From France to Spain and Friends Arrive in Barcelona

Unfortunately, we must start to admit ourselves that the travel part of our holiday is over. The good news is that we still have a month of holidays before we get back to Vancouver. Unfortunately the guys at work haven't yet figured that out ... I guess they think a year off work is holiday enough. How North American their attitudes are! ;-)

We had a rough night when we came from France to Spain. We made good time powering and motor-sailing and spent two hours in Palamos where I could get a Spanish Internet stick - our 10th of the trip. We should have stayed. The coastline was totally exposed to a 1 to 2 meter swell and the marinas nearby couldn't accommodate a boat our size anywhere near us. After Italy we were thinking 'what do you mean a 15 meter boat is big? ... It's the "little one" like they say in Monaco'. Regardless, when the bottom is 1.5 meters deep and your keel is 2.3 meters deep you're kind of hooped.

That night we anchored as close to the breakwater as we dared and then spent a night with 45 degree swings of the boat as we were side on to the waves. Geez Louise that sucks. Marina and I were up several times during the night and then got up at 6:30 am and said 'bugger this' and pulled up the anchor and got going. It turned out to be a beautiful morning so we said, let's sail, we only have 30 miles to go. Well, as you might expect the wind was right on the nose and we actually decided to tack our way up the beach.  Anybody from Vancouver knows how to do that ... except it was out on starboard and in on port ... but, Spain is definitely not Vancouver. My iPad has a cool feature that shows the GPS track in Google Earth and it showed...twenty one (21) tacks later we were there.

We got into El Masnou, the port we were to stay in until our friends arrived. It was a little more upscale marina than we had originally planned. We arrived during a race out front of the marina with interesting local catamarans, and made our way in. We went to the gas dock and were pleasantly surprised that diesel was 1.25 euro a liter ... Less than half the price we have paid in Israel and Turkey and 50 cents euro less than Italy and France... Woo hoo, things are looking up. Did I mention that beer is 1 euro a liter and drinkable wine is 3 euros...a bottle!? The sun is hot, the beaches are topless and the booze is cheap. Spain is quickly becoming one of my favourite places in the Med!

Buying Train Tickets to Barcelona

We had a couple of days to wait for our friends so we explored Barcelona by taking the train in and enjoyed a lovely city for a day. We had heard positive things about the city and were not disappointed. A nice combination of historical monuments, park like walking streets and a beautiful waterfront. 

Our friends the Taylors are from West Van and have 3 kids, Michelle, a girl Jessie's age, twin boys that are 10 years old. We met Jim and Sol through soccer. Jessie and Michelle have been on the same team for about 8 years and her dad, Jim has been a co-coach with Marina and Sarah.

Jessie waiting for the Taylors to arrive. 

Jessie and Ross were vibrating with excitement of having other kids on board. We had a bet -- me the experienced Air Canada customer, against Jessie and Marina, experienced travelers -- guessing when the Taylors would arrive at the marina. Their flight was scheduled to touch down at 7:30 am, Jess and Marina said they'd be at the marina by 9:00. I gave them until 9:30 and I said after 11:00. When they arrived at 13:30 I won the bet, though just like Forrest Gump's 'million dollar wound', the army must keep the money because I didn't see any of it.

The Taylors arrived a little worse for wear but happy to see us. After stowing some of their luggage, we had lunch and a couple of quick beers to get them into holiday-mode. We headed next door to the beach that Ross says is as good as Big Beach on Maui. We bobbed in the big waves as a group  leaving one of us to watch over our kit on the beach -- multiply anything by 9 and you end up with a lot of gear to watch over. When it was my turn to sit on the beach I was delighted to learn that there are beach vendors that sell beer and pop for 1.5 euros...seemed expensive for pop but quite reasonable for beer so I exercised my Spanish "Si, tre cerveza por favor" and 4.5 euros later Jim, Sol and I were slaking our thirsts with a cold one, on the beach, looking at the kids bounce in the waves with Marina, and keeping track of our kit. Nice!

That night, the Taylors did a yeoman's job staying up late and after gutting out a very long day that started some 36 hours before in Vancouver. After dinner we stayed up until almost 11 pm and got ready to head to Mallorca -- 100 miles to the east the next day because we had a weather window.

We woke up early and pointed the nose of Tara east to Mallorca -- about 105 miles away. The weather gods were smiling at us as we had a near perfect crossing. We powered for a couple hours, sailed for a couple of hours and motorsailed for a couple of hours, averaging 7.7 knots for the passage .. Which is pretty fast. We came upon this beautiful anchorage and dropped the hook for the night. 

View of Tara through the Cave at Cala di Calobra