Ibiza - Like Daytona Beach on Steroids

We left Malaga on Monday morning and cruised to Ibiza (a 36 hour trip with one very easy night at sea).  We anchored off the Daytona Beach spring-break side of the island, rather than the more well-know  upscale resort side of Ibiza.  It was quite entertaining as far as people watching goes.  We've never seen so many tattooed bodies (particularly men with tattoos all over them) and skimpily clad women.  The beaches here in August make Jersey shore beaches look empty.  You can't even find a place to put a chair.  I have to admit I am a beach snob, after experiencing so many gorgeous, uninhabited, white-sand  beaches in the Bahamas. 

There are night clubs for every day of the week and they start getting crowds at 1 am and don't close until 7 am. Needless to say we did not make it for the club scene. No one arrives to the beach till late morning due to all night partying and you would never believe Spain is experiencing economic woes since the clubs cost 60 euros cover charge and that only includes one drink!

We did have an excellent dinner at an outdoor cafe that night and enjoyed some of the local cuisine. The next day we had an 8 hour run to Mallorca. We're here for 3 days and it is a very cool island. Check back in tomorrow for details and pictures!




                                                       Out islands approaching Ibiza                                

                                                   Beach in late morning without crowds

           

                                        Crowded beach late afternoon - lots of topless women but
                                        we were too discreet taking pictures

Goofy boat with slide

More of Malaga

                                                    Toasting with after dinner liquor

                                       One of the many beautiful gardens in city center

                                                              Outside view of Cathedral

                                                              Inside view of Cathedral

                                                                           Parade         
                                                        

Festival Day in Malaga

Bogging rule #1:  Don't drink and blog (accidents may occur... in spelling and grammar... to Nancy, not Carol)

Anyway... Malaga is a beautiful city along Spain's "Costa Del Sol" with a population of half a million people.  There are miles of lovely parks and tree-lined walkways along in the town, along with a huge fort, gorgeous cathedral and many wonderful outdoor cafes.  The "August Festival" is one of the largest in Spain -- attended by over 2 million people over the 10 day event. It's a celebration of the Catholic kings taking back the city in 1487 from the Muslims who had controlled it the previous 8 centuries.  We were fortunate to be there on the first day to experience the big parade, the endless food stands, the "flamenco" music and dancing, beautifully dressed women, fireworks and all-night partying (which of course we were a part of... not) 




City Center

                                                                
                                                 Ladies in flamenco dress for festival

                                            

                                                             Shopping for dinner

                                                Outdoor shopping mall decoated for festival

                                                    

Gibraltar to Malaga

Left Gibraltar with calm seas once again and headed to the port town of Malaga, Spain, where Neil and Howard disembarked and Nancy rejoined the expedition.  The town celbrated Nancy's arrival was celebrated by the whole town with a midnight fireworks display (which happened to coincide with the city's largest summer festival).

Editors' note:  Carol and Nancy have had to assume responsibility for the Andrea Cay blog since the supreme webmaster, Neil, deserted us.  Bear with us: we are a little blog-challenged, due to insufficient training.

 August 8, 2012

Perilous Seas


The high pressure area which had been with us through our 16 days at sea, keeping our course calm and spirits high, deserted us as we neared the continents of Africa and Europe. one hundred miles out of Gibraltar, Neptune showed his fury. We endured 40 knot winds and seas of 12-15 ft.  head on for  12 hours. The only picture taken does not begin to show the amount of water coming over the fly bridge of the boat which is 22 ft. high. It was with great relief and little sleep when we arrived at the fuel dock in Gibraltar at 3:30 am. We started refueling and cleaning the boat at 5:30 am and 3 hours later we had a clean boat and  18,000 gallons of additional fuel. After a champagne breakfast, we embarked on land to see the sights of Gibraltar (which included several monkeys).

Booby on the Bar

Yes, the Atlantic crossing was as exciting as the title of this post suggests but more about that later. We were incredibly fortunate to have another high pressure system dominating the north Atlantic, providing perfect conditions for a crossing.  The lack of an internet connection did provide the benefit of ensuring that we were not all hunkered down behind computer screens all day and much to Carols delight had to talk.

It allowed us to all get to know each other on a much deeper level.  We now all know that Peter practices his chicken walk and clucking in the shower (step carefully Peter!), Ed is happy to do just half a job, Howard is Jewish (who knew?), Neil needs to eat a slice of humble pie once in a while, Carol has one or two compulsive personality issues and we now all know more about John's misspent ‘missing years’ in San Francisco.

The other benefit from the lack of internet was the many highly competitive games of cards, speed scrabble and Chickenfoot. 

Peter and Neil face off in another intense game of Gin.

Chickenfoot: Neil looks unwell but Peters practice sessions in the shower appear to be paying dividends.

While we did not have access to watch any of the Olympic Games we were treated to Dolphin olympics on more than one occasion. 

There was the long jump.

This fellow took gold in the high jump.

The 100m final was as popular as ever.

The disappointing part of the crossing was saying saying goodbye to Ed who departed from the Azores to head back home. Our original plan was to spend a night or two in the Azores to have a break from several days of 24 hour cruising. However upon our arrival in San Miguel we soon found that the extortionist rate to tie up was not worth it.  We dropped Ed off on the dock and it was not before we were back on our way and Ed was busy befriending the entire island. 

The Azores, so close yet so far for those going all the way.

One evening while having dinner Capt. Mike called us up to the wheel house to see a Brown Booby perched on the front railing a Booby on the bar of another kind.. Bird nerd alert.  Despite looking very unstable he did manage to spend the entire night perched on the rail. 

With five days of cruising to reach Gibraltar we continued on our way. 

Bras D' Or Lake

The Bras D’ Or lake was not far North of our Whitehead Bay anchorage and are entered into via a small lock system. The lock is fairly small and drops you down about a foot into the lake.  The locks were opened in 1869 and took all of 15 years to blast through the 800 meters of granite so that it could be constructed.

The entrance to the locks.

Waiting for the locks to be opened

The lake was beautiful and there were plenty of sailboats cruising its shores. We anchored outside the small town of Baddeck. The town is a popular stopping point along the Bras D’ Or Lake scenic drive and for being the home of Alexander Graham Bell museum.  We will remember it for two very different things.  The Kissing Cod seafood market and the by now infamous satellite connection.  We spent some time talking with the welcoming owners of the Kissing Cob and after tasting a few of Tom's delicious freshly steamed mussels we took a fresh bag of back to the boat with us to enjoy later.

Lori, Neil, Carol and Howard meet one of the locals

That was the good part, now for a short rant about the satellite. Never could a group of people even try to be as incompetent as the providers of our non-existent satellite. After John and Neil spent several hours on the phone with them late into the night we managed to get connected for a few short hours. This was short lived however the wide array of excuses from the providers sadly do not appear to share the same lifespan. This was more than just a small inconvenience especially when one considers the cost involved and left us with limited communications and weather reports for our entire Atlantic crossing.

The following day we headed North out of the Bras D’ Or lakes in near perfect conditions o begin heading south and east to the Azores. 

The current at the north entrance was pretty strong.

Before doing so we made a shot drive-by of Bird Island at the north entrance to the lake where we spent time viewing the breeding Puffins, Eagles and many many more.  A real treat for the bird nerds onboard!

Next stop the Azores.

Some of the many birds on Bird Island