Back in Barcelona

It is good to be back in Barcelona after spending the last 6 months in the U.S. Everything looks the same and yet different. Stepping on to my boat once again felt like home. I really missed living on the water. Looks like everything survived just fine without me. That is pretty remarkable since while I was gone, Barcelona had two of the biggest storms in the last 30 years. I have heard from other people that were here during the destruction this storm caused. The big yacht that is moored next to me tore the cleats right out of the dock. They had to throw lines around the piers to keep the boat from crashing into things. The captain told me that I tied my boat up so good it barely moved. That is a nice compliment to hear from a guy that has spent his life at sea. He also told me that there was such destruction going on that everyone was looking for any extra lines they could find to tie their boats up better. Not all boats fared so well. One boat sank and out where the really huge yachts are, the pier totally broke apart and sunk. One of the big yachts headed out to weather the storm in the open sea. They figured there would be fewer things to bang in to. Around the marina there are covered areas for shade. The wind was so strong that it blew one of the heavy metal roofs off of the structure and it sheared two sailboat masts in half. I saw my friend Roland from C dock a couple days later. He told me he was keeping an eye on my boat and it looked like it fared better than most. A couple of days later they had a little welcome back party for me. His wife Mar fixed a bunch of Catalin dishes and some of the people around the marina joined us. We enjoyed catching up on things since I was gone. One of the fun things about living in a marina is people are from all over the place. There were people from Belgium Scotland, England, New Zealand, France and yeah, Spain.

Because of the width of my boat, yachts that are much bigger than me surround me. The one next to me is quite huge. I have gotten friends with Marsella who for the first couple of weeks back was by herself. We traded DVD’s and she gave me a huge bowl of shrimp. She had a famous Spanish pop singer and her boyfriend staying on the boat. Marcella planned a big dinner for them, but they changed their minds and went into town to eat. A couple of days later, I gave her back the bowl filled with chocolate yum yum’s I made for her. After about a week, the captain returned from England. He had been recertifying. Then a couple of days later, the rest of the crew returned. The boat has about 5 people on it most of the time, cleaning, cooking and maintaining the boat. That thing must cost a fortune to maintain. They told me it has a 25,000 liter fuel tank. The irony of it all is the crew enjoys the boat way more than the owner who is only on the boat a couple of weeks a year.