Off we go

Goodbye Cambrils, we're now on the sea again. Finally some fresh crispy air, salty water in our face and a bit of action in our lives again. Good change from the quiet marina life we had the last couple of days. Let's see how far we get today.

Adios for now! /T&A

(And no, we're not sponsored by Helly Hansen, although that would have been very nice)

Moving on

Here's a bit of our plans. As you can see, there is some heavy winds going on out there and it is predicted to last for the next 24-36 hours or so, in various constellations. We have checked off some more things from our to do list here in Cambrils and the plan is now to make a 20 miles jump further down South, and dock up somewhere just before the delta. At the moment there's 20-25 knots of wind blowing from West and we will be sailing close hauled if we leave asap so those 20 miles should go pretty quick if there's not too much of waves, here above the delta. It's a bit rainy and grey today but we figured that we would rather take off in these conditions than having to stay here for too long. We're now ready for some action anyway. 

We're hoping to be able to pass the delta maybe tomorrow night and thereafter proceed with the blue route, first to Valencia to pick up the new wind generator as ours doesn't work like it should. From there we'll be rounding the Cap de la Nau and moving on with the another leg towards Cartagena - before the last route towards Gibraltar.

/Taru

One ol' habit gone

Probably not a very healthy breakfast: This thick chocolate and fried churros, but who cares, the bikini season is a couple of weeks away from us anyway. It is really getting freaking cold over here in Spain. Need to get away asap. Morocco, where are you? 

FYI, today is a huge day. Yes I lost my precious Blackberry some months back, but I got a hold on a new one, so obviously I had my number and a phone/bbm connection working since then. But today is the day when I decided to cut off the line and go totally mobile free. This will be interesting. I figured that I will need to get rid of a couple of old habits, so better to take them one by one instead of all in a big boom. Phone goes today, and the freedom of using the Internet when I want - will disappear from my hands after we'll leave the Canaries (Spanish wireless dongle will stop working after this). This is by the way the reason to my neurotic use of this blog, lately. Can't you feel I'm desperate to blog... all the time? (The blog will still remain the same though, I can still update it through sat connection)

This phone thing is probably a tiny step for the humanity but sort of a big step for me - and this time I'm doing it totally willingly. Hallelujah!

/Taru

Cambrils

The passport has been found! It was in one of the pockets in Alex's jacket. A jacket which he barely wear, but had on for some days ago. For some reason I had given the passport to him to guard after we picked up something from the postal office. So let's partly blame him for this disappearance, no? Thank you all for your help in this drama. I guess John Butler was the one with the nearest solution, so we'll welcome you aboard one day if our paths would ever cross!

We have just arrived to Cambrils by the way. Not very far from Tarragona where we today started, but we've decided to take it slow until we have fixed what has to get fixed. At least we're doing a tiny bit of progress further down South every day, and at the same time we have enough time, each day, to do some work on the boat. We do not want to get stuck in too rough weather or head out on longer passages before a couple of important things are done on the boat. Such as the final work on the teak, the reinstallation of the air generator, the inspection plates for the water tank, the final mounting of the toe rails and the installation of the watermaker. We're taking it easy here in Cambrils tonight, working a couple of hours tomorrow morning and then leaving a bit further down after lunch. There is a mistral expected from tomorrow onwards underneath the Delta del Ebro, so I guess we'll have some time to just stay around on this stretch of coast for more boat projects for the next couple of days. We're not in a hurry and finally we're both starting to feel a bit more harmonic and peaceful - now when we're having all the main stress behind us. There is actually not much things we need to worry about at the moment and there's also no schedules to adjust to. We're just happy if we reach the Caribbean before New Year, that's all. The passport issue solved itself in the end - like most things do in life and we are incredibly happy for that.

Now: a light dinner, some wine and falling asleep to some sweet reggae dub tunes.. Good night y'all. /T