parade (semi-ironically if thats possible), when we bought a coffee we were supplied with complimentary and very stylish stars and stripes hats. The parade was relatively low key and the highlights were the numerous dogs in fancy dress, it is easier to look at the pictures.





The image below is a dramatic reconstruction of events the previous day. After we found out there were no bicycles to rent we were hanging about on the porch of the bike shop planning our next steps or maybe sulking, definitely one of the two. On the porch was a customer trying and failing to use their newly aquired and singing all dancing $25 bike pump. Being a know it all I rushed to the gentlemens aid, it was simply a matter of valves if he just unscrewed the top like so and turned around the rubber piece like so it would work,   however before I even got to the rubber piece I managed to accidentally drop the vital outer component between the slats of the wooden porch, that was only accessible from above. This would have been embarassing enough without the half hour crystal maze-esque (think the cube, younger readers) attempts by pump owner to retrieve the piece using a bent spoke and Fiona's knitting needle that I had cunningly cobbled together. After several stress inducing near successes the day was finally won without the agrieved pump purchaser threatening me or swearing once - he was a true gent, I was a true Wally! 


On Monday we finally got the bikes for a day, it is a great island to ride around



Fi is not actually in the ocean here, this a full scale replica


The local boozer had some great bumper stickers




The Spike Africa in all her glory


At sea on the Spike Africa - Taken by a rather pissed bloke from Oregon, his wife was rather unimpressed, with him not us!

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