Green Around The Gills
The sunrise at the Premià Del Mar Marina was stunning this morning and while we admired it Chelle was selflessly preparing us all a coffee. As we sipped our dose of daily caffeine, Michelle sensed something just wasn’t quite right. Her tastebuds were sensing that something was off. “Oh it’s probably just the UHT milk” (that everyone in Spain seems to use, by the way), I confidently sprouted. No. No, this coffee was seriously weird. While Al & I persevered with ours, Michelle tipped hers out in disgust. She was the one who made it after all. Later in the morning, as we lavishly poured milk on our muesli, Chelle commented that it had a strangely savoury twist to it. A closer inspection of the bottle revealed the tell-tale silhouette of a bovine creature that was most definitely not a cow. It was small, it had an udder but hang on a minute… it had a beard! How had we missed that? Just to be sure, we Google-translated the writing that had been so prominent across the front of the bottle: “CABRA” and sure enough, when translated into English means : “GOAT”. We’d been convinced it had been a brand name. If only we could speak Spanish. There’s a reason you don’t go into a cafe and ask for a goat’s milk latte, take our word for it. All is not lost though, apparently goat’s milk makes great soap. You know what we’ll be doing if we get a quiet day at sea…
Chelle and I managed one last trip to her happy place – Aldi – where we supplemented our earlier shop, reading the labels carefully and checking for hidden clues as to the contents of each packet, so that no nook and cranny in Pasha’s fridge would be left unfilled. We also had a mandatory visit to the bargain shop with a shopping list from the Captain. I commented on an ornament Michelle was admiring. “Oh, it’s beautiful”, I said. “It looks sort of Mexican?”
“You mean maybe…Spanish?” Michelle replied. Oh der.
Al read us the rules for the international waters we’d be entering and, thanks to our good friend Lise, we now were aware that no matter how much we got on one another’s nerves, murder on the high seas would still be a bad idea. Someone’s country would find us out in the end. Treason and mutiny could still be on the cards but only time will tell. Ross bought us a little Catalunya flag to comply with the said rules, which we hung below the Aussie flag that already flies proudly from Pasha.
Today marked our long-awaited launch, as we were venturing out into the great blue yonder. Hitting the open water. Captain Al and First Mate Michelle had promised a safety briefing for the crew members – Able Seaman Jones and myself – before departure, but first things first. The hatches had to literally be battened down. This was serious stuff. I was on porthole duty, screwing all the windows shut. Chairs were folded, ropes were rolled, tables were cleared, everything that moves was strapped down, poked into a cupboard or clamped shut. Even the fridge had been occy-strapped to the wall. For someone who isn’t accustomed to this “out to sea” business, this was all a bit daunting.
The engines were revved and off we went, pitching and rolling like a little cork on a pond. Ross had been a little green around the gills on his maiden voyage last year so we were stocked up with sea sickness tablets just in case. A short time into our voyage, we thought it may be wise to gobble the said pills as things were a little, dare I say, rough. This is in no way a reflection on Captain Al’s valiant leadership but the smoke that had begun to billow out near the stern (note the nautical language) had slight cause for concern. He phoned his boat expert pals in the UK for some advice and they began to troubleshoot for a solution. The gears in Al’s brain were spinning so fast, we had to double-check the smoke was indeed coming from the engine and not out of his ears. In a brilliant process of elimination, Al ascertained that simply, our props were dirty. This is not a euphemism, though it sounds like one. No one likes a dirty prop. He determined we would forge ahead and “dive down later” to remedy the issue.
We hugged the coastline from Barcelona, past pretty beaches loaded with beach umbrellas and swimmers. The scenery was spectacular. Conditions on the other hand were less so and it was definitely getting choppier. We now saw the necessity of battening down the hatches and before long Rossco opened up his own hatch, with an up-and-under over the side. I too was feeling pretty queasy and found that lying down with my eyes closed helped the most. Al and Chelle told us we didn’t yet have our “sea legs” but insisted that they would come. How exciting, I could do with a new set of legs. Hopefully they’re smoother and browner than the wintry white ones I’d brought with me from Australia. I ended up sleeping for hours and miraculously kept my hatch from opening; keeping my goat’s milk muesli intact.
Though I’d been putting it off, eventually nature called and I was instructed to descend the almost vertical staircase to the “middle toilet”. Sitting on that thing in these conditions was like strapping in for a ride at an amusement park. I was perched atop this little bucking bronco as it rose and fell with great gusto and I clung on for dear life. I felt like I was riding a 20 foot wave at Pipeline. I had flashbacks of being 19 years-old, flung, pants-down, up the aisle of the Greyhound bus from the toilet, when we’d hit a speed bump. This was wild.
I was woken from my sea-sickness-infused slumber by gasps of delight coming from the front deck. My fellow crew members told me I’d just missed an amazing old castle on the cliff top. Bummer! It did look great in the photos. We had come upon the Costa Brava, where gorgeous little villages nestle between the cliffs, and caves and rocky headlands separate idyllic little beaches, lined with seaside restaurants, from one another. We saw houses perched way up high on the rocks and pondered how on earth they’d have built those things. Mountains painted a beautiful backdrop and the sea was crystal clear. We opted to drop anchor at a cute little village called San Pol. The sea had calmed a great deal but we were still tossing around a bit. The fridge, probably due to its copious contents, began shuffling across the floor as the surges swept us from side to side. We all had stints on “Fridge Watch”. All, that is, except Al, who had donned his mask and snorkel and was busy down in the clear, blue depths, under Pasha, scraping her prop clean.
In order to prevent himself from prematurely bobbing to the surface, Al had requested a rope tied to a small anchor be thrown to him so he could tie it to his waist while ridding the prop of those pesky barnacles. Perhaps feeling a bit nervous at this proposed concrete-shoe-like situation, Chelle tossed the anchor to Ross but before he could grab it, it bounced off the deck and plopped into the water. Just like that. Oops. Incredibly, Al, our resident Aquaman, recovered it from the bottom, which was quite a feat given the depth!
Swimming it seems, is the best cure for sea sickness. We all had a lovely splash around and felt a whole lot better. Ross and I took the rubber ducky to shore and had an enchanting walk around San Pol. It was so gorgeous! After a yummy dinner on the back deck we are now docked here for the night with stabilisers activated to stop the rocking. I just may need a bucket by the bed tonight…
