Hasta Luego, Espana!

We left Menorca about the 3rd of August, sailed for 2 nights and a day to make a brief stop in Northern Sardinia to chill out, snorkel, and relax.  We started for Corsica at 2 am.  Night crossings are tedious, and nobody particularly likes to stand watch at night, but we are realizing it is better to do them so that the kids can sleep and it maximizes time on land.

Code and I do 4 hour shifts.  He usually takes the 1-5am shift, which is the one really hate.  I take 9Pm to 1am, then  5 am till 9 or so when Code wakes up.  I sit on deck working on needlepoint (I use Aethan’s  headlamp to see), or I read, or do yoga, or take little catnaps.  Sometimes a pod of dolphins swim by, there is usually bioluminescence to the water, and the stars are amazing.  It usually gets quite damp, which I think is the greatest discomfort.  Other than that, I am getting used to it and am tolerating it better.  Time flys by, which is not what I expected.  There is always some puttering to do on the boat like cleaning, little projects, reading, and needlepoint.  Next thing you know, it is time for dinner, then bed.  The kids occupy themselves, too.  Legos, drawing,  watching videos, and varied games. 

We spent 3 nights and 2 days in Corsica in an area called Bonafacio. It was great to be in a country where I am at least familiar with the language (French).  I can read it and understand French, but I don’t speak French very well.  My pronounciation is so bad!  Code is just the opposite.  He has the pronounciation down, but not as much vocabulary or grammar.  Together, we are able to muddle through better than in Spain.

On our last full day in Menorca, we rented scooters and zipped around to see the Neolithic ruins (about 1500BC) which are all over the island.  It was a real treat to travel by ‘vehicle’.  Weird to think that since June 22, we have had no cars, bikes, telephones, or TV.  Riding on a scooter felt downright civilized!

 The town where we stayed, Mahon (yes, the birthplace of mayonnaise) presented many challenges for one reason after another.  One was that the city is on top of a cliff.  There are steps and ramps to get up to the city from the waterfront.  Not to bad for us, but for Graeme, it was like climbing Everest.  He was usually exhausted, hot, and whining by the time we got to the town.  Both kids did OK if we bribed them with candy, of course.

I am also looking forward to a normal daytime schedule.  The siesta thing in spain did not work well for us.  Typically we get up, tinker around the boat, swim, have breakfast, decide what to do that day, maybe have lunch, pack up and go.  By then it is 1 pm.  Stores and streets are deserted by 1:30 pm, which is usually about the time we’re ready to run errands, etc.  The entire country shuts down and goes silent until 5, so we usually didn’t get half as much done as we had planned.  After a month you would think we would get it, but it is amazing how habits die hard! 

After a few days on Corsica, we left for Sardinia for 2 nights.  Then it is a straight shot to Rome and then Southern Italy.

Menorca

We are on the 3rd of the 'bigger' Ballearic Islands.  The scenery leaving Mallorca from the North side was simply dramatic.  Beautiful mountains - limestone cliffs - caves -  rugged terrain drop off into blue, clear, warm water.  We could see the bottom of the shore at 40-60 feet.   It had rained the night before, and the grasses and even the trees seemed to green up overnight.  It was just stunning.  

We stopped for the night at an anchorage after dark - the last one before leaving Mallorca, and we were off again before dawn for Menorca.  It was a long day of some sailing, some motoring.  We reached Calla Covas at about 3.  Graeme and I snorkeled together - for him it was his first time really snorkling! I think it was because he was without his lifejacket, so he had to really concentrate on swimming.  At first he was nervous - he didnt recognize the underwater world and he needed to get comfortable with it.  He relaxed and went with it as long as I swam with my hand on his back...and as soon as he was comfortable he became a little fishy.  It was amazing...in just a few minutes he was chasing little fish, reaching his hand out to try to touch them, and swimming zigzag to follow their path.  He swam around the rocks, poked a sea urchin, and by the end I needed to slow him down.  

Aethan and Code hiked up to see caves, which were made as burial grounds almost 3000 years ago.  There are about 100 caves up and around the cove (which in itself was spectacular). It was probably one of the most beatiful coves I have ever seen.  The only downside is that as we're heading into August, the tourist season is gearing up in to full throttle.  All of Europe vacations in August, it seems, and many find their way to the Med.  The trash is piling up, the anchorages are more crowded, and prices are adjusting accordingly.  Fortunately, we have the rest of the year, and starting in September, the Med quiets down substantially.

The sailing is OK.  People seem to complain about it - there is too much wind, or there is no wind, they say.  Its all just fine with me. 

We will head to Sardinia later this week.  There, we will purchase a more reliable means to the internet, so we can post more regularly and I will be able to have work days on the boat instead of in internet cafes (which is nice, but after a while, I feel like I am imposing, even in Europe).  To sit on the boat and work...that will REALLY be the charm!

I hope the kids won't need therapy for this

Here we are in Mallorca (or Majorca) with plenty of time to wait out weather by going to the beach.  It gives me some time to sit and reflect on our transition to life in the Mediterranean.

Week one: I delicately explain to Aethan that sometimes, girls his age sometimes dont wear any bathing suit tops because there is really no difference between boys and girls at his age.  He seems non-plussed, shrugs off my vicarious pre-tween angst, and plays with kids at the beach.  I am so proud, he is such an young citizen of the world.

Week three:  Aethan seems to think it is as weird as I do to see topless women at the beach.   Graeme doesnt notice.  I am actually a concientious objector to sunbathing. It is bad for your health, and bad for your skin.  Out of fashion, really.  Besides, who cares if you dont have tan lines and you are lightly toasted from head to toe?  Really...what is the draw?  

You know where this is going...

Week 5. Long passage from Ibiza to Mallorca.  Pretty boring day.  Kids are downstairs playing Legos (as they do for hours...no days...on end).  The sun is nice and before you can say 'All out in the open' I am laying on the foredeck, a private nook of the boat, relaxing the warm sun. Now I get it.  No sad and soggy patches of wet nylon strapped to my chest.  THIS is why they do it.  Ahhhh, the empowerment.

All I have to say next is nothing says 'New-to-the-Mediterranean' than two blazing hot neon pink triangles on your chest.  I slept on my back for 2 nights.  Finally things up top settled down, and there I was, back on the foredeck, catching some rays on our next passage.  

Code was concerned that I was peeling after a full day in the sun.  I told him I need more time the 'toughen them up'.   He didn’t thing that having good tough breasts is a goal I should necessarily be working toward.  Then we spend a few days at Calla Covas, a spot with neolithic caves, a freshwater spring, and a weath of skin in all shapes and sizes.  As beautiful as the human body is (or at least in theory), lets just say too much skin kind of kills the appetite for the sun.

So, I suppose I will revert back to the concientious objector of the sun that I am.  Break out the 70+SPF, find my 'covers' (as the kids call them), and find some shade. 

18 July: Meet me in the Bouncy House at Midnight...

Bouncey house at midnight.

We sailed from Isla Fronterra yesterday.  A beautiful sail.  We are in a spectacular narrow  cove with deep walls and clear, warm, azure water.  The cove is protected on three sides, with the exception being from the east…which is, of course, now the direction from which we have been enduring 20 knot winds since 10 pm last night with 4 to occasional 6 foot swells.  The cove can comfortably accommodate 10 boats, and there are 11.  Our comfort-zone with anchoring is about 18-20 feet of depth. We’re in 24 feet.  We prefer to anchor in sand, but our anchor (after 3 tries at setting) is on the border between weeks and sand.   It was a night on the edge of our comfort zone.

Our choices are to pull up anchor in a crowded harbor at midnight and re-set the anchor where we are (a spot we do not particularly feel comfortable with), move our boat to shallower water but weave in between the other 10 spinning bobbing boats that stand between us and the preferred anchorage, leave (to go where, into unprotected waters but away from land?), or stay put and have someone do anchorwatch all night.  We decided on the latter. It is now 7:30 am, and I have been back on watch since 6:30.  I was up from 12-3. The boat has moved maybe 4-5 feet, but there is the is the everpresent anxiety that a huge swell will come and dislodge the anchor.  That doesn’t meet we skitter across the harbor as the anchor will find a new hold. But given the fact that there is substantial weed patches, we could potentially slip too close for comfort to our neighboring boat, or worse, those ammunition –laden shores.

Many of our neighbors have been up last night too—executing on the options laid out above. No one is comfortable in this kind of weather, and if there is any comfort, it is that we all share the same fears.

17 July 2011: Finally, we're really REALLY in the Med

We are  on the island ofIbiza,part of the Balearic Islands. The Name Balaeric, according to history, comes from Phoenician and roughly translates to ‘men who throw stones’ (as a means of defending their island). Looking at the shoreline, you can see that they had plenty of ammunition.  After the Phonecians came the Romans, who named them Pitiusae  in reference to the scrub pine the covers the island.  Reading that in the piloting book let me to imagine tall pine  forests like you might find in the Redwood Forest, or even North Carolina. It is more of the Jersy pine barren- variety.  Don’t get me wrong, comparing the Ballaeric Islands to New Jersey hardly seems fair (nothing against Jersey, but hey).  Nontheless, one can imagine Romans tromping around these islands – they are beautiful.  I would not say ‘mountainous’, but substantial hills (covered in pine), rambing roadways that pass through hayfields, hotels, and villas. 

The water is so clear and warm.  We spend a good part of the late afternoon setting the anchor.  The hardbor was filled far past capacity, but we found a spot (after many tries) that seems solid.  The kids were getting antsy with the beach in sight, so  we piled in the dinghy to go ashore.  I went for a beautiful run – using the term loosely as the paved road gave way to dirt road, which turned to trail through the pine where walking was the only option.  I turned back only after paranoia of not being able to find my way back in the dark.  On the way home I picked wild blackberries. Half the size of what grows on Saltspring Island, but twice as sweet. 

I keep trying to describe the island as ‘like this’ or like that, but it is so different and unique,it is just Ibiza.