Still in Arrecife

Not moving much these days. The anchorage in Arrecife is a bit like "Hotel California"... "you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave". An Englishman has been here since May. A Frenchmen stayed because he hurt a finger and even after it finished healing, he stayed. Just before he was to leave a canadian hurt is back so he's been staying put since. No worries however, Gaston is healing slowly. We have had some winds of up to 25 knots but since they were from the North-East, we were well protected. However, in that much wind, there is a bit of wave in the bay which can turn into a shower when you try to get to the shore in the dinghy. We end up looking like people who peed in their pants. And when salt water dries, it leaves a white mark on your trousers. Very classy! This anchorage is actually more dangerous when there is no wind at all. The boats circle around the blocks according to current instead of wind so they go every which way and since the blocks are close to each other, there is a danger of collision. We crashed into our neighbor twice in one night without serious damage. I dived to get the rope of a second block close by the next morning. Using the two blocks has put enough distance between the two boats.
Since there is not way to fill up our fresh water tanks in this port and our water levels were getting low, we decided to start up our desalinisator which had never work before. Other than have to change the breaker because it was not strong enough, the start up went very well. We produced enough water to fill up our tanks again in a few days since we only produce around noon when the sun provides the most electricity. Our Katadyne produces between 4 to 5 liters of fresh water per hour using 4 amps. Not too bad!
Other than Arrecife, we visited Teguise the oldest city of the Island with our friends from Lakatoa. To keep ourselves busy, we also go on other boat to play cards, drink or eat and then we invite people on our boat an do the same. One night, Tony an Ozzy invited everybody in the bay over on his boat with their musical instrument for a jam session. His boat is name Ragin Cajun and he is a violin player. We were about 15 on the boat and Gaston had a ball playing his harmonica. I also go diving for glasses after someone jumped in forgetting to take them off.
Before we left Canada, Gaston and I received vaccines for most of the dangerous diseases but we could not get the last of the doses for the Hepatitis vaccine since we had to wait 6 month in between doses. So the 6 months came to anytime after October 24th. We are on a spanish speaking Island, not in a marina and we have no idea how the health system works. So we decide to show up at the first hospital, say to the receptionist : "Buenos diàs. Es necessita una vacuna por hepatite. Es disponible aqui?" and cross our fingers. The man understood! However he then needed to explain to us that we had to go to the government to get a prescription then to the pharmacy to get the medication and finally back to the hospital to get it injected. Of course, we didn't get all this the first time around but the man was very patient and all smiles! So we go to the government building and the receptionist sends us to an office where the woman is not quite as patient and smiling. Frowny face said something very fast in Spanish and I answered: "que?" so she said it again just as fast. A man next to her who noticed our "deer in headlights" expression talked to us in English. Alleluia!!! So we found out that she wanted to give us an appointment with a doctor that only comes to the island on Friday mornings in a totally different building. The next Friday, our appointment is at 10h and the same unhappy woman is at the desk and she gives us a paper all in Spanish to fill out. Fortunately, we have a dictionary with us but we are a bit worried about the conversation with the doctor. Turns out that she was absolutely charming. She spoke to us in a pot-pourri of French, Spanish and English and we managed to understand everything. We left not only with our prescriptions for the vaccine but also for malaria medication and a lot of useful information. All of this for free! We had to go to two pharmacies to get the medication because we didn't want to wait an extra day and that was not free but close to the same prices as in Canada. Then back to the first hospital and after waiting for about 5 minutes, a very nice nurse injected the vaccines. Still not quite sure what she said to us however.