It has been an interesting and exciting year for us. We wintered over in Cartagena, Spain.

Cartagena is an old city dating back to Hannibal. Actually it was his brother, Astrubal, who founded the Amodern@ city of Cartagena in 224, B.C. for the Romans. It continued as a Roman stronghold until the Roman Empire fell and was occupied by various conquerors over the centuries. The deep harbor with the surrounding protecting hills created a perfect natural port for the Roman trading and mining operations resulting in a wealthy Roman establishment. Lead, gold and silver were the mined in the region from the early Roman days until the mid-twentieth century when the area was completely mined out and all operations ceased.

Cartagena fell on hard times after the demise of mining, but have now discovered that their past is important. The city is working hard at renovating, reconstructing and highlighting their long and colorful history. Their rich archeological heritage has given them much to work with.

For us the appeal of Cartagena was its ASpanish-ness.@ So much of the Spanish Mediterrean coast is high-rise resort heaven; over developed, often uninteresting, and generally frequented by non-Spanish tourists. Cartagena looks very Spanish; lots of old buildings, a weekly outdoor market, interesting parks and museums, Internet cafes, a technical university, nightly >paseo=, and a very Spanish population. Few shopkeepers spoke any English or if they did, a very small amount. The city was touristed, by not Atouristy@, which made it a wonderful spot for us.

The harbor was immense. It is little changed from the time of the Romans; modernized a bit, but substantially the same. Part of the Spanish ArmadaByes they still call it that-is headquartered here, as well as a submarine fleet. From our slip we could see the subs going and coming on their training missions. Besides the marina catering to recreational boats, where we were, there was a marina for the fishing fleet, a container-ship loading area, and large repair yard with a 100 ton hoist, where AIona@ was hauled for her yearly bottom job, a naval section restricted to recreational vessels, and a huge commercial dry-dock and boat yard across the harbor from us that was an old naval installation, privatized recently and now catering to the maintenance of large commercial ships such as ferry boats, oil carriers, container ships as well as the odd naval boat. At the far end of the harbor was the bone yard, where old naval and fishing vessels were Aretired@ and dismantled. And those surrounding hills remain undeveloped. They are owned by the government and on the tops are various governmental communication and security installations. The surrounding lower elevations support various military -both navy and army-training facilities. We often could hear small arms and gunfire from the training grounds.

So from our slip, in the middle of all this activity, there was a lot to see. We managed to keep ourselves very busy wandering the town and becoming intimate with our surroundings. It was a great place to winter over. Before we left in the summer, Liz and a young student from her school, Robert, visited and we did some land touring around Spain, and down to Gibraltar. Cartagena was a great town to be based in. Train and bus service was excellent. We had no trouble getting around. We even could rent cars reasonably and tour inland to interesting areas we couldn=t get to by train.

Now we are in Malta, another interesting place, full of history, but that we shall save for another time. The boat is in the Kalkara Boat Yard out of the water. While we are home for the winter, the boat is getting a needed face lifeBpaint job. The harsh Mediterranean sun and general use has taken its toll on the hull and the boat needs a freshening up. We are also having other little maintenance items taken care of while the boat is out of the water.

Our plans for the coming year are firmly planted in Jell-O. We plan on sailing around Italy and Crotia, but we may head for Turkey or ???? We are not certain where we shall winter over next year.

We hope that brings you up to date with our wanderings.