Its hard to believe how different it is sailing in clear blue water under a deep blue sky!
The boat we had chartered for the day was a 27'er, of early 80's vintage.... not a rocket ship, and had led a clearly hard life...but was solid, and obviously well maintained...
The aisles in the marina at Palamos were narrow, so it was interesting getting out of the berth, not having any idea of how she handle in reverse.... but all was well, and we set off out safely...
Just outside the marina, we pulled the sails up, and shut the engine down... A long tack out to sea, and off we went... fabulous.... clear blue water that you could see through..... and 10kts of wind.... we stood off out to sea for about 4nm, tacked back and headed down towards Castell.... a small bay... it was quite full, and so we set back, and ran down the coast to Calella, where we anchored in a free space.... there wasn't much space.... and I thought that i'd seen busy anchorages....
But somehow anchoring seems so much safer and easier when you can see the bottom!
A swim, and lunch, and we set off back.... with one crew member dropped off, we set off out again...
The wind had built with a stiff sea breeze, and a reef was put in.... we reached out, and eventually had to give up when around 16h00 the wind died... a slow motor back in and we tied up somewhat reluctantly...
All I can say is that sailing in such conditions has reinforced two points...
1] A bimini isn't a luxury... its an essential
2] I will love long term cruising!
Miles logged 24nm
Miles this season 439nm
Miles since this blog started 4,336nm
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