2nd day. Original plan was to have spent that night at the Columbreta Grossa, then somewhere in the Costa Brava. We are still in Sitges. Well, no worries, let’s just hope we have a calmer day today. Weather forecast has dramatically changed: instead of slight to moderate sea, we will have smooth to slight sea. Unfortunately, wind is not expected. At least, not as hard as the day before.
When I emerge from coma, nobody seems to be awake. All is silent, though I thing I’ve heard some noises before. Well, this gives me time to go for a walk in the harbor, have a look at the weather forecast and go back. Everybody on board is awake now. And a toilet is flooding. Cool. I like starting the morning by draining a toilet floor. Luckily it’s just water. Another toilet smells like saying that if we have to drain something there, it will surely not be water. Bucket & sponge. Issue fixed.
Breakie splits the crew in two sides: the ones having a salty breakie and the ones having a sweet one. Some of us try to close the gap by eating a ham sandwich and some croissants.
Off we go. Heading for Tarragona. Very low wind. 4 – 5 kt. Jeez, I hope it increases. It does. 9 – 10 kt. Yes ! We might have some fun finally. We do. Everybody seems in a much nicer state today. Maybe it’s me who is calmer and not seasick. Again a close haul. Way nicer today: we manage to do a 45º, we try trimming the sails differently to see the effect and everybody has a chance to be on the rudder. The sweet-looking blonde reveals herself as a tough skipper once she touches the rudder. We had a good laugh with that.
By lunch time, pasta is al dente. I guess Team Italia would not have allowed us to eat pasta in any other condition. Keep sailing. I do the dishwashing. I am sort of ashamed of not having helped on the coking. We reach Tarragona by 5pm, roughly. We decide to go the sea inside just to practise some manoeuvres with a glorious failure. We can’t manage to do a decent beam reach, nor a long haul and, of course we can’t run the wind. It gets late and gives us a perfect excuse to stop it before anyone gets hurt.
We get to Reial Club Nàutic de Tarragona for the night. That harbour is ill-conceived. One needs to walk for 10 minutes to reach the showers. All across a bar and nightclub area. Whilst I do all the paperwork and have a shower, a risotto has been started. I manage to do some contribution: I have to grate some almost-melted havarti. Not much, I know. This risotto tastes really good. When we’re done, we see that the guys in the Mahé moored next to us look at us with envy. We share our risotto (the rest of) with them. Imagine a bunch of crows fighting for a dead cow’s corpse. Same image in that catamaran. Cooking pan comes back shining clean.
I had a chance to have a look at that boat. All lines are sent to starboard side, where the rudder is. Looks strange and the guys tell me it’s very uncomfortable and slow. I don’t like either the interior space. 3-people beds, no cupboards..
France loses to England in the RWC2007. Looking at the score (14 – 9) this looks as if it has been an ugly match. I don’t like the way France has played this world cup (can you imagine Brazil playing catenaccio ? why has France stopped rugby-champagne ?), but I wanted them in the final. England is even more boring.
That night we decide to check the bars & clubs on the way to the showers. Can’t just describe the atmosphere ther. Freaks parade. Monster’s ball. One big ugly thing: the two smartest-dressed guys (I’d say overdressed compared to the rest of the animals there) are two black guys. They are systematically refused entrance to some bars we had been into with running shoes and gear.
