Spanish
Coast
After leaving Roses, we sailed down the
coast to Blanes with the Gennaker in full flight. Its something I’ve noticed up
here is that very few boats actually fly Gennakers or Spinnakers. I don’t know
the reason for this, maybe its too much like hard work!
Hard work-yeah right!
We anchored just off the beach at Blanes
and went ashore, up the steep coarse sandy beach. They were having a local
Ceremony celebrating their past and had large manikins depicting the early
settlers that a person gets up inside and walks it down the Promenade. Some of them dance around in circles, these
things were up to 5 meters high, how they didn’t fall over I don’t know.
We had a cheap meal here, Tapas, wine and
Beer for 9.50 Euro! Once again the town waterfront was full of families of all
ages having a good time and it just endorses the point of how valuable they
hold their Family units.
From Blanes we sailed further down to
Barcelona where we pulled into Port Olympica Marina. There is nowhere on this
part of the coast for anchoring as it is all open to the elements and there are
no bays as such.
Barcelona is a city bustling with people
and the ambience is one of a buoyant economy even though they are still
struggling to get out of the Recession. There are several Tower Cranes and
demolition going on, which is a sign that things are happening. The people are
friendly and I can imagine it must have been a great place to be when the
Olympics were held here in the early Nineties. The remnants of which are still
apparent and are kept in good order. We took an Open Top Bus again and one of
the stops was right outside the main Olympic Stadium which is open to the
Public and free entry. Once we got our bearings of where things were after the
Bus, we hired a Scooter for the day, something I just had to do before leaving
Europe!
The Scooter was great fun and ideal for
getting around the city without worrying about parking etc. You just pull up on
the footpath and leave it there. We went
up to the castle that overlooks Barcelona to check it out. The castle had had a
chequered past, with many different uses over time including a Prison with
terrible Tortures and Killings, and at one stage under Military rule actually
launched periodic attacks on its own city of Barcelona to show them who’s Boss.
It was a castle that was not held in great regards by the local Community for a
long time and was deemed the ‘Evil Castle.’
It all just reinforced the realization in our minds of how much History
and turmoil Europe had gone through to get to where it is today, unlike us from
little New Zealand with only a history of a couple of Hundred years.
While we were in the Olympica marina, I
thought Id check to see how much it was to pull boats out of the water here and
it was the cheapest price so far that I had come across. I had to take the boat
out of the water at some stage to take the Water maker intake out and put it
back in the right way around. It had been put in backwards in Croatia as they reckoned
that was the ‘right way’ but once underway, it would lose its prime in sloppy
seas, take a gulp of air and refuse to re-prime. So this had to be done before
we took on the Atlantic Crossing.
Any way, while lifting the boat out, the
boys on the Crane were in a bit of a rush and while I was putting towels down
the front bow to protect it from the Strops, the guy was lifting the boat and
caught the rear strop on the Prop. I yelled at him to hang on but it was too
late and it bent the Prop shaft.
The boat had to go up on the hard longer
than expected as we had to wait for the replacement Shaft to come from Belgium
and things don’t happen fast up here in this neck of the woods.
Characters
you meet
We were on the hard for 7 days and it
wasn’t one of the most pleasant places to be with dust and dirt everywhere and
having to climb approx. 5 meters up and down the Ladder to get off and on.
Things like going to the Toilet and even cooking and doing dishes were an
effort. The people we met there on the other boats were characters and it made
the stay a bit more bearable.
Yockhim was a German, married to a
Dominican Republic lady, whom he’d left at home to run the Business, bought a
cheap 5 metre Yacht and went sailing. He had no idea when he may go home again
and didn’t seem too worried about it either.
He had come to grief on a beach where he
ran aground and the waves had snapped his retractable Keel off, so was trying
to get that fixed. He lived on the sniff of an oil Rag and smelt like one too,
but he was really humorous and looked at Life in a great manner.
Through him we met ‘Hugh’ while over at his
boat one night for a drink. Now Hugh was larger than life itself, and at 65,
was in peak condition endorsing this the first time we met him by showing us
how supple he was, and the positions he could get his body into. He looked like
a cross between a sixties Hippy and Jesus.
He had done about all there was to do in
life, from playing music with the best Musicians in the world to being a master
Boat Builder. Music production, Cinema photography for the BBC, you name it he
had done it. How he managed to fit all that in to his 65 years was amazing and
he was also Heir to the ‘Tetley Teas’ family fortune as well. With that fortune
that he was due to receive once his Mother past away, he was not going to spend
it, he was going to put Giant Declination Plants in the Caribbean Islands to
give them Fresh water to get the Community to thrive again, a remarkable man.
Then there was another young guy whose name
escapes me that was working on one of the boats there and doing a great job. He
had come from Venezuela and was lucky to get out with his life. Whilst in Venezuela, local thugs had
kidnapped him and they tried to get money out of his family. He managed to talk
his way out of it some how and they dumped him and his dog out in the middle of
nowhere, stole his car and left him naked. He jumped on a plane to Spain the
next day and hasn’t been back. He warned us to be very careful whilst sailing
past this part of the world when we do, something that I already had in mind
and wasn’t really looking forward to.
After 7 days, we were nearly gong crazy(
well crazier) and it was good to get Falshator back in the water when we did.
We filled her up with Diesel and head for the Balearics. It was another frustrating
leg with no wind to speak of and we motored most of the way. We could have
waited for better wind conditions but we
felt we’d already overstayed our time in Barcelona, beautiful as it was, it was
time to go.
Our first fish caught off the Boat, great eating!!
We arrived in Palma de Mallorca, and backed
Falshator into the berth to find our friends Kerry and Janice Mair from NZ
right opposite us. It was great to catch up with them and we had dinner at the
Yacht Club there with them and a few quiet dinks later on board Falshator, that
went on till three in the morning.
Here we ran into difficulty getting our
replacement Docking Station for the Sat phone into the country. Spanish Customs had held it and wouldn’t
release it until we paid 250 euro in Taxes and Duty! I put it to them that we
were a ‘Yacht in Transit’ and were not importing it into the EU. They said I
had to get a Custom Agent to represent me, I got away with not paying the
Taxes, but with Agents fees, DHL fees, duty etc, it still cost 208 Euro, they
always win.
The weather is hot and the skies blue, I
think we are going to enjoy cruising these Islands!
Outside the Church in Palma de Mallorca
Sword fighting with real swords, they're crazy!
