There is currently a Force 8-9 tramontana storm up north in the Gulf of Lyon, so Guizmo is stuck in Spain for a while. El Escala is an okay place to be stuck in -- it's actually the Mediterranean base for minitransats. To qualify for a transatlantic crossing, you have to prove your mettle by doing a 1000 mile pre-set loop in the Med. The loop begins at the midpoint buoy in the Gulf of Lyon, goes north of Corsica, reaches the famous island of Elba where Napoleon was "exiled" (with 600 men, and as sovereign of the island, so as far as exiles go, his was quite posh), and doubles back to El Escala again. As an aside, my planned route is much longer than this, but I have infinite time to do it, while the qualifying loop has certain time limits.
I was told to expect a big fleet of minis in El Escala, but only saw two, mini #526 and #724. Guizmo is #243, which is older than these two, but Guizmo's shape is way better than 526's, and it has better features than 724. #526 is klunky, with aluminum spars, and looks flimsy. It's a faded yellow. No canting keel. I tried to come up with a good boat analogy to illustrate the differences but it's hard to describe minute modifications in curved objects. The best I can do is this: if boats were movie stars, #526 would be Gwenyth Paltrow -- pretty on the surface but radiating a sickly skinny vibe. #724 is kind of like Katherine Hepburn, with square-ish, almost boxy, features. In such a comparison, Guizmo is most like Christina Hendricks -- maximal in every dimension, with a slightly under-sized bow given the rest of the body. 724 has a revolutionary teardrop shape to its canards, but other than that, Guizmo matches it feature for feature and has a fuller, rounder and more forgiving shape. Anyhow, it was good to see a couple more minitransats and place Guizmo in perspective.
The town of El Escala, though, was disappointing in the end. It was clearly planned by monkeys. The port was recently built about 2km away from the old town area. You don't need a city planning degree to guess what will happen when your city center and port are so far apart -- just a few hours with SimCity (which is now available for free online and every city planner should be made to play it until their city has weathered a budget crisis) will tell you that you will get sprawl. Well, that's what happened in El Escala, except it got the worst kind of sprawl, namely, touristic sprawl. The stretch of seaside between the old town and port is full of condos purchased by tourists who keep them empty 95% of the year. In the evening, I saw only two lights in a giant complex with 50 units, for a 4% occupancy rate.
I climbed the mast to fix a windvane problem, and noticed significant chafing on the jib and spinnaker halyards. These are the two ropes that hold the two most stressed sails up, and the spinnaker halyard chafing was so bad that the halyard would not feed into the mast. The nautical stores in El Escala had some weird-looking rope, and I wanted a bright color for the spinnaker halyard. It was time to go to a different town with a bigger nautical store.
Rosas is a bigger town, only 7.5 nautical miles away from El Escala, which should take at most two hours. Except it was 1:03pm by the time I got to the marina office, and the lazy office workers who spend their day idling apparently take their breaks with Swiss efficiency, on the dot, as soon as the clock strikes 1pm. So I had to wait for a full siesta. 3 full hours. I have no idea what I would do if I could take a 3 hour lunch break. I imagine it'd be so boring I'd want to get back to work. But not these ladies. They showed up slightly after 4, and I ended up having to leave in the afternoon wind.
I used those 3 empty hours to rebuild and grease my winches. I cleaned every piece lovingly first in gasoline, then in soapy water, then in regular water, then dried it until it was bone dry, and then applied lubricant. They used to make grinding noises like an ancient coffee grinder. Now they spin like a roulette wheel if you let go of the winch handle, and make a very satisfying noise like that of a bicycle wheel.
The afternoon wind here is way stronger when the tramontana blows. The mountains to the north cut it down a bit and channel it towards the gulf, but at some point, the wind pours over the top and touches down at different places. It's best to think of it as if it were a waterfall -- a chunk of wind will eddy, spin around itself, and sweep through El Escala. So on the supposedly short trip between El Escala and Rosas, I had wind from all 360 directions, and wind strength from Force 0 (none at all) to Force 6. One minute I needed two reefs, a warm top, a windbreaker and a safety line, the other minute, I'd be shaking the reefs out, starting the engine and switching to a t-shirt. So, in the end, it took 3 hours to reach Rosas. The last part was really frustrating as the wind seemed to constantly come from the wrong direction.
Anyhow, Rosas is distinctly better than El Escala, and it's not a bad place to spend an extra day while the tramontana blows out and fizzles away.
I was told to expect a big fleet of minis in El Escala, but only saw two, mini #526 and #724. Guizmo is #243, which is older than these two, but Guizmo's shape is way better than 526's, and it has better features than 724. #526 is klunky, with aluminum spars, and looks flimsy. It's a faded yellow. No canting keel. I tried to come up with a good boat analogy to illustrate the differences but it's hard to describe minute modifications in curved objects. The best I can do is this: if boats were movie stars, #526 would be Gwenyth Paltrow -- pretty on the surface but radiating a sickly skinny vibe. #724 is kind of like Katherine Hepburn, with square-ish, almost boxy, features. In such a comparison, Guizmo is most like Christina Hendricks -- maximal in every dimension, with a slightly under-sized bow given the rest of the body. 724 has a revolutionary teardrop shape to its canards, but other than that, Guizmo matches it feature for feature and has a fuller, rounder and more forgiving shape. Anyhow, it was good to see a couple more minitransats and place Guizmo in perspective.
The town of El Escala, though, was disappointing in the end. It was clearly planned by monkeys. The port was recently built about 2km away from the old town area. You don't need a city planning degree to guess what will happen when your city center and port are so far apart -- just a few hours with SimCity (which is now available for free online and every city planner should be made to play it until their city has weathered a budget crisis) will tell you that you will get sprawl. Well, that's what happened in El Escala, except it got the worst kind of sprawl, namely, touristic sprawl. The stretch of seaside between the old town and port is full of condos purchased by tourists who keep them empty 95% of the year. In the evening, I saw only two lights in a giant complex with 50 units, for a 4% occupancy rate.
I climbed the mast to fix a windvane problem, and noticed significant chafing on the jib and spinnaker halyards. These are the two ropes that hold the two most stressed sails up, and the spinnaker halyard chafing was so bad that the halyard would not feed into the mast. The nautical stores in El Escala had some weird-looking rope, and I wanted a bright color for the spinnaker halyard. It was time to go to a different town with a bigger nautical store.
Rosas is a bigger town, only 7.5 nautical miles away from El Escala, which should take at most two hours. Except it was 1:03pm by the time I got to the marina office, and the lazy office workers who spend their day idling apparently take their breaks with Swiss efficiency, on the dot, as soon as the clock strikes 1pm. So I had to wait for a full siesta. 3 full hours. I have no idea what I would do if I could take a 3 hour lunch break. I imagine it'd be so boring I'd want to get back to work. But not these ladies. They showed up slightly after 4, and I ended up having to leave in the afternoon wind.
I used those 3 empty hours to rebuild and grease my winches. I cleaned every piece lovingly first in gasoline, then in soapy water, then in regular water, then dried it until it was bone dry, and then applied lubricant. They used to make grinding noises like an ancient coffee grinder. Now they spin like a roulette wheel if you let go of the winch handle, and make a very satisfying noise like that of a bicycle wheel.
The afternoon wind here is way stronger when the tramontana blows. The mountains to the north cut it down a bit and channel it towards the gulf, but at some point, the wind pours over the top and touches down at different places. It's best to think of it as if it were a waterfall -- a chunk of wind will eddy, spin around itself, and sweep through El Escala. So on the supposedly short trip between El Escala and Rosas, I had wind from all 360 directions, and wind strength from Force 0 (none at all) to Force 6. One minute I needed two reefs, a warm top, a windbreaker and a safety line, the other minute, I'd be shaking the reefs out, starting the engine and switching to a t-shirt. So, in the end, it took 3 hours to reach Rosas. The last part was really frustrating as the wind seemed to constantly come from the wrong direction.
Anyhow, Rosas is distinctly better than El Escala, and it's not a bad place to spend an extra day while the tramontana blows out and fizzles away.
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| Traditional boats in Port El Escala |
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| You know you're close to France when this is on the menu |
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