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January, 2008:

Meet the New Andiamo!

Jan 29th, 2008
by Tony.
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The New Andiamo!

That’s right, after two long weeks in the yard, Andiamo is back in the water with a COMPLETELY new look. Long gone is the weatherbeaten blue. In its place is a beautiful light pearl grey paint finish that is just awesome, in my humble opinion.

There are nice new navy blue stripes and the lettering has been updated with a beautiful hand-drawn calligraphic face (good job Senor Picasso!). The boat is now much cooler too! Can you tell I’m really happy?

I have a few updates to put up regarding the project, and things that happened during that time. I’ll backdate to put everything in chronological order as much as possible. Read on, and you’ll see them. I also put up pics in the gallery of the whole project.

It’s just nice to be back in the water again, with Andiamo lookin’ sharp.

Pop, and the elusive Cubans…

Jan 22nd, 2008
by Tony.
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Despite all that is going on with the Andiamo project, I found myself in a weird funk all of today. It’s now 3 years to the day since losing Pop, and the pain and loss is still fresh. No matter how well I deal with them in a relative sense throughout the years, I still find these milestones a bit hard to deal with. They always hit me in a weird way.

New Year’s has also been a bit tough for me, because I reflect on flying back to LA on new year’s eve in 2004 to see Pop for the last time. I was lucky to yet again have good people around me who took some of the edge off. This includes a new person, who despite just meeting up that night at a disco in Old Town Cartagena (very drunk I might add). She and her friends made the night really fun for me. She listened and cared as I talked about what I was going through on new year’s morning. (more…)

The work slowly begins…

Jan 11th, 2008
by Tony.
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Now that the holidays are well passed, things are back to apparent normal here in Cartagena. People are ready to work again, and things are taking a normal pace and routine. The holiday hangover here lasted a good week before you started seeing any real normalcy again. In town the xmas decorations are slowly coming down, and you can tell that some people just don’t want to let go.

As for me, I’m back in projects mode and things are in motion. I’ve nailed down a good paint crew and yard time for Andiamo’s latest refit. This coming Monday, Andiamo should be out of the water, for the third time in a year. And for about the next 10 days, be getting a nice new paint job on her hull. It’s much needed, that’s for sure. It will be really nice if only because I will be changing the color to a lighter color that will make her a cooler boat. The dark blue hull now, while very attractive in its original luster, just absorbs way too much heat. The boat stays hot because of it.

I also think that Andiamo’s new look will be a refreshing change. Other projects are in the works, but I want to get the paint job done first. I’ll be working on some other things while the painting is being done, just general improvements and fixes.

It’s going to be interesting…