Adios España: High and Lows. Part 2.

(…a continuation of the things I enjoy about Spain, and those I didn’t enjoy so much)

The Bad.

This is a regular-size Belgian girl.

• Low doorways.

It seems to me that a large part of Mallorca was designed to accommodate some ancient race of midgets..

How else to explain doorways [inside and out] that barely reach five feet?

We once resorted to taping pool noodles to our bedroom doorways in order to prevent regular serious head injuries. Annoying.

• Noise.

Spanish people have a certain lust for life. They also love staying up late.

And chatting. On the street. In front of my house.

This would be fine if so many bedrooms did not have absolute street frontage.

Combine this with the fact that at any given time, at least half of any Spanish city is under construction, and you’ve got a big problem.

Falling asleep and/or sleeping in, is only possible in Spain with the assistance of quality earplugs.

Goddamn you noisy Spanish.

• Bicycle theft

In four years I have had three bikes in Palma.

These were never stolen but I am firmly in the minority.

Bike theft is rampant in Palma and no cycle is safe from the brazen gangs of professional Pikey thieves. Gypsies!

• Dog shit

I can’t stand little dogs.

Spanish people, however, seem to adore them.

They’re also fond of letting their little rats foul the pavement every four metres.

This makes me hate Spanish dog owners as well as their ridiculous pets. Gross.

• Stink

I get it – Mallorca is an old city. Years of filth lie beneath its worn cobbles.

But why, why, why, is it acceptable for sewage to bubble up from the manhole covers every time it rains for more than an hour. Disgusting.

Adios España: High and Lows. Part 1.

Heading back to Australia this weekend to give the motherland another shot.

During four years of working on boats, the majority of my time ashore has been spent in Spain, specifically Palma de Mallorca.

The place feels like home now.

My buddies are there; yacht work is there; the sun often shines – that’s home enough for me.

But it has been something of a love-hate relationship with ol’ Palma.

There are so many things I’ll miss, but so many others I hope never to experience again.

Here’s a quick rundown:

The Good.

• Fresh bread.

Sounds simple enough. Easy to find, right?

Nope. I mean so fresh it’s hot.

Only in Europe can you hit the corner store at 7pm after work and expect to find warm, crusty baguettes, straight from the oven. Awesome.

• The city as skate park

Downtown Palma is pretty flat. Cobbles are few. Bike paths lead you every which way around the city.

So it’s perfect for skateboarding and the cops could not care less.

Longboard sales are clearly booming in Mallorca, probably led by yacht crew but the locals are catching on fast. The buggers are everywhere.

And don’t even get me started on Barcelona.

Surely the only European capital to have been designed by skateboarders.

This can be the only explanation for urban architecture that attracts ‘skate-tourism’ from as far away as Australia. Freakin’ incredible.

under the bridge

• La siesta.

Start work around 10am.

Take a long lunch at 1pm, chill for a few hours, then head back to work until 8 or 9pm.

When you contrast this with the Aussie/UK work system, ours seems like some sort of Orwellian nightmare.

Please introduce the siesta worldwide. Please?

playaaaah!

• 500 Euro notes

Nothing screams ‘high roller’ quite like being in possession of 500 Euro beans on a Friday afternoon.

You can buy a house with one in Australia.

But that feeling is quickly swallowed up by the realisation that no one will cash it for you.

At least not until the banks open on Monday. Sucker.

• Eating late.

I don’t always want to finish dinner by 9pm.

Sometimes I want to drink beer all evening then stumble into a rustic hole-in-the-wall for a much-delayed boozy feast.

And that is why I love eating out in Spain.

A 12.30am dinner is never frowned upon, in fact, it’s the norm. Handy.

• Lazy cops.

Skating the wrong way down a one-way street last week.

Car swings round the corner, I leap from the board and end up pretty much on the dude’s bonnet.

Behind me, a Spanish bicycle cop appears. Uh oh.

Surely a stern talking to is on the cards.

Nuthin’. The cop doesn’t even stop, just offers a mumbled “Cuidado,” over her shoulder. Gotta love that.

*Cuidado  = Caution.

the other greece

No islands for us, mate.

No whitewashed churches, blue-domed roofs, cute islands and all the rest of it.

We’re on the … mainland.

You never really think of mainland Greece. Or at least I never do, unless there’s a report of more riots in Athens.

But it’s there and it’s pretty big. And dry. And dusty.

Jumping off from Keffalonia in the Ionian group, we headed south rather than transiting the Corinth Canal and went around the bottom leg of mainland Greece.

Not much grows down there. Some olives, providing the only shade of green on otherwise barren hills, but that’s about it.

Limoni in the south of Greece

The architecture that hasn’t been leveled by earthquakes is vaguely reminiscent of Egypt or the middle east.

The arid grey-brown landscapes and rocky shores look a little like north-western Australia. (For the record, Oman and the Cape Verdes also look like WA. See: desert meets crystal ocean).

Small remote villages and the odd bigger regional town are scattered along the coasts supporting domestic tourism. God only knows what they do thru the winter.

Sort of interesting, but not something I’d come back to. Which also goes for Greece as a whole.

kind of middle eastern, right?

cute up close, but a long way from anything. Limoni

ideal croatia

rovinj harbour flickr pic by ros aukett

My perfect day in Croatia might go something like this:

-         Wake up in my picturesque seaside village and wander to the square for coffee (real milk; not UHT) and a cherry danish.

-         Procure English-language newspaper and catch up on news from three days ago (close enough, right?)

waterside cafe flickr pic by markus spring

-         Stroll to the closest rocky outcrop for the first swim of the day in the postcard-perfect Adriatic.

-         Wander thru cicada-filled pine forests to a secluded cove or maybe take a sea-kayak to find my own private beach

lokrum flickr pic by jesus cm

-         Take a sail across to the nearest island (many are within an hour or so of each other) and compare the temperature of their local beers.

-         Go wakeboarding on impossibly flat seas once the wind drops. No swells to contend with here.

top spot for a few beers of a summer eve - dubrovnik old town

-         Finish up with a few more beers as the sun sets around 8 or 9pm. Grilled seafood at one of the many hundreds of harbourside restaurants.

-         Catch an international DJ touring thru the summer months. Croatia has a surprisingly progressive music scene.

-         Repeat as required…

one of my fave bars in the world flickr pic by rich ford

Croatia, you’ve still got it.

Maybe some secrets shouldn’t be kept.

And it’s hardly going to spoil things.

So here goes: Croatia.

Do yourself a favour and check it out. Soon.

Sure, it’s hardly a new destination and I’ve been telling people since 2007 that thought I thought the joint was tops.

But that opinion has been re-assessed and updated – it’s a must-see.

how good??

Even our two week superyacht blast down the coast with limited time ashore was enough to convince me that I’ll be back and you should go.

But why? Simply put, it does seaside European summer better than anywhere else I’ve seen.

Greece has the hundreds of rocky islands and crystal seas, but many of those islands are tacky, grubby and overdeveloped. Croatia is just…pristine.

Italy has the dramatic ocean cliffs and fresh grilled seafood too, but it’s filled with tourists. Croatia seems to be mostly chilled families on low-key holidays.

hvar old town and adjacent islands

France has impossibly pretentious ugly harbours, rubbish food, rude inhabitants and oh…never mind.

Plus I happen to particularly enjoy mucking about in boats and nowhere is better suited to a few weeks of leisurely ocean-going exploration than Croatia’s craggy string of forest-lined islands.

It’s windy for sailors. It has sheltered flat coves for watersports.

Croatia is peaceful. There’s no fuss and few crowds.

The people are friendly. The women are beautiful. And really tall.

The fruit is amazing. The cherry pastries can’t be found elsewhere.

Local beer is cold and delicious.

And everything is cheap

Needless to say I was pretty impressed.

the walled awesomeness of dubrovnik

Piedmont

view from the roof terrace of our b&b in neive

Owners are gloriously absent, sun is shining and we find ourselves in a harbour on the edge of the Italian Alps.

Time for a weekend in the country.

The Piedmont region of Italy is just a three hour drive from Imperia where our yacht is on the dock for a couple weeks, so Kasey and I folded ourselves into the appropriately named Nissan Micra and headed uphill.

Our destination was Alba, in the south of Piedmont and home to the Ferrero factory [Nutella anyone?] but a Saturday afternoon Alba proved pretty sleepy so we kept on truckin’.

lovely green green green after endless blue seas

A little further on thru rolling vine-covered hillsides and villages clinging precariously to the sides of mountains, we hit Barbaresco – known for its reds alongside the more famous Barolo and Nebbiolo wines.

Barbaresco was also kinda sleepy, but in a cute way and after some fresh pasta and an obligatory bottle of the local booze we headed even further into the green green hills, searching for…whatever.

It was just nice to cruise about and get away from the coast for a while and little villages such as Nieve and Tre Stelle provided a bit of ‘country tonic’ for us sailor kids, a chance to smell some grass fo a change.

So we cruised the leafy lanes, drank local wines in the sun (well, the ones we could afford), found  a super B&B overlooking the hills and generally had a rollicking time.

If you’re ever up that way, it’s a little south of Switzerland, slightly west of the Cote d’Azur and highly recommended.

Crossing Oceans

action stations

One of the best parts of being a yachting fellow is occasionally being required to take part in an ocean crossing.

And it’s hard not to feel like some sort of tough guy pioneering naval explorer, pushing off into the big blue under sail, just you, a few pals and 3000-odd kilometres of sea to tackle.

We may have autopilots and watermakers and satellite navigation and dvd players, but it’s pretty neat to trundle across such a big slab of the globe borne by the wind.

Braveheart’s ‘meagre’ 1400L fuel capacity meant we had to sail most of the way and luckily, we had reasonable winds with only a few calm days of motoring.

We also enjoyed a fishing bonanza, enjoying mahi mahi, tuna and wahoo almost every day.

best mahi mahi of the trip. super glassy conditions too.

As I write this, we’ve just hauled in the fourth fish of the day, before knocking off a lunch of fresh seared wahoo on a bed of mushroom pasta, washed down with some cold Rosé. Jodie sure looks after us.

Yellowfin tuna ceviche and wahoo sashimi were further fishy highlights.

Days are spent mostly lazing about the yacht, secure in the knowledge that most cleaning can be done on arrival (plenty of powerboats have their crews work 8hr days on the way across. Ick).

captain stupid

There’s a healthy supply of novels, fresh dvds, backgammon tournaments, ongoing poker battles and general relaxation.

As I said, crossings are a good time.

But you’re always glad when you arrive somewhere tropical.

The Heffernator kills again

halfway celebrations - 1200nm to go...!

 

long way round

Looking at a map of the world, the obvious route from West Australia to the west coast of Africa is…umm…via Africa.

Which is why I decided to travel there via Kuala Lumpur, then London, then Munich [backtracking here..] before going onto the Cape Verdes.

But it only took five whole days and about 35 hours in the air and a 36hr layover in London.

I did however learn that Air Asia is to be avoided on longhaul flights and that Munich airport is not a bad spot to spend the night.

In fact, Munich is rated sixth in the world for such matters by the helpful folk at www.sleepinginairports.com [I’m not making this up, check it out].

It even [almost] made it worthwhile when I arrived in Munich to see the country covered in snow. Proper snow too, not grubby London slush.

My German seat-companion asked if I’d seen much snow, being from Australia.

I managed to casually nod “Of course”, while barely avoiding squealing like an excited schoolgirl.

Because as some folks may or may not know, this Australian has NEVER really seen snow.

So as soon as I’d grabbed my luggage, I was straight out into the courtyard to have a little play, before hunkering down for the night. Sweeet!

It was made all the more surreal by flying from snowy Europe to the glistening tropical waters of Sal just six hours later, where I washed off the snow and sweat with a swim in the sun.

sailing into trouble

all rugged up we were

So this one is for all those people who think us yacht crew simply cruise from port to port in glorious sunshine, sipping mojitos along the way.

Although this IS our preferred style, it’s rarely the reality.

The reality for the Braveheart gang these past few months has been a series of unwelcome delays in a series of uninviting ports, as we struggled to make our way south against the weather.

storm moving into Brest

The catchcry since September has been ‘It wasn’t ‘sposed to be like this…’ as we endeavoured to stay positive and stay busy holed up in spots like Jersey and Brest.

[I should like to note at this point that Jersey in fact turned out to be a bustling cosmopolitan metropolis in comparison to the concrete wasteland that was Brest, but we never appreciated this at the time…]

The major obstacle on this journey was the Bay of Biscay, a notoriously unpleasant stretch of water off north-western France and one which we needed a good two days of decent weather to clear.

This eventually arrived last week and we got a crack at Biscay, despite being uninsured for the trip – our insurers refuse to cover anyone crossing the bay after October – that’s how nasty it is.

We basically made it across unscathed after strapping down anything that moved and dosing up on seasickness pills.

Much of the early part of the trip followed this pattern – head out into the cockpit for watch / get drenched and freeze for 3 hours / retire to cabin / throw up / sleep / repeat.

But we got there and now Braveheart is enjoying the Portuguese sunshine as we figure out if we can make the Canary Islands for Christmas.

My personal preference was for Morocco, but strangely the owner was having none of it.

take that, Biscay

Stranded in Jersey

I’m stuck in Jersey, Channel Islands waiting for a break in the weather to get our yacht across to the Canary Islands and ultimately, some sunshine.

But there aint much to do in Jersey, unless you’re a banker, in which case you shuffle rich dudes’ money around and try to stay warm. It’s extremely dull here.

supercrew

There are 6 of us escorting a 75ft Hoek sloop to warmer climes, including my pals James and Jodie who have spent the past 8 months in Lymington, UK, overseeing an expensive and time-consuming keel repair. In that 8 months, they’ve sailed a grand total of 110 miles on ol’ Braveheart, from Lymo to Jersey and that’s it.

Daily we scour the weather reports for any break that will let us flee these northern waters, but we were around 2 weeks late getting out of the UK and with each passing storm, the European winter edges closer. Got. To. Leave.

The English owner had planned to compete in the ARC, a leisurely cruisers’ race from Gran Canaria to St Lucia, but delays in the shipyard and now the weather have seen us miss the start this week.

Eventually he plans for James and Jodes to pilot his fine yacht thru the Panama canal and onward thru the Pacific next year, but that’s only if we ever get out of Jersey.

If Jersey were a little more interesting it might be ok, but it suffers a weird lack of identity – an odd combination of English high street / nouveau financial hub / provincial French seaside village.

ask for maryanne

gorey castle jersey

ruins at elizabeth castle

st helier's house