The schloss of Heidelberg

After a rather frustrating day, first trying to find parking places in Mainz, only to give up and then doing the same in Heidelberg, we eventually found a place to stop of the shores of the river through Heidelberg, only a couple of k from the centre of town. By now it was 3 in the afternoon so we quickly grabbed our bikes and headed for the city.

Parking our bikes outside the tourist information (which was really a shop with some helpful advice – no free maps, bit of a disappointment that one) we headed up to the schloss. The schloss (or castle for your non-German speakers) is an amazing half-ruined, half-intact castle on the hills above the city. Failing to find the little reticulated train up the hill we trudged up, a bit of struggle for those of shorter legs who had just peddled like crazy, but with some pulling and pushing we got their. It was too late to rent the audio tour, and again, no free map with the entrance fee (something we are learning about Heidelberg), but never mind, Bex and Tasha made like tour guides and invented all kinds of great facts about this beautiful monument. We wandered around the courtyards, terraces and grounds. Some beautiful ruins and great views down the river and over the city.
[Side note: I forgot to mention the red squirrels, thinking of the gardens reminded me of them, although that was from yesterday. They are very sweet, a much cuter beast that the grey giants we saw in the backyard in Teddington.]
Having finished our tour and tip the guides accordingly, we headed into the town and got as far as the café in front of the church and had beers and ice cream. In all a great time.



Today (this morning) not sure where we go, either back into Heidelberg or to Warzburg for the start of the Romantic Road.

Further journeys down the Rhine

After a night in a very good campsite in Loreley we continued our journey down the Rhine. There a small breakwaters at various points down the river, they create small harbours as shelter from the constant current for the boats. We walked down to the end of one of these breakwaters to check out the statue of the nymph (see previous post for the legend of the nymph).

After this gentle stroll we tackled the zillion stairs to climb to the top of Loreley and were rewarded with a fantastic view down the Rhine.

It would be so easy to spend months on this river. The views of the boats, vineyards, castles and villages are so special.

Next we hit the village of Knub and the castle of
Pfalzgrafenstein (Pflaz for short). Pflaz is a small castle on an island in the Rhine.
It was established by the Counts Palatine as a toll gate for passing ships in
1338. This proved to be a bad move as the Count was excommunicated by the Pope because there was already a toll in Koblenz in the north and Mainz in the south. Clearly the church had it well sewn up and wasn’t keen to share. The Count continued however, I guess the money was more important than salvation in the after life. If you refused to pay you got lowered onto a platform that floated in the well 8 metres beneath the castle tower, that’s assuming the Count didn’t blast you to bits with the
numerous canons.

The village of Knub was very pretty (as they all are).

We then headed to Mainz, a big town at the southern end of the middle Rhine and have debated our route from Germany. It will be sad to leave the Rhine behind.

The foragers

Around each corner, a bush, a branch or a tree bearing fruits or nuts. Deep within the boughs and branches can be found the foragers. Not able to be too precious, selecting what can be reached with either there own limbs or basic stick tools. Shaking and hitting the branches to dislodge their reward. And into this small part of the eco-system we have arrived. The woman-folk participate in the activity while the man sits by the river contemplating greater prey within the swirling rapids. After some time we too are rewarded with a collection of nuts and so leave the shore line and are back on the way.

Thus is life for the German travellers along the Rhine. Despite it’s human altered landscape there are still plenty of food bearing trees and the local travellers know them all, pull up on bike, campervan or motorbike and gather a feast.


Today we have driven further down the Rhine, past castles and towns, our resting place for this evening, Lorely. Lorely is a granite rock in the riverbank and ascends 120 metres above the Rhine. It has formed a very narrow channel through which the boats struggle to navigate both due to the rapid water and hidden rocks. Legend has it that a nymph would sing from the shore luring sailors onto the rock, and this certainly looks the place for such a creature of desire to hang out.


Earlier in the day we explored Braubach (finally got the spelling right) and the castle of Marksburg, a 12-13th century castle that has been continually inhabited and never conquered since it was first built – the only one on the Rhine. Perched on the top of the hill it really was picture perfect and the German tour we followed (with English cheat notes) was a good way to find the nooks and crannies.

As we drove from Braubach we stopped off at a roadside fruit and wine shop, purchasing some local Riesling, the hillsides on the other bank are covered with vineyards warmed by the granite that they are planted in. Early I had bought a bottle of local Rosé, was very light and very drinkable.



Today we explore the banks further and maybe try to get to Mainz, the next main town down the Rhine.

The monk joke

A group of monks were busily working away in the scriptorium of their monastery one day. A wise, old monk was copying a very old manuscript they had just been given. He suddenly burst in tears and was clearly very distraught. The abbot came running and asked, ‘what is wrong?’. The tearful monk cries out, ‘the word, the word is celebrate!’.

Koblenz on the Rhein

Having dragged ourselves away from the fantastic view we headed into the town of Koblenz. Koblenz is very significant being at the intersection of the Rhein and the Mosel. This has made it a hot spot for conflict over the years, including in more recent times Napolean and WW II. Koblenz has four churches, two Catholic, one protestant and one Jesuit. The two Catholic churches date to the Romansque period and have immaculated maintained painted interiors, great arches decorated with paintings of sunflowers and grapevines.

On the meeting point of the Rhein and Mosel rivers is a statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I.

Over looking Klobenz is the fortress of Ehrenbeitstein. We drove around for 30 minutes trying to find the way up to the fortress, eventually spotting a chair lift but minimal car parking. By this time it was 16.30 so we gave up and headed south.

It was only 10 minutes down the road when we spotted yet another beautiful castle, with a camp site at its base. We are now camped on the shores of the Rhein watching the river barges go by, with a hill behind us capped by a castle and a town at it’s feet. We wondered into the town of Burbach to discover what looks like a 12th century church and twisting streets of houses and shops. I managed to order a beer and a couple of glasses of fanta and we chilled as the people went by.

If this is what our journey down the Rhein is going to be like it may take a little longer than I ever imagined.

The girls have just run in from the loos claiming to have seen a snake!! Gitti, is this possible???

120 miles for a view worth a million miles

Tonight we find ourselves on the shores of the Rhine looking at a view of a hilltop castle across the river and a statue of a chap on a horse down the river. The sun has just set and the cream walls of the castle start to glow as it is picked out amongst the tress on the hill. The
river barges float down the river, many carrying their loads from The
Netherlands.

We have arrived here having driven across from the Ardennes in Belgium where we spent yesterday in a town called Durbuy. It proclaims to be the smallest town in the world, but regardless was very pretty medieval town. We happened to be there on the weekend of the local cheese, bread and beer festival so spent a lovely morning tasting and buying as one would expect. The girls found a local
delicacy, battered apple slices, deep fried and dusted in icing sugar. The cheese was excellent, we found a hard cheese that was very similar to the one that Gitti and Dad found in Normandy and lovely soft goats cheese. The local breads are full grain and many have nuts, really yummy. And of course all washed down with a great Belgium beer (I could got into detail on the Belgium beers, probably save that for a blog entry all of it’s own).

In the afternoon we went kayaking down the local river. Little rapids and (not really surprised) Tasha found herself falling out of the kayak after perching preciously on the bow for much of the ride.

That night we camped by the river.

The drive to the Rhine was through the Ardennes countryside having instructed Fiona (that’s the GPS in case you had forgotten) to take the quickest NOT the shortest route. This meant forest roads and virtually across farm lands, but some pretty countryside and small towns on the way.

Tomorrow we
begin our journey down the Rhine.

Antwerp with Guy and family.

From Brussels we moved onto Antwerp, the second city of Belgium. Our hosts were Guy van Peel and his family. I have been working with Guy during our four years here, although it has only been four years it has felt like we have worked together for much longer.
Guy’s family live just outside Antwerp in an area called Kolnich. We arrived at their house on Friday evening, sitting in the back yard lit by candles on a warm summery evening, it was a lovely time. Guy and Martine (apologise for the spelling) had prepared a fantastic dinner starting with tasty cheese, salami and olives, an appetizer of tomatoes with prawns and magnificent Paella for the main course. The van Peel family have lived for five years in Spain and Italy and their house, cuisine and amazing of array of languages reflects this. After way too much yummy food, Spanish wine and games of pictionary we eventually made it to bed.


The next day (Saturday) we all (Guy, Martine and Benjamine (spelling?) their middle child) went into Antwerp. The centre of Antwerp is a beautiful city, with it’s crowning glory being the Cathedral of our Lay. This is the largest cathedral in the low countries and truly magnificent. There are a number of works from Peter Paul Rubens and two organs, one from the 17th Century the other more recent. The belfry is an intricately carved masterpiece. The grand place of Antwerp rivals Brussels (Guy, we have learnt some things) it really is beautiful. We had a drink in this restaurant that is made up of a series of cellars connected beneath old houses. The cellars were only discovered in the 1980’s and have been developed into a restaurant/bar lit by candles, a real experience.
Antwerp also boasts a baroque church and a small castle that operated as a toll collector for the harbour entrance
We also managed to take in a few of the shops much to most of the parties delight. The highlight was the puppy shop.
We have now said good bye to our hosts and really big thank you from us all for the evening and day.

Three days in Brussels and working

The next three days were time away from the joint. I have been meeting for work in Mechelen, a city about 20k north of Brussels, so we had a hotel / apartment for three days.
A couple of quick thoughts from Ivan’s perspective and then will pass to Rachel, Bex and Tasha to describe Brussels.




I had one evening out with the people I was meeting with, hosted by Christophe de Rassenfosse, a native of Brussels. Christophe started our evening in this fantastic art deco building that had been the radio station, but was now turned into a bar. A drink later and we moved onto Tomato Rouge, a very stylish restaurant, with large red lit squares in the ceilings and a wide swooping stair cases that led to the toilets.
….

Many lifetimes in one and a half days

On Sunday night (17 Sep), after the day in Mont Saint Michel, we made a mammoth drive for this journey from Normandy to Ostende in Belgium, our ultimate target being Bruges. It had taken us 7 days to get down here but only 7 hours to get back up (and beyond). You get an appreciation of both how small, but also how dense Europe is.
After a free park night in Ostende we drove 20k or so to Bruges, parked up and walked and walked, and what a magnificent walk.
There are many fantastic historic cities in the world of course, and Bruges has got to be very close to the top of the list. As a microcosm of Europe, it takes 20 minutes to walk through city centre, days to explore, but really reveals the lifetimes it took to develop.


Bruges had been a significant trading centre in Europe around the 14 – 16 centuries, the Venice of the North is the nickname (but I think that does not do justice to the uniqueness of Bruges), until the harbour silted up around the 16th century. This had a devastating effect and the town really went into stagnation. But for these brief few centuries some fantastic culture and building developed. We visited the belfry (366 steps to the top, although Tasha counted more) which offered commanding views across the rooftops of Bruges, the guild hall with an awe inspiring decorated main hall, the chocolate factory, an art gallery we a lot of 15th and 16th century Flemish art, the folk museum and had a horse and cart ride. Somewhere in all that we squeezed in a lovely drink watching the town in a café and really just wondering through this amazing town. The general consensus rated the horse and cart ride as the highlight, although there was some votes for the chocolate factory
(pretty generic but well done – interesting fact, chocolate must have 45% cocoa otherwise, by European law, you can’t call it chocolate – brilliant that some bureaucrat had time to write that one into the law books).


A must see city if you are anywhere in the neighbourhood. I could write forever on Bruges, but must continue to the next episode.

Le Mont St Michel

It’s been a while since we have update our travel log so this morning will be a bit of a marathon effort.
We have spent the night in a semi-free (read you have to pay €8 and get some facilities, but nice place) spot a couple of k’s from MSM. We tried all our bikes out this morning after some quick inner tube changes the day before and headed for le mont.
We all decided that cycling to MSM was a fantastic approach. Riding slowly you really get to appreciate it, the surrounding town growing out of the sea, then rising to the monastery, seemingly perched on the buildings below and finally the abbey, like the final strata in a super-natural rock formation, nestled at the top. I had been here 24 years ago with Mum, Steve (Stehlin) and two friends of Steve’s from Paris, Michel and Christine. I still have very strong memories, Mont St Michele is truly a place that leaves a powerful mental image.
Parking our bikes at the bottom we began to wonder up through the village that make up the first layer. Despite the shoulder to shoulder tourists, the cobbled streets and well maintained shops still allow you to get a fell for what life would have been like in the medieval period when the town was developed. From here we you get to the base of the monastery and still further on reach the abbey. A remarkable engineering feat to build some magnificent buildings on top of what really just amounts to a fairly unremarkable rock. The cloisters are fantastic, nestled right on the edge, from one wall of them you get the amazing views across the bay, as you do from the various terraces. It would be easy to feel inspired as the monks must surrounded by such vistas.
We headed back down and stopped for moule frite at one of the restaurants, very nice and very filling.
Eventually we rode away, packed up the ‘joint’ and with one final glance headed north.

Bayeux tapestry

Today we found ourselves immersed in the world of William the Conquerer (originally William the Bastard due to the illegitimacy of his birth). Quite interesting contrasting what you learn about the battle of Hastings when you visit Battle and the focus is on King Harold as opposed to Bayeux where the focus is on the Normans, led by William. In Bayeux they barely mention the word Hastings and tend to focus on decption of Harold over his oath to William; visiting Battle Harold is definitely hard done by.

The story goes the King Edward sends Harold to William in Normandy to let him know that when Edward dies William can be king of England. Harold passes on the message and hangs out with Wiliam for a while, most notably the two of them attack Brittany. Harold heads back to England, Edward dies and Harold decides to be king, regardless of the deal with William. William is pissed, builds some ships, sails to England and the rest is history.

The Bayeux tapestry tells this story, although far more eloquently than I have. It is 70 metres long, made by monks in England around 1088, commissioned by Willaims brother the Bishop of Bayeux, Odon. Odon is actually pretty important in the whole story. He was beside Wiliam in Hastings, built the cathedral in Bayeux (really quite impressive) and various other feats.

From Bayeux we drove to Mont Saint Michel for the evening.

D-day

Today we headed along the Normandy beaches – the sites of the D-day landings. There were loads of different routes to follow with museums doted along the way. We drove all along the coast but picked two museums to visit – one at Juno beach – the site of the Canadian landings and one at the end of Gold beach at a place called ---- where the British built an artificial port to enable them to ship in supplies to support the Allied invasion. The weather was a bit grim so we kept the beach walking to a minimum.

The Canadian museum at Juno beach was a fantastic exhibition that took you through both the D-day landings and the efforts of the Canadians during WW II. The death toll was 45,000 of the 1 million who landed. With the strong winds blowing the light rain in our faces you only had to blur your eyes slightly and could imagine the screams of dieing men, the bullets flying, mixed with the fear and adrenalin that would have driven them forward. Incredible that humans could do this to other humans all for the sake of what?

Gold beach represents an amazing engineering feat. One of the prob’s with invading Normandy is that you need a port for supplies and, the Germans knowing this had barricaded the ports very well. So Winstone C came up with the idea of building a port in Britain and floating it in parts across the channel. Within 10 days of the 6 June they had built a fully operating port with a breakwater and floating pontoon wharfs. Bits of it still remain.

Tonight we are back in the lap of luxury, a real camp ground with warm showers and washing machines. So the stench is gone and we all smell as sweet as roses.

The monks of Fécamp

We all know about monks – the chaps who devote their lives to God spending their days praying, farming and copying out the occasional manuscript (good joke about that later). Well, a group of monks eventually get themselves well enough organised, and without women around to distract them their minds inevitably turn to other evils, namely all the weird and wonderful ways you can make yourself drunk! And the monks in a monastery nearby Fécamp became pretty damn good at it. They happened to be Benedictine monks and their name was lent to what was their greatest elixir of all, Benedictine liqueur. These monks must have had a lot of time on their hands, the stuff has 27 different herbs and spices, cardamon, mace, myhrr (looks like kauri gum) and 24 others. And of course, being monks they could write unlike most in the medieval world, thank god, because they wrote down the recipe.
Time went by and many crusades and sackings and various other occurrences and the monastery was in ruins and the recipe lost forever… or so it was thought, until around the mid-1800’s. Then a bloke called Alexander turns up and starts poking around the old monastery, and having a thing for both greater alcoholic beverages and old manuscripts comes across the recipe for what he was to call Benedictine. It became pretty popular but he was not reaching a wide enough market for the volumes he wanted to make so he started some serious marketing - he got posters made, patented the recipe, branded the product etc. etc. and managed to raise 2 million francs (could have been more I think) and decided to build a palace. And so the highlight of our day was created, a fantastic palace housing religious artefacts, paintings and various ‘memorabilia’ (this Alexander chap was keen on art as well and hence the palace was built to house both art and to distil Benedictine in the
cellars). A fantastic place - beautiful ceilings, amazing spires and deep in the bowels the Benedictine factory. Definitely worth a visit, thanks to Michele for the suggestion to rest here.

Later today (today being Thursday 14 Sep) we went to the cliffs at Etretat (another Michele suggestion) and really quite splendid. Chalk cliffs with arches carved from the motion of the sea, and after the many stairs walk to the top a neat little church nestled on the edge.

The other excitement for today, our first night of free camping. Little spots in France are designated as free camp places, you just park up and you’re done and it doesn’t cost you a Euro. Tonight’s spot is not too flash, a parking spot by the marina, but the book tells us some of these free camp places are in the most amazing places, so we must try again. Of course the only issue with free camping is the lack of a loo beyond the one in the camper… nuf’ said.

Tomorrow we head for the beaches of Normandy.

Yesterday night we got completely soaked

Me and Becca were holding the umbrella to go to the loos and we got completely soaked. There was a frog in the toilet when I was wiping my bum and I screamed and I ran out. I told Becca and she got the umbrella and tried to help it out. But then she got scared of it so we ran out. Then we got soaked again. By the tree there was this bit sticking that we thought was a person.
When we got back to the joint the rain got really loud and went on for an hour then went quiet and then went really loud again. Ivan had to go outside and rescue the awning because it was full of water and it was really funny because he got went. Ivan went to bed but the fan thing in the roof, Ivan had forgot to close it and it was dripping in water and I nearly fell because I got into Mummy’s bed, there were flashes of lighting and I got scared. I closed the thing in the roof.
Natasha

Driving down the coast

On Tuesday we woke up and did some school work in the morning and then drove for a long time. We listened to Fiona on the computer, that is what Mummy and I have named the lady on the computer that tells us where to go.
We drove to Le Fréport and had a Ice Tea and an Ice Cream (Muumy and Ivan had a beer). Ivan said he would get us back up from the beach bit when the waves came up, but Becca would not move and we had to wait for the other wave to go. Then we ran to the place where we could get up from the beach. We went to see the lighthouse at the end of the wharf and watched the fisherman catching sardines and somebody had a whole bucketful.
Next we went to a fish market, it was all fishy with lots of different kinds of fish. We saw some shrimps and this man was disgusting, he put his hand in and they all started wriggling, it was disgusting. Mummy bought two flat fishes which looked very nice and I bought a mackerel so I could take its guts out and the backbone, but the lady asked us in French if we wanted the guts out and we said yes because we did not know what she was saying, and she pulled the guts out. I didn’t get to take the backbone out because we threw it away. Mummy and Ivan ate the flat fish for breakfast.
We drove again, but didn’t use Fiona so Mummy map read. We drove to our camp site in Fécamp. We were listening to Mummy who said the camp site had a swimming pool. We thought we found it but it was really really expensive. So we found a camp site in the trees that was a bit scary.
We had egg fried rice for dinner and my toe really hurts.
Natasha

First night in France in Etaples

We disembarked the ferry thinking of getting down to Le Treport and soon discovered our progress was too slow and headed for Etaples.
We gave up trying to find the camp site in the Camping and Caravan sit and stopped at a camp site near the sand dunes and the sea. After a brief conversation with the owner in a mixture of French and English we discovered he had space it was only €10.50 per night including power and we could park anywhere. We couldn’t decide a choice of spot and drove around aimlessly until finding a spot near the playground and the wash facitlites. We put up the awning and sat down to pre-dinner drinks and olives. The kids explored the camp site on their bikes for a while and we threw together dinner of chipolatas from the butcher’s at Lidles, little potatoes and a fresh green salad washed down with a nice bottle of red Burgundy.

After some difficult connecting I did some work and piled into bed at 1 in the morning.
Rachel

We are on our way!

Officially we are now in day 3 of our trip, but really day one of the journey. Last night was our second night in the camper van. The current dilemma is what to call her. The options on the table are 'the joint' and 'the melon'.

Our first night was spent in the driveway of Rachel's parents place in Deeping St James, a nice way to ease ourselves into the trip. The only problem we had was trying to get the optimum arrangement of cushions for the bed that comes from the table. Last night I think we managed it and had a good nights sleep. A desparate trip down to Teddington to get rid of the last of our English lives, including the car, big thanks to Ananth for that one and some baking stuff (no over in the van).

We took a detour on the way to Dover to Sittingbourne and I think we managed to track down the house we rented when I was 4 and we lived in England during Dad's sabatical. I will post pictures when I have a proper connection for family validation. I was imagining al kinds of childhood memories of the graveyard next door, the donkey on the way to school and the orchard behind us, none of which may be real, but they felt good anyway!

Last night was spent in a camp ground just outside Dover. We hooked up the electric without any drama, cooked a real meal and generally lived OK, but by the end of the evening everyone was very shattered so thank God Rachel had figured out the right cushion combination.

This morning we explored Dover Castle, really well worth a visit. Two millenium of history from the Roman lighthouse built around 100AD right through to WWII tunnels. And, because it has basically been occupied the whole time, it has been maintained really well. The Saxon church is brilliant with arches dating back to around 700AD and most of the church built 1100ADish. Even examples of crusaders grafitti on the walls.The castle is huge with an inner keep built by Henry II in 11?? and various add-ons by the dudes that followed. Brilliant views across Dover, you certainly can understand the military and strategic importance of the place.

Now we are steaming across the channel with the 'melon joint' stored happily underneath. I want to get this out before we change to a French cell phone provider and I have to pay for the internet connection so no photos yet, I hope to get that sorted tonight.

Next post will be from the mainland...

Life nearly on the road

I am now sitting in an Internet cafe in Hull waiting for the campervan to be ready. Bit of a mix up, seems we got up to Hull too early so now have to wait until 12.30 for the van to be ready so managed to kill an hour or so drinking coffee sitting in the sun by the canals of Hull. Certainly won't miss the coffee in the UK, but the weather has just turned summer again, a good sign we hope.

Tonight we pack up and then head off tomorrow morning for the Dover-Calais ferry. Our initial target will be Normandy (Dad, we will check out the snail farms, more research can't go astray) for a few days then up to Belgium.

It's become pretty real now, said our good byes to Lynn, Steve and family and Roger, getting pretty buzzy, will be so good just to be away now. Next blog will be from our new home...

Sails in Spain: Wed 6 Sep - homeward bound

I depart this glorious voyage, back to the land of Angles. It has been the most brilliant experience, one I will always remember.
Arriving at Ibiza airport I am slowly conditioned back into England, with plane loads of English tourists, over sunned, over drank, over partied and in many cases, over sexed.

Sails in Spain: Tues 5 Sep - the day after... and they sleeped

Barry and I headed up through the old town of Ibiza, surprising once you get past the tourist shops, it is still an old Spanish town, with families living in the shadow of the castle on the hill and the party-crazed tourists below, a striking contrast.

Breakfast in the town, stock up on food, water, wine and ice, and we are off, back into the blue sky and azure seas.
Now we are back on the water, it really feels like we are home again having left the crowds of Ibiza town, odd how you get so used to the movement of the water, watching the winds and gazing into the seas. Bloody hard to beat this retirement thing!
Destination today, some fantastic restaurant in some beautiful bay no doubt what Javier has in mind for us.
We are now motoring, the wind has died completely. Grant is sleeping, the captain is sleeping, Jim’s duracells have finally failed him, Barry is snoozing, I am studying and Javier is checking his lines and the blow up pilot is steering the boat. The auto pilot is our best friend, you set him and forget him.
This evening we reach Cala Codolar, my last bay. Today we meet the jellyfish again, so no swimming except for the loony French man in the boat next to us. This bay is quite built up with various holiday homes and flats for tourists.

Tonight Javier cooked Tortilla, a Spanish omelette with potatoes, yummy, with a fresh salad and of course cheese.

Sails in Spain: Mon 4 Sep - Ibiza, the clubbing capital of the world

We spent all morning trying a range of fishing spots between the cliffs of Ibiza and these fantastic rocks, which from one angle look like a dragon’s head and from other’s a cathedral. Barry discovered a sign in Ibiza later that showed a marine reserve right where we were fishing, this does not seem to deter the locals.
Drifting from spot to spot, in the most crystal clear water, Javier managers to bring up two fish that are barely big enough to feed a seagull, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Just drifting in the warm sun with a gentle breeze, watching the ever changing cliff faces and sea, the morning passes… time for lunch. (PS I managed to get through lots of studying while the rest were fishing or sleeping).

And this time we moor in the best bay of the trip so far. A small bay with a row of boat houses built into the cliff, some supporting small ramshackle dwellings on a second level.

Lunch today is fish, with each of us trying something different. Jim got the pick of the bunch, a crispy Bream.
After lunch the entertainment was leaping from the boat for those brave enough to go, Jim’s Tarzan swing was hard to beat, but Barry managed a pretty decent dive off the boom.


Too much of a good thing so off we go, destination, Ibiza town – the nightclub capital of the world.
Can’t say too much about the evening here… great little pasta dinner at midnight, followed by a little ‘discussion’ with the local police as the captain suggested it would be OK to climb through the hole in the fence to get back into the marina, and with the greatest night clubs on the planet, we all went to bed early… yeah right! Jim ‘duracell bunny’ got through ‘til dawn, and was scrubbing the decks at 10.30, still winding down.

Sails in Spain: Sunday 3 Sep - Just sailing around

Another perfect day, another perfect bay, still no fish on the lines, but plenty in the sea when you snorkel.
We actually did quite a bit of sailing today, we even managed a few tacks and played with the cruising chute (a small spinaker) that was a great weather predicting because as soon as it was hoisted the wind would die.

We stopped for lunch in larger bay today, some of use swam ashore to find a rather liberal notion of bathing costumes. This bay had as one of it's 'attractions' a yoga retreat, at which you clearly had to retreat from your clothing too. Kept the boys amused for a while!

The light houses and little fortifications are a constant companion, we seem to find ourselves passing the same ones many times but I am assured they are different.
A fantastic mooring, tonight in a little Island, Espalmador, just off the northern point of Formentera. The sunset tonight is truly brilliant, sinking below a low outcropping of rocks. Grant, the music man puts on the jazz, Pete mixes the drinks Jim appears with the olives and the nuts and the evening cruises… real life is going to be hard after this. The sun sets, the most amazing array of stars come out as does the cheese and red wine…

By now we have completed circumnavigating Formentera, guided by Javier who comes here every year. Tomorrow is going to be a successful fishing day, yeah right as Tui would say.

Sails in Spain: Saturday 2 September - Paella and beyond

It took about 12 hours to reach Ibiza, we sail past the high rise hotels and onto the smaller and quieter Formentera.

Javier has lunch planned for us (having assumed the role of fisher and chief cook / restaurant finder) in a beautiful bay at a fantastic restaurant. Seafood paella and fried baby squid for appetizers. Fabulous food.

The boat came with snorkelling gear, and with the water the most amazing clear blue (one day while fishing the depth was 17m and the bottom was very visible) swimming around with the variety of fish was brilliant (starting to run out of adjectives to describe things, will try and get more imaginative).
Fish has become a bit of a constant, whether it swimming with them, eating them or spending hours failing to catch them.
I think one of the most memorable aspects of this trip will be the water. Deep azure blue in the deeper waters, changing dramatically to a bright sky blue in the shallows and soooo clear. Javier tells us it is to do with the type of algae in the water around Formentera that at one stage was common in the Med, but is not very rare thanks to Jacques Cousteau accidentally releasing some nasty toxic algae that killed all the native stuff.
Saturday evening has us anchored in a bay, drinking Spanish and Awaroa wine, eating various meats and cheeses. Very hard to believe only 24 hours has gone by, the rest of the world seems like… well a world away.

Sails in Spain: Friday 1 September – first day of Ivan’s partial-retirement

Having lost the race to full retirement to Rachel, today I embarked on his first day of partial retirement. The last work meeting at 8am at the Sheraton in Schipol and then I met up with Barry in the café to check in to our flight to Mallorca.
And if this is what retirement is like then bring it on. Barry and I fly to Mallorca and meet up with various guys from Barry’s past.

Peter ‘the captain’ (Nicaragua) and Grant (Australia) from med school (I think), Jim and Javier (Spain) from Peter’s past and then Barry (NZ) and I (no fixed abode). The boat ‘Kiwi Drop’, I suspect they rename them to reflect the primary nationality of the crew.

On Friday evening we sail out in a perfect cloudless night from Palma, en route to Ibiza and eventually Formentera. The sunset, the first of many perfect sunsets as we head through the harbour out into the open Med’.
By 1am, with various stages of jetlag going around it becomes apparent that we had better organise watches. Pete, Jim and I go until 4am and then Barry, Javier and Grant carry on. The sky is absolutely clear and with slightly less than a half moon the stars are beautiful, with the odd shooting star to keep the show moving. It isn’t hard to stay awake just watching the sky and listening to the water. We pass through the occasional cloud of jelly fish, which glow fluorescent green in the lights from the boat, quick fantastical from on board, but rather nasty if you end in the water with them.