A Myriad of Magnificent Musings

HOME!!!!

2012-01-21T16:32:00.001+01:00

This time next week I will be in the throws of high velocity suitcase transportation. I am taking a very well deserved break and going home. By the time I leave Barcelona I will not have had a holiday for about 15 months. That is a quite a long stretch and it is safe to say I have really just been hanging on in there for a while.

I have noticed a few interesting things since I have had my holiday approved. The first thing is my iron clad immune system has already taken a holiday with me getting quite sick this week. I even had a sick day on Thursday, the first I have had since I started working on boats.

The second thing is more of a feeling. Along with the obvious excitement I feel quite odd about going home. What is this oddness? Well I expect it shall be explained in full when I have been home for a few days. My worst nightmare is that I return home to find New Zealand run by talking apes and its people enslaved and dumb.

Who did win the election anyway?

In Stitches in Sitges

2012-01-21T16:01:00.002+01:00

Determined not to have just another night in Barcelona the traveling team tricycle (Sam, Nancy and Myself) assembled on Saturday the 31st of December to visit Sitges for the weekend. My Saturday morning was filled with massive bouts of de ja vue. Not only had I just finished an evenings watch on board but we were to meet at the train station. The train station looked oddly HDR and smokey.

Not wanting to mess with a winning formula Sam and Nancy were late. Sam also wanted to have a pre trip drink. We convened at the very same Mexican cafe and my vocal chords replayed some eerily similar conversation snippets from our last trip to the Mexican cafe.

With our Margaritas hitting the spot quite nicely we were soon on our train to Sitges. I had been meaning to get to Sitges for quite a while. It lies about 45 minutes west of Barcelona and is a famously beautiful place, full of beautiful people and it is also well renowned for being fabulously gay.

Soon enough our train arrived in Sitges and like an Enid Blyton book gone horribly wrong we were soon rambling through the streets to our lodgings. Our lodgings were the result of many a minute debating on the best possible vantage point to savour Sitges and the beginning of a new year. Situated on the hill to the east was such a place. The Melia Sitges was a wonderful hotel. It ticked many boxes and even had ever so slightly warped lounge music in the glass elevator.

View from my room

With Sam taking his yearly session in the adjoining health spa and Nancy in tow I pottered about devouring my mini bar and unpacking my many bags. I think I even managed to have a nap of sorts before we all convened and traipsed down the hill to the marina. It is an odd behavior from working on boats that sailors find themselves pulled to marinas or water. Maybe we like the stuff.

Sitges Town

Sitges Marina

The Marina was well appointed and full of day trip style craft. It also had quite a few weekend wanderers if the many restaurants were anything to go by. We settled ourselves down in a bar serving Japanese food and ordered some very exuberant looking Tequila sunrises.

For the record until earlier this very day I had not drank a drop of alcohol since that Steak House evening. Needless to say after a couple of Sunrises I was feeling very festive and expectant at the prospect of my first Spanish New Years eve in a paradoxically both sleepy and sleepless town.

After a saunter up the hill and a pause to take in the magnificent sunset. It was time to prepare for our evening out.

One of the first things I learned about Spanish New Years was that is customary to don red trousers for New Years evening. Having not worn red trousers since my hey day I felt necessary to wear a garment which I had not worn before. A Michael Pattison design. My loud shirt is very loud and screams unintelligible things. I also dare not put a picture of it online for fear of it breaking the internet.

We assembled in the hotel cocktail bar at about 8pm and were ushered outside by the strange walking barman who could see trouble brewing a mile off. He did take the time to to brew a trio of very drinkable gin and tonics and walked them out strangely to us.

Savoring a very tasty drink I learned my second Spanish New Years custom. At the stroke of midnight we should eat 12 grapes one after the other with each chime of the clock. This all sounded like terribly hard work and another round of drinks was ordered. It is safe to say at this juncture that we were starting to feel quite loose. With the hotels guests safely at tables we felt comfortable enough to return to the hotel and order a taxi into town.

On the Taxi ride down into town Sam took over as the official travel guide and told us tall tales from the Carnival which happens in Sitges in February of each year. He also told us about a bear festival which has nothing to do with animals and other very important information. The taxi dropped us off near the beach and we discovered Sitges was pretty quiet. The third thing that I learned about a Spanish New Years is that is largely a family affair until well after 12am. A lot of the bars closed at 9:30 and the bars that did serve us were only to happy to bundle us out with a muddle of commiserations before 9:30. This was mildly disappointing. This was made all the more disappointing when some bars had crazy signs like this.

Do you need google translate for that?

Wandering the streets of Sitges I did learn that it is the home of the Barcadi family. I also learned that if you want something fluro/fluffy or sparkly you can buy it anytime of the year even when you should be at home with your family.

Thankfully we found a very luxurious and open lounge bar. The bar tender was Vampiric in nature and Sam was convinced he may have been chewing his own face off. I was enthralled and ordered the bloodiest drink I could think of. A bloody mary. The enthusiasm that the bar tender put into creating his cocktails had us wondering if he was in fact making potions instead of cocktails.

Truly venomous

By this time our loud and obvious English speaking nature had alerted other English speaking people that had come to Sitges to be both amazed and gobsmacked that there was not a hell of a lot going on before 12am. We made some new friends, some of which are hounding Sam to this very day for a catch up, such an impact he made. We happened upon a couple of young Manchester people who for reasons that escape me were determined to create as much mess and exhibit as much lewd behavior possible without being locked up. It was disgusting and I found myself wishing I had a taser.

I now have a taser.

12am came and went. We took self portraits that summed up the interesting year we were having and the one that had past.

By this time we were becoming nicely disheveled and I started losing garments and faculties at an alarming rate. One thing that I loved about Sitges that you could leave phones, bags, scarfs, body parts in bars all over the town and return to them at any stage of the night to find them exactly where you left them. This is quite a contrast from Barcelona where you are constantly on theft watch.

We ended up dancing in some quite ridiculous night spots. I know they were ridiculous because I was channeling my tree pose.

I am a tree, the bad music will flow through me and I will stand tall.

So popular was my tree pose that a tree wearing ear muffs stood beside me.

At about two am there seemed to be an influx of teenagers. I suppose that the rich children of the very wealthy descend on town once their parents go to sleep. Sam now wished he had a taser. He does not have one. Yet. We had another run in with the Mancurians. I didn't have my taser yet and in the interests of going to bed happy and rested we called it a night.

We had a very lazy Sunday in the hotel. I completed emptying my mini bar. We ordered room service and even had a tv show marathon. A perfect Sunday in a perfect little place.

Happy New Year!

The Somewhat Infamous and Hideously Polarizing Argentinean Steak House Night

2011-12-28T19:10:00.000+01:00

Last Thursday I was subjected to one of the most gloriously decadent dinner parties since the fall of Rome. With one of our team leaving us to return to Rosario in Argentina and an Irishman going on holiday it seemed a pretty good opportunity to let loose with the boys. Organizing was left to Hector who in his infalible organizing capabilities left things until Thursday. Unfortunately the really pimp steakhouse in Barcelona was fully booked. Hector found another one in a more vivacious part of town and measuredly told us "its good eh". In retrospect this more family restaurant was far more appropriate for our gang.

Sam and I arrived on time and after some circumnavigation we arrived to find Martin and Mario inside. The restaurant was multi roomed and we entered the main part through a small passage way. We were put in the back in a huge room which had a slanting floor. This was a first for me and (un)wisely I decided to sit at the foot of the table. Hector arrived soon after and I found myself in between Sam and Hector. Sam and Hector then proceeded to have an escalating fight which lasted 4 hours; started with napkins, continued with bread involved red wine and ended up in wrestling. Perhaps I get ahead of myself I should describe what caused this escalation.

Other members arrived and we soon had 14 very hungry men who wanted a lot of red meat. The waiters foolishly bought us menus and were shooed away by Hector and Martin who from the sounds of things ordered a whole cow in various states of distress and temperature. All I could hear was mas carne MAS CARNE(more meat MORE MEAT). The wine was soon flowing and talk soon flowed into how good it was there were no women to distract us, how good the wine was and how bloody hungry we are all were.

Over the course of the night everyone got progressively drunker except for our clever Nepalese engineer who elected to drink coke all night. Hector transformed from a somewhat cheeky fellow into a whirling dervish. I actually caught this transformation on camera.

When I talked about the cow earlier I was not joking. Over four hours we ate about 11 different courses of food and I am pretty sure we ate a good part of an honest sized cow.

an honest cows head

The amount of wine we drank beggars belief and the waiters left us to to serve ourselves wine, so loud and engorged we became. We were serenaded during parts of the night by the resident guitarist. We tried to put him out of a job by getting Martin to sing for us but he was not that keen on giving up his guitar.

My favourite part of dinner was the large and nitrogen enhanced steaks which only a few of us could put away.

Of course I have neglected what was going on either side of me the entire meal. What began with a bit of napkin slapping between Hector and Sam quickly evolved into the Falklands II and I actually sat back from the table for sections of the dinner when there was no food to limit the collateral damage felt.

With the food slowing down we entered a somewhat serious part of the evening where Mario felt obliged to dress up in a napkin and spout forth how he really felt about quite a few topics of which the gravity still escape me.

There was a flaming desert served. It tasted amazing and it probably did not need the alcohol, neither did we.

I left the table after 1am and before 2am. I arose to the worse hangover I have ever had and although I made it to work I was violently ill and have not drank a drop of alcohol since. I fear I have destroyed any love for red wine that I once had. Mario and Sam made it in. Martin woke in another part of Barcelona sharing his bed with a lady, I think he convinced her that he was a singer at a bar. Hector did not make it into work until late. He had lost his phone, cash card and bicycle card on his way home. No one saw him leave. I think he just whirled home like a tornado losing parts of his wallet as he went.

As you can read there were a few casualties in the war but it was an incredible night.

I will put up the details for the steak house at a later date. It really was a find and indicative of the wonderful eateries all throughout this city. Company not included.

Adventures in Port Aventura

2011-12-17T15:35:00.001+01:00

Last weekend I was lucky enough to take a weekend trip to Port Aventura, a large and sprawling theme park about an hour and a half east of Barcelona. I was doubly luck to be able to tag along with Sam and Nancy. Sam if you remember is my quintessential English friend who loves kebabs, booze and dispensing with pearls of wisdom. Nancy is his diamond, the foil to his sometimes odd ways.

I began this micro adventure on Saturday after a Friday evening watching over my 80 meter baby. Sam and Nancy were indisposed at 10am and suggested we leave at 12. I found an open Irish pub and skyped home to a Christmas party full of my friends. This is the first time in two years that I have not been working and I relished in an early pint of cider and the warm and effusive glows of everyone back home. I was told to take a lot of photos of my excursion so this post will be littered with them.

I subsequently wandered the streets of Barcelona for a couple of hours drinking the first of many cafe con tardo and taking photos of the Franco railway station.

Somewhat handsome chap in the railway station.

At 12pm Sam and Nancy arrived at the railway station. We had a bit of time to kill before the next train so we went to a mexican restaurant which was not serving food but had somewhat drinkable margaritas.

Mexican Christmas snow man

Two festive chaps.

At 1:40 we began the 1.5 hour train ride west to Port Aventura. It is here I must big up the Spanish train system. Not only is it far cheaper than bus, the trains are well looked after and nearly empty. The train ride west hugs the coast and it is not unlike the Riviera from Menton in France into Italy.

By the time the train ride finished we were quite excited and we leapt off the train and hurtled towards the park gates. There were quite a few hawkers trying to sell dodgy tickets. I know better than to try and talk with them, and left Sam and Nancy to parlay polite refusals in Spanish.

Dumping our luggage at the gates we entered the park and began our ascent into carefully cultivated psychologically modified theme park heaven. After a quick stop to have a fortifying drink we made the foolish decision to ride the most terrifying ride at Port Aventura. We named this ride the penetrator. It uses the same mechanism that aircraft carriers use to catapult planes off so they can take off. We all felt somewhat shaken up afterwards. If you listen carefully you can hear me saying "Jesus"

We then began a 3 hour meander through the various sections of the park and partook in various rides. There were four distinct sections open.

Mediterraneo.

The Wild West & Mexico

Sesamo Adventura

and China

Obviously there is quite a lot of park to wander about in and I think you would be hard pressed to see it all in one day. Especially in Summer when the queues are invariably longer and there is a whole other section open, Polynesia and it's water park.

After the unnerving Penetrator we chose a very sedate and very wet river ride. Thankfully my carefully chosen clothing offered some protection.

There are a few things that I noticed unique to Spanish theme parks. It is very easy to get and drink alcohol. It was not easy enough for Sams liking but given that you could buy beer every 500 metres or so and there was a wine bar which was selling hard spirits I was more than happy. Check out this beer we bought.

There was a very shakey ride called El Diablo de la Mina in the Mexican section of the park. If you think carefully back to my lessons from Hector this is a perfect example of his unified feminine masculine rule.

I also noticed some very latin graffiti. These two pieces actually are two nicknames given to different crew members by the Mexican mafia.

In the Mexican section we rode a large and mildly terrifying tower which also doubled as a spine shortening device.

I am not sure how far you need to fall before you hit terminal velocity but we were all glad when the tower engineering slowed our decent.

We had one more ride left in us. The underestimated and very comfortable Pirate ship. We found it very reassuring to scream voluminously when the Pirate ship was hitting it's straps. It was also quite therapeutic. We wondered about the untapped Pirate ship holistic therapy industry.

By now it was starting to get dark and a bit cold. Spain afforded us a lovely sunset and we retreated to the nearest town Salou.

Salou is apparently quite busy in Summer time. I have heard people wistfully describe it as a continental Ibiza. In Winter it is a lot less busy and the streets afforded the same ambience as a post apocalyptic future minus the zombies. The hotel we stayed at deservers mentioning. The Regente Aragón was a great one and my decision to get a superior room baffled Sam and Nancy. The reason of course was having dragged my Traktor all day it needed an airing.

I gave my Traktor such a thorough airing it was well past 12 when we retired to sleep. I think we talked at length about how amazing Port Ventura was and we may have snuck in a couple of episodes of a tv show that is not for the faint hearted.

It is fair to say we consumed a fair bit of alcohol the night before. So the buffet breakfast the next morning was attacked with relish.

Our second day at the theme park was to be just as good as the first day. Getting there at lunchtime allowed us to take things a bit slower. We started our day with a ride on the pirate ship. Nancy mentioned that she would like a Pirate Ship shower that she could use every morning. From the Pirate ship we made our way to the tea cups and then feeling a bit peckish we entered a Mexican cantina.

The Mexican cantina was one of those small gems that was tucked away. It was large and cavernous and there was live entertainment. For a moment I felt like I could be in a sanitized version of a Mexican Christmas.

From the Cantina we took time to take some photos with a safely inanimate cow.

It is here that my memory starts to get a little hazy. I know we rode this ride because I have a photo of it.

I know we started drinking an incredible beer called Vol Damme

I know that we rode the penetrator again because the footage at the start is actually from our very last ride. I invested post humorously in a pair of scuba googles which have a camera and video recording option for the next time I find myself in such an exciting place.

It is safe to say that by now we were pretty spent with all of the intense excitement that the weekend had provided us with. We made our way to the nearest hotel foyer and waited for the 7:20 train back to Barcelona.

In Conclusion......

Port Aventura is a great theme park one which can only be more awesome in summer time with it is open till midnight and gets 50% larger. There are three themed hotels on site and I think it would be a great hoot to stay in one of those.

As with all trips it is often the company that makes them and I am very lucky to have made to great friends in Sam and Nancy. I hope we can go away somewhere else soon.

Tune in next time for tales from a very Argentinean dinner party.

A Perfect Saturday Spoiled by Magic

2011-11-15T21:01:00.001+01:00

So I just had one of the best Saturdays I have had in a long time almost completely ruined by Magic. How could this happen? What could Magic mar? My perfect saturday went something like this.

I arose at approximately 10 minutes past 8am with a slightly fuzzy head and fuzzy mouth that attending a dock BBQ the night before bequeathes. I had a lovely if sporadic chat with my wife via Skype and then ate a healthy breakfast and rode my bicycle to the gym. My ride to the gym or work is wonderful. We had a stunningly clear autumns day here on Saturday and my ride was not at all that different from this.

Media prepared earlier, been waiting to use that one. This blog entry is all about the media, multi even.

After exercising and swimming at the gym I returned home and pottered about on the internet for about an hour or so. I then went to the nearest Japanese restaurant and dined on some fine Japanese food. I learned an incredibly handy Spanish phrase. Cafe con Tardo this gets you an Espresso with a dash or milk. I engaged in some shopping, unfortunately like large sections of Asia Spanish people have small heads so finding suitable caps is hard work. Thankfully Spanish surfers have larger heads than the football players or runners.

I returned home 3pm in time to turn myself around and get ready for one of the standout epic performances of my life.

MONSTER JAM MONSTER TRUCKS!!!!

Somewhere in my childhood I developed a taste for monster trucks, probably around when I used to play with radio controlled cars. I have had a latent hankering to see a real life monster truck for at least 20 years. Seeing Monster Trucks in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona was a dream come true. There was a reasonable posse from our boat who went to have a look. One of the Engineers took his mum who had come to visit. Another one of the Engineers took his girlfriend he had not seen for a month. Engineers always on the look out for horsepower.

We got reasonably lost on the way to the Monster Trucks. We abandoned our taxi in the heaving traffic jam which was people trying to get to the Monster Truck Jam. We scrambled up a hill gouging ourselves on thorn bushes and dodging broken bottles. We then, after getting warned not to, got in a cable car which proceeded to take us away from the stadium.

Thankfully there was a wonderful Swedish couple in our cable car who stopped us going to the panic. I had exhausted all of my social Swedish before we had left the cable car and it was another mad dash to the stadium and the monsters!

Actual panoramic photo of the stadium. Told you I was going all out.

Sensibly you might not think you can make three hours family entertainment out of 10 Monster Trucks some earth movers and a few motorcycles. Well that is where you are very wrong. The first section of the evening were a series of time trials around the oval course. Two Monster Trucks would square off and try not to destroy the track or each other.

Unfortunately Bigfoot was not in attendance but dirty old Grave Digger was there looking scary and menacing.

The highlight of the time trial section was Maximum Destruction rolling his truck and landing it upside down. There was a palpable silence and thankfully the portly driver emerged unscathed. He then proceeded to pick up a bit of the destroyed bodywork and wave it triumphantly at the crowd. He was given a bottle of champagne for his efforts.

There were a few intervals during the Monster Trucks. The first couple of intervals had a monster golf cart enter the stadium with a jet turbine which made an incredible noise and had impressive flames billowing from it's engine.

A troupe of motorcyclists were bought out who did some very impressive jumps and tricks. But the crowd were all waiting for the main course of the evening. The freestyle. The trucks were each given 90 seconds to drive around the course doing jumps, smashing cars and doing doughnuts. They were then marked by three judges. A lot of the trucks went upside down in this section with maximum destruction coming out with half of his body kit missing only to lose all of his body kit.

Three trucks went upside down in this section with the drivers egging themselves and each other to do more and more crazy things. The crowd favourite El Toro Loco did this unbelieveable manuerve and ended up getting the most points. It was magic and not the kind which was to surface seven hours later.

With the monster trucks over I left the stadium at breakneck speed and without breaking my neck I descended the what felt like a mountain and hailed a taxi to take me home. Pausing to change my clothes I then went to Sam's place to wait before we started an evening of his choosing. Sam is a good natured Englishman that works in our team Being English I have latched onto him as someone to banter with in my own tongue. Strangely enough he is from Guilford where James Lovejoy was from. He also has a strange attraction to mirrors.

Sam was eating a dinner inside with his girlfriend. What they were eating is anyones guess as the day before his water and gas had been turned off. I think they were eating kebabs. English people love kebabs. I sat down under the trees drinking cider from the local bar, the black horse. With Sam and his girlfriend ready we made our way to Marmalade bar in Raval. It turned out Sam had kludged his plumbing so he did at least have water and did not smell much.

Marmalade bar was convivial enough. It served very passable mojitos but its real talent lay in its proximity to Barcelona's very famous Bar Marcella. Bar Marcella has been open since 1820 and has had some famous patrons over the years including Dali, Picasso, Gaudi and Hemingway. Naturally I was quite keen to add my name to the list. What greeted me in Marcella was the very pungent smell of Absinthe and a decaying Dali'ish roof. Immediately I noticed that people were always in a hurry to leave. Sam got us a round of Absinthe and I was interested to see that Absinthe is an amber coloured liquid in its natural form. It is not until you have added molten sugar that it turns green. I think we all turned green soon after and we were soon barelleling out the door much like the people who had greeted us on our way in.

It is worth noting that was now well after 12 my perfect Saturday was finished. With the liquid devil of Absinthe coursing through our veins we made a what turned out to be fatal decision. We would go to a bar that had been recommended by an increasingly dubious American. We would go to Magic Bar.

Up until Sunday morning I had been living in a delightful bubble believing Barcelona to be a truly cosmopolitan place with vibrant and exciting things to see and do at every corner. Magic Bar certainly sounded interesting, there was a healthy queue and we all felt anticipation and a bit queazy with excitement. That could have been the absinthe.

What greeted me was truly sad. I lasted about three minutes in Magic bar. It was a truly tragic place. I think it should have been called Anti Magic bar or Euthanasia. Deeply depraved people walking around and swaying dangerously. I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen someone fall over dead. It turns out my amazing taste in music has give me some Bourne Identity like conditioning. Hearing Crocodile rock being played over a loud PA system was enough to make me walk out without saying goodbye and get safely into a taxi.

Sam being English stayed around to drink his free drink and mine. He lasted about half an hour before he left to get another kebab. He has photos of weird people including a chap he named Snake hips the rapist. Magic Bar what a crock. On Monday we devoted vast tracts of the day trying to understand how Magic bar stays open. Our best theory is that people go there to kill a night. If you are actually having too much fun and need to knock a night on the head. Magic bar is the place to be. Maybe you want to ditch a date or sober up? Magic bar where your dreams come true.

That was my mighty Saturday. May there be many more minus the Magic.

Lessons from Hector

2011-11-09T19:22:00.002+01:00

Hola, estas bien!

For the past two weeks I have been spending more and more time with the somewhat shadowy figure of the Mexican Mafia, Hector. Hector says very little at first but now I have trouble finding spots when he is not making a noise of some description.

Hector has only been too happy to further my Spanish education with many manageable morsels. The ultimate so far has been his explanation of feminine and masculine nouns. The pro-noun el or la is put front of them and it trips up many an English speaker. Hectors rule works very well and I can not fault it. It is quite simple.

Suppose you are a man.
Could you have carnal heterosexual abiet quite kinky relations with the object?
Yes, it is feminine.
No it is is masculine.

Upon learning this rule I looked about the room attempting to break it. Spying a roll of electrical tape I said.

El Cinta?

"No" said Hector, see its obvious characteristic. That is feminine.

I then looked at a screwdriver. He smiled and said "that it is el desarmador"

A ladder turns out to be feminine. I asked Hector about this and Hector was only too happy to demonstrate the various positions a ladder can be posed in.

Spanish truly is a language of love.

My other Hector lesson comes from a direct translation of his Argentinian tongue. Instead of saying Don't Panic. Hector says,

"Don't go to the Panic"

I love this. It makes panicing out as a dark place that one has to go to to experience. I think this is true and when I start to lose my head I just think "Don't go to the Panic"

Hector even took time out to txt me "Don't go the Panic" at a random time yesterday.

Smart man.

Que Pasa Sopapa?

2011-11-01T14:21:00.000+01:00

In an all to familiar cycle up until last night I had forgone traditional language lessons for full immersion Bullfighter Spanish lessons. Much the same as Cowboy Italiano, I have been learning on the job. What makes it different here is that I am working with the Mexican mafia. Martin in particular has been a great teacher because he does not speak any English. I have been learning all manner of crazy Espanol.

Cinta = Electrical Tape
gyea = Small line for guiding cables
Escalera= Ladder
Jabón = Soap

As you can imagine learning bundles of words like this with the occasional swear word makes retrofitting what I have learned back into every day life difficult. Thankfully I can also say.

Vale = Ok
Que Pasa?= Whats up?

On Friday I learned that a small suction cup or sucker is called Sopapa. Naturally adding Sopapa onto the end of Que Pasa is the best thing I could think of. Hence the title. Whats up suckers?

Thankfully last night I attended a more formal and infinitely more useful Spanish lesson. My teacher Jackie knows how difficult for English speakers to learn anything let alone another language. After being in tears at a Spanish lesson in Barcelona she vowed to learn Spanish and teach useful Spanish to gringos like myself.

After two hours of leisurely learning structure, telling stories and getting a feel for Barcelona and Spanish. I think I am ready for my second lesson. Jackie thinks I will learn quickly and is quite ready to introduce me to some of her Spanish pupils who are learning English.

Be Afraid.

PS There are probably some spelling mistakes in the Spanish above. I apologize profusely and blame Martin.

Spanish Tapas Moments

2011-10-16T18:37:00.000+02:00

Counting Ibiza & Palma, driving across Spain and last year in Barcelona I have lived in Spain for about two months. The difference this time is that I won't be moving cities every couple of days, holidaying or living aboard a boat. I also shouldn't be drinking a mojito every day like I was in Ibiza. Spain remains nicely different and endlessly friendly. As always with a protracted amount of habitation it is the little things that stand out and not what you would automatically think. Fittingly I like to call these tapas moments.

Language

The people of Barcelona speak a dialect of Spanish called Catalans. I had a lengthy discussion with a French expat last weekend and she described Catalans as a sped up version of Spanish where words are truncated or just left out all together. To the untrained ear it sounds like everybody says mojito a lot. Maybe it is just our shipyard people. Maybe there is a guy there called mojito. Maybe hurry the hell up in Catalans is mojito?

Thanks to some networking I have the phone number of an American English teacher who teaches Spanish as well. What makes these language lessons very welcoming is that she likes to teach Spanish in bars. By ordering drinks from the bar tenders and interacting with the patrons one learns Espanol in a very relaxed setting. I will probably say mojito.

Robins Hood

Did you know Robin Hood was from Barcelona? He actually probably wasn't, but the relaxed apologetic attitude that Barcelonians have towards theft is quite strange. People will gladly tell you to move your bag closer, or keep your phone out of sight but the criminal element is very much tolerated. No one is telling the thieves to stop stealing. My new chief stewardess had her phone stolen out of her hand on Saturday night whilst she was talking on it. Surely there is CCTV here. Surely somebody cares! bicycle salesmen and phone shops do a roaring trade in the mean time.

Interesting design choices

Barcelona is famous for the stunning architecture but there are also small design choices that are unique. There seems to be a very accepting attitude to people sleeping in public over night. Park benches are comfortable looking. Subway vents heat cold spots. It even looks like stairwells going to underground car parks have been designed so you can have a windowed spot on the ground that sleeps two.

I joined a gym last week and the first thing that greeted me when entering was a large and prominent advertisement for a local beer. The interior of the gym was cavernous and vast sections overlook the Iberian sea. This is all quite distracting, thankfully there is a large cafe/restaurant which is just as busy as the gym and sells that beer they have on the door. I have seen a strange style of swimming here that has to have been designed. It requires lying on your back and kicking sporadically, as you start to sink to the bottom you should rotate both arms simultaneously in backwards circles. It looks incredibly difficult and counter intuitive but I shall try my best to replicate it as soon as I work out how to get to the pool. The final insult is that my gym also has an art gallery inside where you can buy art after you have had a few beers and almost drowned in the pool.

The Mexican Mafia

I am working with a few Argentinian's who have been dubbed the Mexican Mafia. They are interesting fellows and once they have the measure of you show quite wicked flashes of humour. Naturally I find myself joking about with them a bit and here are some of our exchanges.

Sam: It is Sunday soon Hector will you be going to church?
Hector: No I do not believe in God
Me: Oh ok Hector (sensing it might be a sensitive subject)
Hector: I do not believe in God I believe in Maradona.

Mario is the second member of the Mexican Mafia. He was quite vocal in showing his displeasure at the way the All Blacks bundled the Argentinians out of the RWC. I felt remorse and consoled him telling him he should be proud of his countries achievement visualising him crying at home wracked with anguish after watching the game with his fellow country men. I should not have worried. Five minutes later a South African sat down beside us(South Africa were also put out)

Mario: hahahahaaha you lose!
SAFA: Shut up
Mario: hahahaah you loser
SAFA: We scored more points than you. Did you even watch and support your team?
Mario No

Echoing my time starting out as a deckhand I have been largely working solo for the last two weeks. Whilst this is not ideal it is a good way to learn as you make plenty of silly mistakes and tend to make them only once. As a reward for my valiant efforts I was gifted the third member of the mexican mafia, Martin to work with. Martin is an endearingly cheeky young chap who speaks about three words of English. We have managed ok with a combination of hand signals, cowboy Italiano and shrugs. I naturally do not use ladders unless I really have to. I know Lungo is Long in Italian so with a bit of bartering I have been named El Largo Kiwi. Given some of the names given to other crew members by the Mexican Mafia I have done pretty well for myself.

Nightlife

Embarassingly and also quite sensibly I have eschewed almost all forms of the nightlife that Barcelona is renowned for. I did venture out for a crew dinner last Wednesday and was impressed by a few things. Firstly the restaurant we went to had people giving head and shoulder massages before and after your meal.

After being coerced to have a couple of drinks on the way home I was loudly ushered into a taxi and went as far away from home as I have been in Barcelona. We ended up in the shot bar. The shot bar only serves shots which I think is a great idea. I have learned that drinking shots by themselves is not that dangerous. It is when you are also drinking rounds along with or between shots that it gets a bit skeweth. This bar handily had the entire menu painted on the wall in case you had momentary reading problems.

Finally turning in the right direction I started going home. We ended up in a rock bar which was very exciting. Spanish people love to grow a lot of hair and rock out at the drop of a guitar pick. This rock bar was decorated with well, take a look for yourself.

That is Barcelona so far. Despite myself I have been having quite an interesting time. It might be time to actually start looking for points of discussion. Till next time.

Back in Barcelona

2011-10-02T18:21:00.000+02:00

Pretty much a year ago I began what was to be one of the hardest and most challenging periods of my working life. I actually have a large and exclamatory rant festering inside myself detailing the hardships and personalities I endured which was about to rupture last weekend. Thankfully things changed. What happened? Well I got back to Barcelona and started a new job. Not just any job mind you this is my dream job.

This new job is shrouded in secrecy. I have not writen much about my new job because,

A: I am not allowed to
B: I am not allowed to
C: I stil do not believe it is real

So given that this is probably a dream and not real I think I can write some thing about my new job and living in Barcelona. We arrived in Barcelona on Monday morning. We should have tied up my old boat at about 9:30am..... But the old girl in a show of mild protest decided to have a mechanical malfunction and we sat offshore for an hour or so pacing the decks and looking longingly at land. Thankfully after a show of engineering know how we got ourselves into port and I set about looking busy until I was given my passport and permission to leave.

I was quite anxious to see my new boat, in a show of niceness I had given about six weeks notice to my old boat and I knew my new boss had been struggling without me. After security fomaltities at the shipyard I called my new boss and we soon were aboard my new vessel. I am not allowed to show you any photos of the vessel but in a show of Spanish modesty the yard had draped this fitting drape of non non-disclosure over her.

As you can see it is quite a large Motor Yacht. I am not allowed to say how big but if you look closely you will see a small Lego man in the bottom left corner. My first impressions of my new place of work is that it is very large and there is a lot of things to be done before we leave in about five months.

I am an ETO(Electrical Technical Officer) on this boat which in addition to usual IT functions means quite a bit of electrical work. I have been wiring up plug points and fittings and although I do not have a background in this work I am very glad I spent hours racing radio controlled cars as a kid because I know my way around shrink tape and power blocks. That has not stopped me from stabbing myself with snips and screw drivers on a few occasions. To give you an idea of the amount of work we have going on. Our last estimate was we have 10 kilometers of new cabling to lay.

I may have taken a photo of some of this work strongly resembling mine.

Obviously we have a lot of Spanish speaking workers on board and I have been learning some Espanol to add to my limited vocabulary. El Fuerte remains quite the gentlemen because these Spanish workers have all manner of inventive words which El Fuerte never taught us. It appears there will be enough interested crew to start some Spanish lessons soon. Bring it.

Other than that I have overalls to wear and it has to be said if you can not wear a man bag, wear overalls. Pockets for days Bro. My new crew is very nice and it is cool to be working with more Kiwis and some Irish. That being said if South Africa win the world cup I will probably quit.

One of my first tricks in Barcelona was to secure a bike. I payed for it at a sports store and went through a lengthy interrogation for a customer loyalty card. There are so many bikes stolen in Barcelona that shops know you will be back for another one. I enjoy riding around Barcelona, the city is made to roll upon and it seems easier to be on a bike than in a car or another motorized transport.

Please enjoy some very quick snaps I took on Saturday morning. This is some buildings on my ride to work.

My next foray into bicycle shooting will be mounting a tripod on my handlebars for video recording. Stay tuned. I might need to mount my GPS first. Much of Barcelona remains a mystery.

Thankfully my new Casa is fantastic. It is a large three bedroomed apartment in this very building.

Knowing I will have a home of sorts for a few months is very satisfying. We have a large sound system which has already been connected to the ironing board and although my room is quite small it is not a cabin! A nice surprise yesterday was finding out we have a rooftop complete with nice views, a small pool and jacuzzi.

I have left out a section of the pool because it had two very topless women in it. Ah Spain.

Other than that I am very settled and I am proud to call Barcelona home for a while. I have plenty of things to write about and a nurturing workplace which should mean a bit more content for this very blog.

Muchos Gracias!

Greece Redux

2011-09-19T17:34:00.000+02:00

That large and bountiful universe luckily provided me with a chance to rediscover Greece and actually walk about on its varied landscapes working and not working. We went back to my perfect Greek island Symi. I actually had the chance to sit in the port drinking Greek chilled water, munch on a kebab and soak up the beating sun at 4pm. For a few minutes I actually felt like an honest to goodness tourist.

From Symi we made our way to Poros and I spied my good friend David "El Fuerte"'s boat. In typical Spanish style he suggested I forget about my guests and join him for a beer. Sadly this did not transpire immediately but it is a funny thing that universe....We dropped off our final charter of the season in Athens and what an amazing feeling that was. It has been a long year and a lot of us will be moving onto greener and unknown pastures come the end of September.

Sadly with Anna feeling unwell it took us a while to celebrate effectively. What I did do on my first real day off in a couple of months was reacquaint myself with normal life. This involved catching a taxi, walking across busy streets, buying a mac book pro and air, fighting with my bank over the phone, almost leaving my ATM card in an ATM, filling a prescription and then returning back to the boat fearing for my seemingly lost social and society graces on land.My fears were short lived.

Athens and the Greeks that inhabit it have been uniformly hospitable and friendly. The very next day we caught a taxi to the Acropolis. What greeted us at the Acropolis was the busiest tourist attraction we have ever visited. The centuries old marble made for an impromptue hill sliding course. The hectnicess of the Acropolis was unerring and I think we were about 2500 years late for the best of it.

For a country in the depths of a financial bail out, Athens felt very lively and vibrant. I couldn't stop thinking where is the recession? and if they are in a recession they could do a couple of small things to get them out of it. Let me explain.

Service?

Getting service at a bar or restaurant is a hit or miss affair. Giving a waiter the nod is not enough, After a week in Athens I have started waving my arms like an aerobics instructor. When you finally get service you then go through a long indeterminable amount of time before your order turns up. This is compounded by a one waiter policy for a lot of places during large chunks of the day. If you go directly to the bar you will be shooed away. People in service are also taken aback when you give them a tip, a shame really.During a long stint at a bar last night I actually came up with a theory for this service. If they served tourists drinks on time everyone would be barking drunk at 8pm. If you drip feed tourists drinks they spend more money. Clever eh?

Taxis?

Having been pre warned about the interesting taxi drivers which populace Greece we expected the worse and came off not that wounded. The only thing which seemed a bit disingenuous were the rolling taxi strikes which cleaned the streets and made Athens safe to walk about in. If you are going to strike for your rights surely it is better to be missed and not gladly so.

Summer?

Officially Summer has finished with the start of September in the northern hemisphere. That doesn't mean it is cold in Greece. It is still scorching and we tried to visit a pool bar last week for a swim. Sadly we were told the pool was closed as summer was over. Naturally we sweated off elsewhere. Maybe things would have been different if we had....

The DOM effect

Strangely many of the things I have identified as problems with service dissipate when you order a bottle of DOM. With Anna on the mend and the great Aussie Battler having had a really bad Friday we decided to go and have a nice meal at a local restaurant. With the Battler and I looking particularly antipodean we were ushered into a table far away from the view of the marina. Once we ordered our bottle of DOM we were moved to a VIP table and had non stop service for three hours. After the second bottle we started getting frozen mojitos, fruit platters and a free fawning Matridi'.

There appears to be a sliding bar of money spent in Greece which equals free stuff. We reached this bar a few times and it was a nice touch.

Beware of Business in Greece

Before we go to Greece I had at least two people tell me that Greeks are renown for being canny in business. One of these people was my old Captain Richard Dunnais so I was particularly wary of doing any sort of business. Luckily all of my business deals were simply tourist or consumer in nature but that did not stop me from witnessing a strange set of events as we tried to leave.We had three different yacht surveyors visit us in Athens before we left. They all found different things wrong with us. They all played off each other and it very nearly went pear shaped when we had to leave. There was a mercy dash to the local police station by our Chief Engineer with a crew list and passports. We could have very nearly been impounded or stuck in Athens for months because of tricky business practices.

Naturally if you are trying to encourage foreigners to invest or encourage yachts to stop by for winter or even just gather more tax these nefarious practices are not going to help your cause.

Best Moments in Athens

One of my best moments in Athens was directly after the DOM evening when Anna, the battler and myself decided to have an impromptu bow party. It was the first time I have used my decks in about two months and it was a classic session.

To say the party was intimate is perhaps grandiose. But for the umpteempth time in the past few years I found myself saying wow to myself and feeling quite blessed at what transpires when things come together.

The following Sunday we felt the earth tremor and the temperature go up a couple of notches. By jove! El Fuerte was close at hand. I ran to the bow and saw his boat coming in. He was on the bow as well but despite my best efforts to flag him down he walked around in circles talking earnestly on his radio. He may have been talking to his wife on his cell phone, my eyes could not quite make him out.

His season had finished and we had a fair few catch up drinks that evening in a funny little bar called Okio. I got to meet some of his crew and they all seemed very cool, even the Croatian lived in NZ which I could not fault him for. David got to meet some of my crew, including our larger than life Chef who was even for his standards quite skeweth. I think it was about 11:15 when I ushered the Chef out with David close behind. I am not sure what Davids plans are but I hope I will get to see him and Filip somewhere before the end of the year. Maybe we can watch a game of football.

Thats it.

That was my time in Greece. I should like to visit again, maybe next time I will be a guest on a Super Yacht. Just putting it out there. It seems to work.

I will leave you with some cowboy Greek which was provided to me by my sisters partner Vicky.

Parakalo - please

Efharisto - thankyou

Mi pouleesees ti yineka mou, parakalo- Dont sell my wife please

Kalimera - good day

Dio calamari parakalo- 2 of your squid please

Halia katastasi - awful situation(use when discussing the economy)

Pou eine ee toileta? - where is the toilet?

Ohi - no

Ohi apo piso efharisto - no, not from behind thank you

Ne - yesNe thelo bira - yes i want beer

fere bira - bring beer

Fere bira tora - bring beer now

Malaka - wanker

Malaka - friend(dependent on your delivery)

Mboro na daniso to gaitouri sas?- can i borrow your donkey?

Sadly I did not progress much further than saying Malaka a lot. But I did say it both ways.

Turkey

2011-09-12T19:36:00.001+02:00

My first impressions of Turkey were not entirely favourable. What should have been a routine docking manoeuvre took us 2.5 hours. The marina staff seemed courageously incompetent at best. I found myself asking myself are these the people that repelled the ANZAC's so ferociously? Obviously the ANZAC's did not moor up in Kusadasi at 5pm on a Thursday night. Or maybe they did?

I found it equally strange that there was a large "Welcome to Turkeyyeh" sign in the Marina. The real spelling of countries in English is always different to how the perennially tongue tied English spell them.

The sour hangover which was Turkey did not abate the next afternoon when we were all given half a day off. Sadly given that I was on watch and as I love to be in front of a computer I was abandoned by the rest of the crew. I spent my day gorging myself on convenience food and muttering to myself.

We collected our charter on the Monday and travelled to Bodum. For the Turkey charter I found myself on my last night watch session as a Deckhand. Bodrum was a place I had heard much of. On my first boat we were at one point going to winter in Bodrum when we had a Turkish person interested in buying us.

What greeted me on a sheepish walk outside on deck at 9pm was a very well lit up beach side resort town. It also had some incredibly loud music wailing at me for multiple directions. It was also incredibly warm. The Greek climate had also been hot but Turkey seemed to have a far more hellish climate. A short tender ride later and I was up close with Bodrum. Our very knowledgeable Chef says Bodrum is the Cannes of Turkey. I guess it is. The music abruptly stopped at 3am, it was solemly silent and then at 5:20am there was chanting broadcast over loud speakers. This was eerie and strange even for my caffeine enhanced night watch mind.

From Bodrum we made our way to some place with Turk in the name, it appears my Greek travel habits hung about for this trip. This was the Saint Tropez of the Turkish Riviera, with exclusive waterside beach clubs and restaurants. There was also an interesting cacophony of semi passable house music, dire top forty chart music and traditional Turkish ballads. This horrible noise assaulting me kind of sums up a metaphor for the huge rapid development which hugs Turkeys extensive coast line. However........

Turkey is incredibly beautiful. Once again thanks to my Chef who seems to always have time to take fantastic photos.

No thanks for me not knowing where these places are although the last photo is definitely.....

A heavily forested amazing place called Gochek. Although we were only there for a day or so our Boss was impressed enough to want to come back to Turkey for a month next year. Shame I won't be here to see more.

From Gochek we started the long trip back to Athens, Greece. But that is Greece. Tune in for Greece redux soon.

Ciao!

Not my Advice to a Young Captain

2011-09-11T10:10:00.002+02:00

Well, we all survived a pretty busy season. We are in Athens now for a week before we start our way back to the Riviera and the Monaco boat show. I have been lucky enough to score a dream job which I can not talk about at all. I am currently undergoing a lengthy vetting process which should only be a formality. Dearest friends, please refrain from any revolutionary activity for the next month or so.

Part of my vetting involved me getting in touch with my references. My first Captain was only too happy to act as a reference. One of the first pieces of advice I received in yachting was that the first job is the worst job. 2.5 years in I can safely say that my first job was in fact one of my better ones. When I mentioned in an email that I missed Richards stories that he used to tell me he replied with this amazing letter he wrote as advice to a young Captain.

Letter to a prospective young captain.

As one reaches the age of retirement, it is time to look back at one’s achievements and to draw the lesson from them. What follows may be of benefit to some, captain to be, engineer in the making and crew alike. You may think, “why should this concern me?”—but who can read the future?

Between the moment I took over the ketch TIKI and today, more than 40 years have elapsed. What happened on that bitterly cold winter in 1970 remains the purest of adventures and the dream of many a young sailor. Having no obvious qualification to take the job, my only chance—besides being the deck-hand—was to offer my contribution free of wages. I got the job merely because I happened to be there, and ever since, following my departure from the uninspiring Port-La-Nouvelle (Languedoc) where I was trapped by bad weather, every experience became vivid, intense and unforgettable. I was then at the bottom of the ladder and had received both a fast promotion and a formidable challenge: to deliver a boat to his owner in Tahiti.

At the bottom of the ladder you will join a new world that is wide open and partly unstructured, although this is quickly changing in an increasingly complex industry.

You will eventually get married, have kids, buy a home, but may be not as soon as everybody else. The niche life style that you have chosen (the yachting industry), does not easily allow one to pursue two contradictory targets: diversifying your experience by wandering from boat to boat for a decade or so on the one hand, while striving to maintain as much a normal family life as possible on the other. You will have to strike a balance between sacred commitments and maintaining your autonomy and freedom, whilst trying to retain the best of both worlds.

In order to follow your dream you will need to chart your own course and this needs navigational skills (sounds familiar?).

You will have to work under the orders of brilliant or bullying bosses, captains and owners alike, and always keep your nerve whilst developing your management skills, your own style, something you have not been prepared for (and I do not mean here the written rules of bridge management).

On a wider spectrum, you will have to make your owners happy, your guests happy, your crew happy and this will eventually make you happy too.

You will be shaped by challenges and, sometimes, ordeals and you will find out that happiness can be a frustrating quest when positive results remain unacknowledged.

Never forget that you are developing yourself through arduous, unrewarding and, sometimes, menial tasks. However futile and barbaric it may look, I am not ashamed here to say that, as a young captain, far away from any resources, I have unplugged toilets with compressed air, operated a diving compressor with elastic bands and jury-rigged a raw water cooling circuit into a closed fresh-water circuit in order to save the frozen supplies, and hence saved the charter cruise.

Along your way to the top, you will have to be creative, handy and flexible in the sense that you will not dedicate yourself to one specific job: before becoming a specialist, you have to be a generalist, accepting to help in the galley during services, opening a stabilizer kofferdam to reach a sensor, cleaning the mess caused to “your” deck by a poorly engineered repair work are common place.

Leadership

Soon you will be the captain in charge and, depending on the tonnage of the vessel you are responsible for, you will direct the crew, entertain the owner, his family and guests.

At this stage, I would like to introduce the concept of “self-effacement”, which I have made mine for years until I discovered that it had been around for a while thanks to one of the greatest Antarctic explorers, Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) and his aptly-named, the Endurance expedition. His crew was his greatest asset (he saved them all). So must be yours. Do not be stingy with compliments for those who deserve them.

But to be self-effacing does not mean that you are discarding your principles or lowering your standards, on the contrary. Not only are you part of a team, but you should be the first one to follow your own rules. Only this way will you lead your team while being equal to all. This subtle balance is not always easy to find but once you have, it will have the merit of avoiding the trap of becoming, over the years, a prima-donna.

A prima-donna is at the centre of her art but, in our business, it is our task which is at the centre of our skills, not ourselves. Those who want to become captains because they have a strong ego will have to keep in mind that they are not performing a one man show. In other words, once you have found yourself you must forget about yourself. This is true for everybody else onboard: the Chef who comes after dinner to collect his good marks among the guests will have to remember that he is just doing his job, even if he is often the major player in the success of a cruise (and I mean it). Since you are likely to rejoin a ready-crewed yacht before you build up your own team, you will have to un-root potential prima-donnas like weeds.

You will eventually find your power in your communication skills, or some more mysterious impalpable alchemy called charisma. But remember the concept of “self-effacement” which is your safeguard against too much grandeur. However, be aware that by following this principle you are exposing yourself to potential challengers who can undermine your authority, and even destroy your job: a first mate, a chief engineer, a yacht manager may be a mole; whether you know it or not, there is nothing much you can do about it. Just expect the worse to happen and you will hardly be disappointed. The worse will happen because, at some point, you may have inadvertedly sent the wrong signal. One day, the owner will tell you: --“Thank you, Captain, we have had a wonderful time but, from now on, Darren will drive the boat,” and it does not matter if the boat needs more than just a driver, if you have wintered the boat yourself, if you have painstakingly done the spring refitting, catered for the crew in the absence of the Chef and joined the yacht with your own portfolio of clients.

Do not waste time trying to be overly smart, you are not in the picture anymore. It is called “disgrace” and it hurts, but do not turn back. This may be life but this is also yachting.

You can be proud of your achievement and nobody can take it away from you. Humble you are and humble you must remain, for at this stage, it will help you to find the shortcoming which crippled your system. Only in this way you will draw the lesson of your misfortune.

On the other hand, always consider that the renewal of your contract as Captain for another season or for another year as a gift. For the same reasons (or the lack of it) that you have been dismissed, the fact that your charter season has been a standing success, that you have beached your vessel, that you have completed a six month refitting at the best conditions or lost five meters of your bow on a collision course is not necessarily relevant. Against all odds, never despair, there is always room for hope.

Beware of the jet set life style

Straying among the rich and, sometimes, famous can be self intoxicating. Mind that champagne toasting does not become your cup of tea!

Do not focus on external gratification; be happy with your inner satisfaction.

Do not loose touch with reality. Keep being yourself or there is a risk you could become like James LeBron, the famous basketball player, who put himself before the sport. Enjoy compliments secretly, mostly when presented in a negative way:

- “Captain, don’t be such a gentleman” was my preferred one.

Do not get impressed by titles, prestige and wealth accumulation.

Once, during a flag inspection, the surveyor asked his ultimate question and the most unexpected one: “Are you jealous of your owner’s wealth?”

“Of course not,” I answered, “why should I be?”, and he seemed rightfully satisfied.

Similarly and more recently, a Chef told me:” My most difficult client is the crew”. This should not be.

“It can be lonely at the top”

In order not to distance yourself from your crew, you will need the skills to create a workplace for professional relationships with all the aplomb that one expects from you. You will have to maintain an equilibrium which requires self-taught discipline.

Yoga, meditation, reading and writing are private matters but sports, music, outing and laughing are good ways to stay involved with everybody. On hiring a crew, look for the right candidate who also shares similar hobbies with you and who is complementary to others. As strange as it may look, for years I have looked also for music players, chess players, tennis players and I succeeded to some extent in finding suitable candidates.

Despite everything, if you still find yourself isolated, nurture the ties with your family, stay in touch with your mentor (owner and captain alike) and your true friends.

Beware of isolationism; it keeps you cut off from real life and develops a false sense of infallibility, leading to bad decision-making, disdaining good advices. It may be that the Titanic would not have been lost if only the radio ice warning would have been taken into account by her captain!

Whether you have planned your route alone or have not done it yourself, have the first mate to double-check it or/and vice-versa. Our culture should not discourage anyone to question the captain even if he is, respectfully, nicknamed “the Old man”.

The downing of the Korean civil flight 007 by the Soviets over Sakhalin in 1983 would have probably not happened if only the flight officers had done their double checking, however more complicated it may look (following this disaster, we owe it to President Reagan to have ordered the US Army to make the GPS available for civilian use).

About undue benefits and other practices.

As a young captain, I was once welcomed by the manager of a well-known north Adriatic marina and boatyard. Following a polite and friendly talk, on leaving his office, the manager offered me a crate of six bottles of a famous local wine. What a gentleman and what delicious manners I thought to myself….until I was confronted, many months later, with an invoice which was twice as high as the pro-forma invoice. The foreman in charge of the boatyard was not the least embarrassed when I protested about the bill, as he said: “Mais tu as mangé” (literally, you have eaten) and I never felt so humiliated in my life.

Ever since, when a ‘benefit’ was the rule (even in disguise), it was entered in the account book or reported. Years later in Ancona (It), I got a shock when I learnt about a substantial kickback that the first mate had sought from the water-maker dealer and fitter during my holiday leave.

This reputable Italian operator, who was by no mean at his first “transaction”, waited for my return to share his indignation, instead of passing it to our dubious project manager. This too was entered in my books, not only in number but also in writing.

There is a lesson to be learnt from these two examples, and an absolute rule: ethic teaches you that you cannot have two masters or, as we put it in French, you cannot have “le beurre et l’argent du beurre.”

Environmentally-friendly?

Again, this is not only about sticking to the written rules (Annex V of Marpol etc.).

The yacht industry has not yet developed a Green Yacht but your own rules, as modest as they may seem, will have a positive impact on our environment. Just consider the following facts:

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast area of plastic, chemical sludge and debris that is twice the size of Texas (according to The National Science Foundation).
Food waste amounts to 40% of the world food production due to consumer behaviour, oversized portions, “best before” notices that are misunderstood (not an expiring date).
Whilst our carbon footprint is huge (by essence, if I may) compared to the average population, our water footprint can be reduced substantially. Consider that 450 million people in 26 countries across the world do not have access to the daily ratio of 20 liters/day (UNO). Your management of water is just as important as the groundwater management performed daily by the Water Authority in France. Global warming, regular droughts (2003-2006), population increase in the PACA area are all contributing to potential water shortages.

Although not measurable, overconsumption of goods due to poor management and slack budgeting, this resulting in the low value attached to these goods and their high turnover.

Don’t be a sitting duck for environmental disasters that are waiting to happen.

Being a captain is a complex, stressful and, sometimes, rewarding profession.

To be responsible for people, assets and uncertainties in the environment increases pressure.

Regulations and shore-based yacht management are helping us to a certain extent but it does not replace your inner compass, the search for your equilibrium resulting in your well being.

Even if we are small players we are still prone to become heroes when we should be the servants, without being servile, of the people we lead. In return, expect loyalty from those who still have a sense of honour. Just as you have a moral debt towards the owner of the yacht who employs you, you must expect the same from the crew you hired.

As I started my eighteen year captainship for the same owner at a time yachting was a gentleman pastime, the owner’s wife was running the galley and the owner was filling everybody’s plate; even if it looks a bit paternalistic and inappropriate nowadays, it still illustrates the self-effacing concept and this is why they still deserve my respect.

Richard Dunais

That is an incredible letter and I would like to think the words beneficial to anyone regardless if they work aboard boats or not. If you have any fan mail for Richard please leave a comment or drop me an email and I shall pass it on.

Time to do my own writing I think. See you all soon with tales of Turkey.

Greece!

2011-08-26T15:01:00.004+02:00

In one of Asterix’s many adventures there is a joke where if my increasing addled memory recalls correctly went something like this.

Q. How much does a Grecian earn?
A. About five amphora's a day

Bad probably incorrect jokes aside my ten day tour of Greece is a blur. Our charter guests were particularly demanding and a lot of the time I embarrassingly did not know where we were due to the chop and change, start stop nature of our trip. I drank a lot of coke, I was averaging about six cans a day towards the end.

Thankfully our Chef had time to take a few photos and these will supplement the mere minutes I had to reflect on the stunning mythical qualities of the Greek islands.

Our trip began in Athens we steamed somewhere for about three hours and anchored for the evening.

This is the town we could see. Are you impressed with my practiced vagueness? It gets better.

From the island that is quite close to Athens we travelled in a direction for a few hours and anchored in a cove. The cove had a fantastic hilltop town which was very pretty.

View back down from the town. Chur Chef.

This island was completely devoid of any meaningful vegetation. It turns out the crusades stripped a lot of the islands of all trees to build warships in times past. Sadly a lot of the islands have not recovered.
After the treeless island we made our way to Mykonos. It is fitting that I remember the name for Mykonos because we had terrible weather and photo opportunities were very limited. I did have a funny interaction with another yachty.

I was waiting on the dock for our guests when a bespectacled, uniformed frizzy haired fellow turned up and jumped in a tender. He was fluffing about and I asked him if he wanted me to slip his lines for him. He said, ”nah mate i have to put this fucking tent up on this fucking tender first’

I smiled with the acknowledgement nothing says “I am from Australia” better.

After a few windswept days in Mykonos we sailed past Rhodes and went to my highlight of the trip. The highlight was so large that I committed the name of the island to memory forever.

Symi.

Symi was other worldly. There are vast sections of it which would not look out of place on mars.

The pockets of civilisation were charming. I can’t say with any clarity what the town reminded me of. It didn’t look real.

Symi by night.

The real highlight for our Guests and anyone who enjoys water sports are the abundant coves and sheltered bays where you can tie up to a rock drop an anchor and while away a day water-skiing, swimming, wakeboarding, kayaking, skurfing, jet skiing and anything else water related that ends with ing.

There were a couple of nice caves in this spot. With a satellite dish and some air conditioning I think I could make myself at home here as a hermit.

Sadly we left Symi for more wind and an island of which the name escapes me It had an apocalypse cave of biblical importance. If you are really interested you can probably find out the name of the island quite quickly.

It also had a fortified town on a hill surrounded by a newer town.

By now we had been on the sea for ten days and our trip was winding down. We did our drop off in Samos. Samos is incredibly close to Turkey which is where we are now.

I guess this post reinforces the perils of travel blogging when you are working 12-15 hours a day. I saw a lot, digested little and want more. Sounds like a coke addiction.

The coastline of Turkey awaits and so do I. Kick off is on Sunday see you all next time.

The Coke Tally and Unfinished Works

2011-08-15T21:38:00.001+02:00

I do not drink Coke usually but during charters I become a fully fledged coke addict. In the interests of Science I shall be tallying how many cans of coke I drink over the next 10 days.

Day One

3 Cans

In other news I started writing what happened on our last charter but we have already started a new one and things are busy.

For the record we travelled France > Corsica > Sardinia > Capri > Napoli > Athens.

Everywhere was cool. There were a lot of sand flies in Sardinia. I did 11 nights of night watch in a row and was very happy when we dropped out guests off in Capri.

From Capri we fuelled up in Naples and high tailed it to Athens we had a day to clean the boat and then we picked up our Guests this morning.

Greece is magnificent. The landscape is staggering and I stare in wonder questioning why rich people all have to be in St Tropez or Saint Barths with millions of other boats. There is no body here.

Re: My mountain of unfinished works. When I finally kick the bucket and my genetic code is travelling across the universe to be reborn like Spock in Star Trek III my unfinished works will be worth a lot of money and my children can buy a few cans of coke.

Ciao!

Mr Awesome and Cryptic Omens

2011-07-31T02:33:00.002+02:00

After a couple of years of not really being busy during the med summer I have finally ended up being quite busy. Quite busy for us is not actually stupidly busy but the ramifications are felt keenly by my dragon self who has had a couple of quite relaxed med summers in the past.

We picked up our second charter of the season on Tuesday the 12th of July. The main group of guests were friends of our owner. Our owner is quite a big deal in Hollywood and it was with some surprise when I did some googling of our guest list. It turned out that the principal guest was quite a big deal as well.

Even better was discovering that the principal guest was devoutly Californian and a delight to have on board. Interesting character traits included.
Not having a dinner jacket to his name.
The only pair of footwear he bought was a pair of flip flops.
Punctuating everything with AWESOME.
Asking if he could help out when the weather turned or things looked difficult.
Running into movie stars and inviting them back on board.

When I last left you I had just seen El Fuerte. This was a good omen.
Today I had a very strange omen. I had a half a day off the boat in Antibes. I had a lovely morning with my wife and we sat on the beach for a bit and had a nice meal. We stopped in at the hop store on our way back and I had a cider for the road. I entered the toilet at approximately 2:45pm and was surprised to find when I tried to leave that I was locked in.

Naturally I banged about cursed that I was not wearing my leatherman and eventually some help was found. Help was four french staff who took apart the door and slipped a fleshy magazine under the door for my perusal. Eventually they busted the door down to let a doubly relieved kiwi outside.

The jury is deliberating over this omen. I shall let you know how it pans out.

The Legend of El Fuerte Lives on

2011-07-11T17:07:00.001+02:00

I have been meaning to write about El Fuerte’s incredible blog which he types with his killer feet. You can read it here.

http://elviajerooptimista.blogspot.com/

The really great thing about it if you are a Cowboy Espanol speaker like myself is that it translates quite well with Google translate. It is humorous and informative.

Of course I will not take any credit for his blog but it is a nice coincidence he is writing one now.

Speaking of nice coincidences we left for Nice to day to start our season proper. We will pick up some guests tommorow and be flat tack until September. I was determined to have a good day so when my mind wanders to dark subjects I have been forcing myself to start thinking positive thoughts.

This has worked really well, so well that who should appear on the boat next door as we were leaving? El Fuerte. This made Anna and I really happy and it was great to see him for a few minutes.

See you again El Fuerte!

He really is a super hero.

Cowboy Italian

2011-07-10T14:33:00.001+02:00

You should know by now that I am quite enamoured with Italy. I love the landscape, the people, the decay and the shiny things. I have lived here for months aboard boats so it always feels like a homecoming when I return. It was especially vivid this time after spending months in the cultural wastelands of the Caribbean and England (hohoho). I am also embarrassed to admit I have no ability for conversational Italian. What I have mastered through listening, peering intelligently at Italian newspapers and labouring through Italian TV is Cowboy Italiano.

With a vocabulary which grows by words every week, I can create real sentences which make little sense but convey important messages. Thinking about it this is very similar to Cowboy Swedish and Cowboy Espanol.

Let us learn some Cowboy Italiano!

First things first you are probably going to need another drink at some point. However, I don’t know how to say one more. What I do know is how to recharge phone credit so I would say.

‘scusa possible ricarica gin-tonica

which is

Excuse me is it possible to recharge my gin and tonic

Secondly, if you are working on a yacht you are going to need to clean some stainless steel. I don’t know how to say clean but I do know something pretty close

Questo lavenderia inox?

which is

This stainless laundry?

Dinning in at a restaurant and need a spoon? Again I don’t know what spoon is but I know something else.

’scusa Possible scopah mangaro

which translates to

Excuse me is it possible to get me an eating shovel?

Is your beef steak undercooked?

try saying

’scusa Possible mucho grand incindeo fumare steaka?

Excuse me is it possible to make grand fire smoke steak ?

See how easy Cowboy Italian is!

I will learn Italian at some point I promise I will. The question is when and which poor language will suffer my Cowboy ways next.

Ciao Bitches

Santa Margherita & Portofino

2011-07-10T09:54:00.001+02:00

Two weekends past we ventured out into the heatwave that had descended upon the Mediterranean and caught a train eastwards to the seaside town of Santa Margherita. If you hadn’t surmised from my patently painted clues we are now on the Italian Riviera and Santa Marghertita is the closest train station to Portofino.

The weather was oppressively hot and it was with some miss placed luck that we ended up in the first class carriage. To the best of my knowledge first class carriages in Italy are full of second class ticket owners. The second class carriages are full of people with no tickets. The highlight of the trip for me was a little old blind lady walking past swearing at ghosts or some other spirits and swinging her cane in an erratic fashion. Maybe she was a witch . There was a moment of mild panic as we lost sight of the coast but a lovely Italian chap was kind enough to let us know we should get off at the next stop.

Santa Margherita was a delightful spot and with our stomachs growling we stopped at the closest restaurant we could find which happened to be a beach resort. With my bright coloured clothing and poor Italian accent the waitress translated Bira Moretti into Becks. E’gads I thought, I looked or sounded German.

Scurrying out of the restaurant we descended a flight of stairs and walked around the salt water pool to enquire about renting a couple of sun loungers for the afternoon. The pool attendant informed us that this would cost 5o euros. 50 Euros is a princely sum to sit upon a lounger that is not even on the beach.

The scorching sun rendered me incapacitated. Anna went swimming several times and I spent four hours debating whether I could move to the pool and skilfully adjusted my sun visor. I did not reach the pool but I did reacquaint myself with the powerfully refreshing cocktail that is Italian Gin con Tonica.

With the Sun still beating down we said goodbye to our loungers and caroused the town looking information on how to get to Portofino. Santa Margherita had many charming qualities.

Parklike surrounds to sit beside.

Fountains and statues.

It also had a prosperous and lively amount of gelataria. I had a very interesting combination of Kit Kat, pistachio, straciatella and tira misu. Yum.

After a very unsuccessful bartering session with a taxi driver (35 euros no thank you I could sit on a sun lounger for that) we chose the more financially and socially appealing bus. Being a gentleman and wanting to soak up the bus experience I stood with the other late on the bus people and was immediately transfixed with the oddest of sights. Two rather large Italian chaps with hair curlers upon overly clipped hair.

The bus ride to Portofino was a winding one and there were plenty of opportunities to look at the sea when we were waiting for cars to pass in the other direction. I found myself almost wanting to announce to the bus that I worked on one of those large shiny floating vessels. The words escaped me(more about my Italiano later)

After such an interesting bus ride it was quite nice to stroll down the hill into the once sleepy fishing port of Portofino.

We walked around the port and spied a perfectly placed castle looking out over the bay from an epic vantage point . With scant regard to logistics we started the long climb up to see what we could see. What we found was our lungs nearly exploded climbing the hill. There was also a wedding on which meant we could not actually take a close look at the castle.

We did take some photos on our way up and down.

Not a bad spot eh?

I quite like this photo which has me in the foreground. It really captures the spirit of carrying a man bag for thousands of kilometres through beautiful places. When I am buried I want to be wearing a manbag with my wallet, phone and a chupa chup for old times sake.

We had a nice dinner in Portofino. Pro travel tip. If the restaurant has reserved signs everywhere just turn up 2 hours before it gets busy and look awesome. They will find a spot for you.

After dinner we were going to catch a taxi back to Santa Margherita but the charge us 40 euros to return. Naturally we were only too happy to climb aboard the bus and revel in the sunburned and mildly soozled ambience on the way back.

That was it. Portofino and Santa Margherita in a day.

Tune in next time for the Cowboy Italian Special!

Deckhands Log #13 The art of being seen and unseen,advanced towel rolling and the Battler

2011-07-02T19:06:00.003+02:00

Putting it out there mode. I expect this will be one of the last Deckhands log posts. The last couple of months have provided me with plenty of motivation to procure a more technical and safer existence.

Being a Deckhand has allowed me to work with my hands and feet in ways I would have never thought possible. Mum; I can varnish wood now, not just my finger nails. Being somewhat knowledgeable about medicinal, nutritional and recreational chemicals I am dismayed at the amount of toxic substances I am exposed to on a daily basis as a Deckhand. In two and a bit years my hands have aged faster than the rest of my body. In addition my body has suffered a never ending carousel of pain and scars. Worst of all my brain seems to have lurched into a state of torpor. You can see this in the dwindling creative output on this very blog.
Anyway I am still learning things and it is time to do some sharing. During the last charter I mastered the invisible Deckhand skill. Basically a pro deckhand finds things to do away from guests and then magically appears the moment they need assistance. This is particularly important when the boss’s girlfriend is swimming in her bikini. Do you know how hard it is to watch over someone's life with out watching them?

Towel rolling is another dark art which at first glance is easy but takes some skill. A folded towel must be transformed into a presentable roll with the yacht logo easy to read. If you have space rolling towels is moderately challenging. A master Deckhand can roll a towel standing up. I will be happy to demonstrate my artisan towel rolling skills the next time I spot you on a beach or in a resort. Thailand.
In the last month we have been blessed with addition of an Australian in the deck department. After a couple of years of working with all manner of Europeans it has been quite nice to have a true blue in my midst.

I heard the Battler (one of his nick names) before I met him. He joined the boat on a Sunday night and proceeded to get familiar with the crew wine first and crew second. The Battler has the square jaw of Mr Incredible, the flowing locks of Prince Charming and the keen girl spotting radar of a practiced Lothario.

The battler works hard, plays hard and has plenty of great stories which he likes to share during our scheduled work breaks. He also has the mouth of an Australian shearer. Not since the days of Uncle Phil have I heard such choice cuss words sprinkled effortlessly across my work day. Some of his words are too racy to share on this blog for fear of censorship. Apparently I egg him into saying swear words. This might be true. I think he is just being a whinging Foxtrot Charlie.

More writing on the way. I am reacquainting myself with Bira Moretti and it seems to be loosening my fingers and brain quite well.

Postcard Vision

2011-06-24T03:05:00.001+02:00

In the last two weeks we have travelled from Barcelona to Palma around to Menorca up to Corsica and onto the French Riviera. For the last two season in the Med my cruising has been limited and it was quite invigorating to have an itinerary and the ability to take sneaky photos every now and again. The scenery and weather were stunning. I got thinking in the last couple of days that working outside on a Super Yacht is a lot like having “postcard vision”, that is to say you have picture postcard views all day long but a lot of the time your interaction is limited to stretching your hands out and imagining if you could actually touch the vistas.

Enjoy my postcards. Captions not required but recommended reading.

After a delightfully smooth trip from Barcelona to Palma this is the sea state that greeted me on arising. Silky.

Portal Nous coastline.

Sunsets make even prefab high rise apartment blocks look nice.

The south and west coast of Palma is seriously rugged.

Seriously.

This is a face, just turn your head 90 degrees to the left.

I call this one the meat tenderiser.

More outgoing out crops of rocks.

Stunning.

Wow.

Menorca.

Menorca delivered the best sunset I have seen all year.

Nice varnish!

Enthralling Corsica.

Antibes Sunrise.

We finished our trip in Antibes, France which is as fitting a place as any to finish because we started our Yachting careers in Antibes.

Having been on nightwatch for the last week I slept through a crew day off of jet skis, wakeboarding and other fun things. I actually got out of bed so I could do another night non stop and ferry drunken people back to our anchorage. Me = Saint.

Needless to say we are moving to Genova tomorrow and I am looking forward to getting my Italian on. Anna and I have a nice relaxing weekend planed in a Spa resort.

My brain and body both desperately need untangling. I look forward to sharing with you some of my dastardly plans for the next year. Maybe I am not quite a Saint just yet.

And then.....

2011-06-17T10:58:00.001+02:00

The day after the MOB incident I was reminded quite vividly of why I do what I do. The first example was a pod of Dolphins coming to say hello mere minutes after I had said it was about time my Dolphins I saw last year came and said hello.

If you can not see the video you may need to befriend me on facebook.

The second was playing around in the galley with the Sous chef creating some designer cup cakes. These cup cakes were just what the doctor ordered, taking the edge off what had been a harrowing few hours.

You will be happy to know that after a very busy weekend to turn the boat around. Our first trip of the Med season has fallen into a comfortable routine. The sea is calm, the sun is out and things are beautiful if a little boring.

Ciao.

Man Over Board

2011-06-15T11:44:00.002+02:00

Previously when I have written about about night passages across the worlds oceans, I have raised the ever present question, what would happen if somebody fell overboard? On June the third at approximately 3:30 am my crew and I experienced this first hand.

We left Falmouth on the first of June bound for Gibraltar and then Barcelona. We had a small weather window and our Captain had warned us things would be a bit bumpy on our second evening.

I came onto my regular watch at 12am. The wind and sea was building but I have been in worse. I was doing regular rounds around the decks to make sure everything was tied down in addition to my hourly engine room checks. Shortly before 3am we started to experience winds in excess of 40 knots and the boat began to roll an uncomfortable amount.

We have three jetskis and a lot of gym equipment on our bridge deck. The first sign that things were getting a bit hairy was the gym equipment having an impromptu workout with no human interaction. By now our Captain was up and at the helm and soon after he adjusted our course to take us away from the worst of the weather. By now our gym equipment had been flatted by the sea state and our rolling. The first mate and I set about trying to secure the elliptical trainer, two exercise bikes, treadmill and a weights bench which had all been shunted to one side of the boat.

In a twist of fate I then went down to the engine room and was there for about ten minutes righting laptops and tools which had been rattling around freely. On my return to the bridge I then heard what no one wants to hear at sea over my radio. "Man over board Man over board Man overboard" My Captain has since told me it was as if my radio was giving me an electric shock the way I contorted on the couch. I was sent outside to assist the First Mate who I thought had fallen overboard into the water. The entire crew got up to assist and be "spotters/lookouts"

The First Mate told me to get some lines out. I started throwing life rings and headed down to the main deck. I still did not know who had gone overboard. By the time I got to the third life ring I wrenched it out of the wall bending the steel brackets completely back. Adrenalin "good for bending things". We have man over board drills regularly and I then went upstairs to help launch the tender so we could recover the man overboard.

The man over board turned out to be our Chef. Whilst I was down in the Engine room, one of our 300kilo jet skis had broken loose and had started flying around. it destroyed two large doors which fold down when we launch jet skis or tenders. The Chef had heard this and had gone up to assist the first mate. The murderous jet ski had lined him up and had sent him out to sea.

Of all of the people to go overboard in the middle of the night in terrible conditions. Our Chef was the correct person for the job. He swims everyday, is Australian and is completely unflappable. Afterwards he told us how he had just floated about conserving energy waiting for us to turn around.

Launching our tender proved to be very challenging. The rogue jetski had to be turned upside down to stop it from taking other victims. The now quite violent rolling action of the sea had got worse because we had to turn around. When the tender finally entered the water both of the stern mounting points were wrenched off.

By this time we had a visual on our Chef. Considering it was pitch black and we had trouble even standing on our own feet, this was a miracle. The First mate and Bosun were somehow able to get him on board the tender. By now the sea was so bad that at times we had waves coming over stern and at times you could see the propellers out of the water. No mean feat when the boat is 56 meters long.

It was impossible to retrieve the Chef from the stern of the boat. Our Captain felt our best option would be to get the tender along side and put out one of our side hydraulic companion ways. Being long of limb and quite adamant I will not die at sea I was chosen to lie on the steps and help pull the Chef in from the tender. This was hair raising stuff especially when my legs started to go under the very cold water. I have never been happier to hold an Australian.

We abandoned hope of recovering or towing our tender so the next mission was to get the Bosun and First Mate to safety. The Bosun was able to jump aboard. The First Mate jumped backwards towards me and I yanked him out was well. His head hit mine quite hard and he is lucky I am forever hitting my head on things and was not knocked out.

With everyone aboard we were finally able to relax. We lashed things down as best we could and I think everyone went into a mild form of shock. My thoughts were.
It could have very easily been me and I could have been working alone

The sea can be a very nasty place
Life is fleeting
My next boat will be very large at least 85 meters and I will work inside. Much safer.

I probably will not write about how my Mac book Pro was stolen in the Palma airport. It now seems trivial.

On a more positive note if we had reached Gibraltar as we intended we would have ended up in a fuel dock fire.

That is the very dock where we normally get fuel. We would have been very close to the explosion. Fire at sea trumps man over board.

Till next time.

Cruising

2011-06-14T18:12:00.002+02:00

Well we made it to Barcelona. I have a story penned about an exciting incident that happened on the way. It just needs to be edited.

From here we are heading to Palma with our boss and will be moving around the Balearics. I am hoping he gets lost on a dance floor in Ibiza and we finish our trip there. Fingers crossed :).

Location:Cruising

Palma “the good bits”

2011-05-30T08:10:00.000+02:00

Facebook followers may have read I had a nightmare finish to my Palma trip. In the interest of preserving the space time continuum and sanity I will write about that at a later date.

I arrived in Palma at about 11pm on Friday the 13th. As is often the case I received priority treatment due to me not having an EU passport. When flying in and out of the UK I always find it faster having a New Zealand passport. Kiwis make better flyers and even worse terrorists or something.

My first impressions of Palma that it was sufficiently Spanish, favourably warm and definitely lively. I found my hotel quite easily and busied myself getting ready for a night out. My night out consisted of a romantic tapas bar crawl for one. I could not contact my friend who was having a birthday party. Her birthday magnum of Moet put paid to that. Retiring to my mildly opulent hotel I was asleep before 1am and looking forward to further adventuring.

Despite my best efforts my Spanish remains middling at best. I was reminded this on my tapas bar crawl the evening before. I am happy to say that I feel quite at home at a buffet breakfast inside a hotel. It was here that I unearthed one of my first Palma discoveries. Palma has a high tourist and resident population of Germans. There is a very obvious reason for this. Given potent history large tracts of Europe remain unfriendly to Germany. I am of course talking about last years Eurovison song contest. The Spanish are so relaxed they were actually asleep during the contest hence they still freely allow Germans through and inside their borders.

My accommodation was quite close to the city centre. This did not stop me from going on a goose chase of sorts where I ended up strolling a large and prominent promenade. There were a lot of marinas with pleasure boats galore and I almost caught myself saying to imaginary people “I work on one of those”

The rest of my weekend was very Palmarisan. I sunned myself beside a rooftop pool with friends. I dined on all y0u can eat Sushi for 8 euros. I drank mojito's and dodged night time sunglass salesmen. On the Sunday I moved into an apartment with a couple of friends Debs and Heather closer to the old town. My Sunday afternoon was spent soaking up high density living beside a nunnery. If you want to live somewhere quiet. Live beside a nunnery.

Monday through Wednesday were the business days of my trip. I got down and got radiated, learning about gyro stabilised antennae systems and a whole bundle of cool stuff. Unfortunately large tracts of photographic evidence of my week away are now lost. This will be explained in my next blog.

On the Wednesday we had a small soiree/dinner party. Heather cooked up a delicious dish. Debs had a couple of friends over and I played my first ever DJ set to more than 2 people . The dinner and mixing were both very palatable. This may had something to do with the five bottles of wine that were bought from the local Wine Cave. A neat place where you can fill empty wine bottles straight out of the barrels for about 2 euro a bottle. If you want to live somewhere rowdy. Live beside a wine cave.

If I was to sum up the small slice of Palma I witnessed. It is definitely a place I could see myself living in. It is delightfully warm, has plenty of history and oozes charm. Whether it be the horse and carriages plying for tourist trade or the Mediterranean liveliness that begins at about 11pm Palma wants you and it wants you to have fun.

Tune in next time for Palma “the bad bits”

Falmouth > Bristol > Palma

2011-05-16T17:48:00.002+02:00

Very conveniently a departing crew member was also leaving on Friday the 13th. He was going to an Airport that has flights to Palma. He had also bought a Porsche a couple of weeks earlier. Having not been in a Porsche before and having enjoyed working with Tim I was quite excited about the drive.

His Porsche is beautiful and seemed perfectly peppy. People who do not own Porsches are quite quick to label this model, the hairdresser Porsche as it does not have a turbo. Truthfully I think you would lose your hair if you did have a turbo fitted. We had a chance to drive with the top down. I might have taken a couple of photos.

Said Porsche. The mach speeds we travelled meant other vehicles started to disintegrate around us. Look by the passenger door and you can see a seat belt.

We drove past Glastonbury. This was a wistful part of the journey.

We eventually made it to Bristol. We said farewell and I busied myself with a mammoth lay over. Some eight hours lay between me and lift off. What did Bristol Airport have to offer? Well the first interesting thing was a prehistoric man. He had come out of the hills for his first visit to an Airport and the pay and display parking machines had him quite confused. With some helpful advice he faded from sight never to be seen again.

In the sliding scale of New Zealand Airports, Bristol Airport lies somewhere between the Auckland National Airport and Christchurch International. Sadly I was not allowed into the better part of the Airport for a few hours so I sat down in the bar, logged into the internet and proceeded to drink quite a lot of cider. I think my efforts in the airport were akin to an economic recovery package. I ate varyingly tasteful plates of food and bought three magazines to read.

Five hours later I was allowed to check and enter the slightly more exciting part of the Airport. Being a Friday night there were a lot of people escaping England for the weekend. Some of them were wearing themed team t-shirts which did not make any sense to me(possibly due to the cider) I did eat some very good fish and chips. I even tipped, by this time I would like to think I did not look English.

I had a horrible retail experience buying a pair of sunglasses. Whilst I am stoked with my sunglasses I do not think waiting 30 minutes to buy a pair of sunglasses in a nearly empty store is acceptable. I was not even in Spain yet.

Said sunglasses.

Queuing for my flight to Palma my brain(now sobering) started to work out why there were so many people with themed t-shirts. They were going away for Stag and Hen parties. This is a common occurrence for the English. Here for your delight are some of the t-shirt slogans I read

Actually I can not do it. Just imagine the most vile things you could write after someones name and you are halfway there. If you really need to know some, just email me and I will send some through.

Our departure was smooth unlike the t-shirts. I was on my way to Palma and the strangely familiar unknown.