Drove down from the hills behind Cadaques to Port de la Selva. It's a nice town, but it felt a bit like cheating to come here by land. I think I need to earn my pictures by sailing to the destinations.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Cadaques and Mopeding around in Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus
A little known factoid: you can go to any moped rental agency in the world, show them your Italian passport, and they will immediately find you a red Vespa (or lookalike) to use for as long as you like. It's a birthright; a homeland for all people and a Vespa for every Italian.
Not really, I got really lucky for a change and found a rental agency that had been open for only two days, had only had one customer so far and was eager to do business. I was very worried that they would close for siesta, but it's run by a very nice German fellow, and they, amazingly, work a normal work day. Which means I could rent this at 1:30pm. They did take a while to enter all my information into their system, as it seemed all new to them, but they were very accommodating and supremely nice (example: rentalguy: "you need to pay X in cash, ja?" me: "but I only have X/2 on me" rentalguy: "ok, ok, no problem, pay dat, ja."), and it was great to be on a European-designed, well-balanced, non-tiring piece of kit instead of a wobbly Japanese techno-creation.
The Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus was awe inspiring. It smelled of herbs and drought, with occasional grape-like fumes from vinyards. There are small bays everywhere, all sheltered from the north wind. Went to the farthest one, which turned out to be mostly empty but the people who were there were nudists.
Stumbled across a very weird scene by accident. Looked like a Greek wedding, except the main guy had a real, live crow on his shoulder. There were cameras everywhere. I was convinced it was a B-movie, but it turned out to be a Jose Cuervo commercial. Apparently, cuervo means crow in Spanish. No one could make out the Greek connection. The ad is apparently intended for Mexican audiences, so it'll be difficult to figure out how it comes out in the end.
One thing I noticed about actors is that they never ever squint. Ever. Even under the Spanish sun. I thought the main guy Gary might have had botox done for this purpose, but it would take the world supplt of botox to not squint under this sun. Every time he stopped, people would rush to provide some shade for him and powder his face. He does have a symmetric face, but I think what set him apart from the extras was not his looks but the way he made sure that the camera captured a good picture.
The crow was awesome. It got freaked out a few times and started flapping wildly (but Gary was a true professional, he carried on regardless, with a maniacal, flapping crow on his shoulder) so the same scene had to be done over and over again until the bird's temperament was just right for the scene. And it drank, constantly. Two tenders were constantly giving him a pink sippy cup. I can only assume that it was full of gin, just like for a real actor.
Salvador Dali spent many years in Cadaques. His house can be viewed and many of his works are displayed in a museum in Figueres. The house tours at reasonable hours were all booked and Figueres was too far for the moped though.
Went back to town for a "late lunch" by Spanish standards at 7:30pm. Anything earlier than 8:30pm is lunch in Spain. Normal dinner hour is 10pm or so.
Not really, I got really lucky for a change and found a rental agency that had been open for only two days, had only had one customer so far and was eager to do business. I was very worried that they would close for siesta, but it's run by a very nice German fellow, and they, amazingly, work a normal work day. Which means I could rent this at 1:30pm. They did take a while to enter all my information into their system, as it seemed all new to them, but they were very accommodating and supremely nice (example: rentalguy: "you need to pay X in cash, ja?" me: "but I only have X/2 on me" rentalguy: "ok, ok, no problem, pay dat, ja."), and it was great to be on a European-designed, well-balanced, non-tiring piece of kit instead of a wobbly Japanese techno-creation.
The Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus was awe inspiring. It smelled of herbs and drought, with occasional grape-like fumes from vinyards. There are small bays everywhere, all sheltered from the north wind. Went to the farthest one, which turned out to be mostly empty but the people who were there were nudists.
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| This is actually an active vineyard |
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| Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus |
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| Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus |
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| Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus. Went swimming here, with nekkid people |
My favorite village in Spain is, by far, hands down, Cadaques.
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| Garish statue at town entrance has Lady Liberty doing the "Zenga Zenga" dance |
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| Cadaques is a pretty town, with a Greek look |
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| View from town center |
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| There is no marina. Every boat is moored to a buoy |
One thing I noticed about actors is that they never ever squint. Ever. Even under the Spanish sun. I thought the main guy Gary might have had botox done for this purpose, but it would take the world supplt of botox to not squint under this sun. Every time he stopped, people would rush to provide some shade for him and powder his face. He does have a symmetric face, but I think what set him apart from the extras was not his looks but the way he made sure that the camera captured a good picture.
The crow was awesome. It got freaked out a few times and started flapping wildly (but Gary was a true professional, he carried on regardless, with a maniacal, flapping crow on his shoulder) so the same scene had to be done over and over again until the bird's temperament was just right for the scene. And it drank, constantly. Two tenders were constantly giving him a pink sippy cup. I can only assume that it was full of gin, just like for a real actor.
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| Jose Cuervo commercial being shot. Main guy, Gary, has a real live crow on his shoulder. Crow has two handlers, constantly needs to drink (just like a real actor) and is undoubtedly paid better than the extras in the back. |
[Six months after the trip, I found the resulting ad online. It's a huge disappointment, but nevertheless, here it is.]
Salvador Dali spent many years in Cadaques. His house can be viewed and many of his works are displayed in a museum in Figueres. The house tours at reasonable hours were all booked and Figueres was too far for the moped though.
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| Dali, in furs and espadrilles, in the Spanish sun. Overdoing the surreal. |
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| Dali's house |
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| Dali's house. Had to shoot in fisheye to do Dali justice. |
Went back to town for a "late lunch" by Spanish standards at 7:30pm. Anything earlier than 8:30pm is lunch in Spain. Normal dinner hour is 10pm or so.
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| The church is just the right size for the town |
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| These two guys were having a blast in this tiny two-person boat in the main harbor. |
Fishpens and how much I hate them
There has been a new development in the Mediterranean in the last decade and a half: people are plopping down ugly fishpens in every gorgeous bay. Let me count the ways in which this is a bad idea.
First, fish from fishpens tastes like mushy paper. It's well-known that most people (and all Americans, without exception) do not have any idea what good fish tastes like (by the way, there is no exception for "oh, I'm an American, but I was born in <insert country with a fishing culture>." By the time someone acquires the citizenship, they've lost the taste. In fact, the citizenship test might as well omit the question about the cause of the Civil War and replace it with "can you name more than three warm fish dishes?" and whoever can gets sent back to their home country for being insufficiently American). So you can feed your regular Joe Schmoe white crap doused in oil and they'll think it's ok. But really, it's not ok. Do a taste test with farmed salmon (whose meat is actually pure white and has to have artificial coloring added to make it look like real salmon) and wild-caught to see the difference.
Second, the pens cause enormous pollution. I won't belabor the point, but the guys who operate these things love to, or have to, overfeed the fish, and the excess fish food goes through the pen and decomposes on the seafloor along with the fish-poop that their fish constantly produce. It's like these guys find the nicest spots, and put poop in it.
Third, and the reason why I'm writing this: the pens are never lit or marked. These things are barely above sea level, difficult to see when it's dark and wavy, and generally in the way. In the pic below, you can't really see Port de Rosas but it's on the upper right behind the hill, and the fishpen is the messy sprawling structure on the upper right, on the direct approach to the only port. That's like hanging your laundry to dry directly downwind from the runway, at 1000' feet. Every landing plane will have to dodge your dirty underwear on its approach. A light with a battery and cheap solar charger costs $100 bucks. People buy them for their lawns, and they do not intend to make a living off of their lawns. Place a damed light on one corner. Or maybe go wild and get four for four corners. It'll protect your fishpen, too.
Finally, not unrelated to the third point above, the pens occasionally get damaged. Maybe in a storm, but just as likely, when someone plows into them because they're not lit. That releases thousands of foreign fish into the ecosystem. So far, this has been benign -- the releases I've heard about have been of salmon. The poor salmon must be very confused, as their bioclock would compel them to search for the bucket in which they were artificially born and raised, and not finding it anywhere, to ultimately die in vain. But the moment someone starts raising bonitos or bluefish, an accidental release will wreak havoc on an ecosystem.
Anyhow, the EU has regulations for everything. They even tried to dictate to Turkey just what the ingredients of yoghurt ought to be. This is so absurd I don't know where to begin, except to say that the word yoghurt is not German, English, French, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian or whatever it is they speak in Luxembourg, nor was yoghurt invented by a committee at The Hague. I don't tell anyone how to wear their lederhosen, so I expect the dude with the lederhosen to keep his respectful distance from me on all issues related to yoghurt. Anyhow, someone needs to come up with some regulations for fishpens pronto.
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| Fishpens on the upper right, on approach to Port de Rosas |
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Mini view
What does one see in a mini? Mostly, it's the rest of the boat. Specifically:
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| I do not know what Prima Nautica is, but it sounds cool |
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| The spinnaker pole rotates backwards when not in use |
From El Escala to Rosas
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 |
Uncollected Bounty So Far
So far, I've passed by the following:
- Unopened can of Schweppes lemon, my favorite kind. 0.25€
- A plastic ball, pressurized and usable. 6€
- A boat bumper, mid-size, slightly used, but mostly very clean. 10€
The latent message in this blog post is that you ought to ask yourself "what would have happened if I was on that boat and there was a man-overboard situation?" Evidence says that if your being alive brings me less than 11,016.25€, I'm not going to do circles to pick you up, or even go backwards one inch for you, even if you taste like my favorite lemon drink.
Speaking of which, Spaniards have invented an incredibly tasty new drink called "Damm Lemon", which is a weird cross between a beer and lemonade, clearly targeted at the teenager demographic. Only a matter of time before it hits the US, where it'll probably follow the same fate as ZIMA, but nevertheless, it's a "brilliant drink." And speaking of which, I met a guy in India who was providing the venture capital for a pair of founders whose goal was to "invent a brilliant drink." He says that he has no idea what that means, but whatever it might mean, he wants to be on board. Well, they have competition in Spain.
(For the record, I did do a u-ey for the Schweppes Lemon, but not for the other potential bounty.)
(For the record, I did do a u-ey for the Schweppes Lemon, but not for the other potential bounty.)
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
El Escala
Pulled into this town because (1) I heard that there was a big fleet of minitransats here, (2) there is apparently a nice store here that might carry the windvane cable I need, (3) the French meteo service claimed that there would be Force 7 to Force 8 winds in the Gulf of Lyon, with gusts up to Force 9. Just for reference, at Beaufort Force 9, on land,"construction/temporary signs and barricades blow over." Since Guizmo is not attached to the ground like a construction sign and it's certainly no barricade, it's a safe bet that it'd get knocked around pretty hard (though veterans tell me that the boat is designed for these conditions and would be fine). It'd be too risky to go out in such winds, though without the windvane cable, I would at least not know how bad it is out there and feel less anxious in the boat. In any case, I pulled into El Escala and found a nice spot in a bed & breakfast.
But before doing so, I stopped at one of the nicest bays in the marine reserve between El Estartit and El Escala. There was a freshwater spring in the rocks, and I went swimming in ice cold water. Here is the pedestal in front of the "grotto" that I swam to. I thought I'd climb the pedestal for the siren look.
Here are two pictures from my swim.
I made a rope ladder to climb back onto Guizmo. It works very well, but then again, I was so cold I would easily have flopped on board, salmon style, to get to some warmth. By the way, there was finally a hardware store in El Estartit that carried the kind of gas canister that I needed for the camping stove I took to Guizmo, so the tea and crackers on board the boat were excellent.
Other than that, this part of Costa Brava is really interesting, with caves, natural arches and lots of fish. Of course, there are countless flying fish. Guizmo scares them into jumping out of the water. They get to be very big around the Spanish coast, and can travel for 50 meters or more in the air. There were a couple of sunfish on the way. These are giant fish, as big as a small carpet. They have a way of gently sticking a fin out of the water as if to say hello, just like the sailors in other boats. There were two episodes where I saw a giant splash, but missed the beginning of the show. I suspect they were large bonitos.
But before doing so, I stopped at one of the nicest bays in the marine reserve between El Estartit and El Escala. There was a freshwater spring in the rocks, and I went swimming in ice cold water. Here is the pedestal in front of the "grotto" that I swam to. I thought I'd climb the pedestal for the siren look.
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| Ice cold water springs from beneath the cave, carves the rock and freezes swimmers in its path |
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| Early on, in style, when I still had energy and a core body temperature above 65 degrees Fahrenheit |
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| Later on, the face of abject fear and abandonment of all aspirations to style |
I made a rope ladder to climb back onto Guizmo. It works very well, but then again, I was so cold I would easily have flopped on board, salmon style, to get to some warmth. By the way, there was finally a hardware store in El Estartit that carried the kind of gas canister that I needed for the camping stove I took to Guizmo, so the tea and crackers on board the boat were excellent.
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| Random view, with an abandoned windmill on the hilltop |
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| One of the many grottos around El Escala and Isles Medes |
Other than that, this part of Costa Brava is really interesting, with caves, natural arches and lots of fish. Of course, there are countless flying fish. Guizmo scares them into jumping out of the water. They get to be very big around the Spanish coast, and can travel for 50 meters or more in the air. There were a couple of sunfish on the way. These are giant fish, as big as a small carpet. They have a way of gently sticking a fin out of the water as if to say hello, just like the sailors in other boats. There were two episodes where I saw a giant splash, but missed the beginning of the show. I suspect they were large bonitos.
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| Not much to see in El Escala, a sprawling city with a low occupancy rate, except the few sculptures |
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| Evening stroll or a metaphor? |
Monday, June 27, 2011
More electrical problems.
So, when I started this journey back in Mallorca, my batteries had 13.6V of charge. Today, they were down to 9.8V, even though I spent countless hours at night connected to shore power. I tried to debug the problem, but the voltmeter I have turns out to be utterly useless: it has a scale from 0-10V or else 0-50V. I need to tell apart 12V from 14V. The 0-10V scale is useless because the values exceed what the voltmeter can show, and the 0-50V scale is too big to register the difference between normal 12V and charging 14V. This makes me want to get on a plane to wherever my voltmeter was designed and connect the designer to a house main supply until he promises not to be so terrible at his job. Anyhow, I finally threw in the towel and called a professional. Using his digital voltmeter, he found the problem in no time: the ground wire from the charger had gotten split, so it was connected by a tiny strand. It seemed connected, but it couldn't carry much power.
Then he did a very makeshift repair where he just crimped the cable where it was split, charged me 25€, and left. Luckily, I stuck around a bit to notice that the wire had other major issues and was overheating like a common household heater. If I had walked away, I'm sure there would have been a fire on board. I found that an entire 3-foot section was corroded and black. I ripped out 9 feet of the wire and replaced it with 18 gauge, thick, brightly copper-colored wire. Left the battery connected overnight and we're back to 14.4V! Great success, but it did cost a day, in a town with almost no Internet connectivity.
Then he did a very makeshift repair where he just crimped the cable where it was split, charged me 25€, and left. Luckily, I stuck around a bit to notice that the wire had other major issues and was overheating like a common household heater. If I had walked away, I'm sure there would have been a fire on board. I found that an entire 3-foot section was corroded and black. I ripped out 9 feet of the wire and replaced it with 18 gauge, thick, brightly copper-colored wire. Left the battery connected overnight and we're back to 14.4V! Great success, but it did cost a day, in a town with almost no Internet connectivity.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
El Estartit
Sailed over to this modest little town called El Estartit from Cala Canyelles. Had following seas and a very light breeze between Force 1 and 2, so did a giant gentle spinnaker run.
Ended up running through a massive, 40+ person race of 18-foot catamarans with dolphins on their sails. Not sure what they were but, in my effort to avoid getting entangled in their race, ended up going way offshore to round their marks.
Then the wind died down even further, so I took out my new fishing gear and trailed some weird looking lure that Juan, the salesman in Mallorca, practically guaranteed would catch tuna ("segurido! segurido!" he said, and gave me his number to call if it failed to work). It's essentially dressed up to accentuate the features that not-too-bright animals might find attractive, such as an enormous eye, a few skimpy feathers around the chest, and a giant hook around where the crotch would be. Its grotesque over-exaggeration of a few key features, in a desperate attempt to appeal to fish, reminds me of the women I ran into in the club district in Barcelona with their eye makeup and skimpy outfits -- I bet if I blew up Juan's lure to 5'6", put on some heels on the hooks, and trolled it through the Port Olympique club district at 3am, I'd catch some guys wearing way too much hair gel. Anyhow, I trolled it for two hours, and I got nothing. Frankly, the lure looks grotesque. If I were a fish, I would not bite. But Juan claims it's way better than the Rapala lures that most other people use. I'll give it another go but if it fails to catch something really big -- given the amount of energy Juan put into selling this lure, it needs to be really really big at this point, as in Moby Dick big -- then I'll just go back to the trusty old Rapala, which has also been just as ineffective, but at least it looks kind of like a normal fish and I know I want to bite it myself.
Finally pulled into the little port town called El Estartit. I can't find much information about this town online, but it's clearly very old and has been through quite a few invasions and has weathered quite a few storms itself. The breakwater is pretty impressive and a testament to the kind of southerly storms these folks must face in the winter. It's a pretty place, and the B&B across the harbor had a vacancy on the top floor overlooking the harbor, so the accommodations were pretty nice overall.
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| View from the bed and breakfast. |
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| Not a Spanish prison |
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| Natural rockfall apparently took out a major part of the promenade this year |
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| Even a boring port scene in Costa Brava is pretty |
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Hello Mosquito!
The tiger mosquitoes in Port Cala Canyelles reminded me of this ancient TV ad from the early days of the Internet:
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| He loves to travel, just like me. |
I read a bit more about tiger mosquitoes, a recent import into Europe from India. They're tenacious little buggers -- I've watched them try to bite me through my pile jacket (3mm), my hat (5mm), and puffed up sleeping bag (10cm!). And apparently, they can act as vectors for a lot of diseases. I'm doing fine so far; no sign of West Nile, yelow fever, dengue fever or any of the other nasties listed in Wikipedia. The only symptoms I exhibit at the moment would be that of sleeping sickness -- I've been dosing off every chance I get, but this is probably a consequence of 100+ mosquitoes constantly divebombing my ears and keeping me up. Coincidentally, I had just come back from India with some insect repellent that I got as a gift, so I managed to stave off some of the little critters. But there are always the enterprising ones that have developed an immunity to insecticide. I imagine them throwing a little mosquito party where I acted, in essence, as the punch bowl.
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| You know it works because it cannot be legally purchased in the U.S. |
Port Cala Canyelles
Pulled into this little town and its associated marina. Actually, as soon as I saw the aerial view of the marina, I knew I had to go into it. My charts said the marina was 2m deep, which is barely enough for Guizmo's 1.99cm keel. To be sure, I hailed the marina on the VHF radio, and asked if a "barca de dos metros" can fit in the marina (note the missing word, "profundo"). Apparently, the marinero thought I meant a boat of 2m length, not depth, so he said "sure." For reference, most kids' inflatable boats are 2 meters. It makes no sense for someone to ask if there is room for his 2 meter long yacht. But language barriers usually suspend all rational thought. Thankfully, I got lucky and the entrance to the harbor was more than the advertised 2m in depth.
Of course, the engine stopped working just outside the marina breakwater, so I actually had to sail in with a full main and jib and do a 180 u-ey to shed off speed. The marina was barely deep enough to not hit the keel. The marinero dude came running up and said "you can't sail here, it's too small!" No kidding, it's not like I wanted to be doing u-eys under sail in a marina where the keel is barely clearing major rocks. Anyhow, the one spot where Guizmo could have fitted was, luckily, not taken. And for a change, Guizmo was the largest boat at a marina.
Port Cala Canyelles is surrounded by steep walls on top of which some really awesome houses have been built.
The only problem with the marina was the enormous number of tiger mosquitoes that came to visit. At 0.1cc of blood per mosquito, and 100 mosquitoes, there was 10cc of my blood flying through the air at any one time. That's about as much blood as the doctor draws during a routine test, which is actually quite a bit.
Slept in Guizmo, in the bow, for the second time (the first was during the Barcelona crossing), and woke up feeling pretty good, somewhat itchy, and certainly anemic. Time to hit the iron supplements.
Of course, the engine stopped working just outside the marina breakwater, so I actually had to sail in with a full main and jib and do a 180 u-ey to shed off speed. The marina was barely deep enough to not hit the keel. The marinero dude came running up and said "you can't sail here, it's too small!" No kidding, it's not like I wanted to be doing u-eys under sail in a marina where the keel is barely clearing major rocks. Anyhow, the one spot where Guizmo could have fitted was, luckily, not taken. And for a change, Guizmo was the largest boat at a marina.
Port Cala Canyelles is surrounded by steep walls on top of which some really awesome houses have been built.
The only problem with the marina was the enormous number of tiger mosquitoes that came to visit. At 0.1cc of blood per mosquito, and 100 mosquitoes, there was 10cc of my blood flying through the air at any one time. That's about as much blood as the doctor draws during a routine test, which is actually quite a bit.
Slept in Guizmo, in the bow, for the second time (the first was during the Barcelona crossing), and woke up feeling pretty good, somewhat itchy, and certainly anemic. Time to hit the iron supplements.
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| In a rare moment, I'm actually checking the sails |
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| When you're living the 007 lifestyle, you get used to black and yellow aircraft chasing you |
Friday, June 24, 2011
Arenys del Mar
Left Barcelona for points east and made it out to this little town. It seems to cater mostly to domestic tourists and has one hell of a street bazaar. I pretended to be in the market for some breakfast food and ended up tasting way too much stuff whose name and composition I'm not entirely sure about and certainly do not want to know. It was super tasty though.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Friends in Barcelona
Spent two days with an old high-school friend, her husband and daughter. In keeping with my "no names" policy, I won't name names, but (1) it was awesome to reconnect with an old friend, (2) apparently, she moved to paradise and didn't tell anyone, and (3) even people who live in paradise apparently have complaints. Some day, I look forward to living in paradise and, depending on how the afterlife turns out, complaining either about "man, I'm one with the father and son but not so close to the holy ghost" or "only 52 virgins! but there are infinitely many days in the afterlife, it's like 0 virgins per day!" Of course, it's more likely that in the former case, I'd be left behind in the rapture and have to deal with all the empty clothing left behind by all the pious folks, and in the latter, end up getting pitchforked in hellfire. And of course, the joke will be on all of us if some fringe religion like Heaven's Gate turn out to be the big winners. Anyhow, there is nothing like reconnecting with friends.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Gaudy Gaudi.
I expected La Sagrada Familia to be breathtaking. It turns out to be way way way more amazing than I have ever imagined. The guidebooks say it was designed to look like a tall forest. But the place is amazing for a lot of reasons.
For one, it embodies a design aesthetic that is impossible to find anywhere else. If you think Frank Gehry is revolutionary and out of the box or whatever, well, let me tell you completely objectively that Gehry could not be Gaudi's toilet attendant. Gaudi just bucks so many norms for a religious building, or any building, that it's impossible to do him justice.
For another, Gaudi makes religion actually welcoming. The place is so well-lit and contemplative and interesting that it invites a completely different way of thinking about religion and one's place in the universe. No wonder that there'd be molestation scandals in churches with dark corners; one cannot imagine anything of the kind inside the Sagrada Familia.
Finally, it takes a different kind of approach to start a project with a 140-year time span. A normal building gets built to specifications within a finite budget. Whereas a 140-year project essentially has an infinite budget. You can think big, and do something really different when your budget is so large. And most architects would crumble under such lack of constraints. Most engineers would be unable to function without a cost constraint. It takes someone with amazing vision to design a building whose completion the designer will never live to see.
Anyhow, here are the pics.
For one, it embodies a design aesthetic that is impossible to find anywhere else. If you think Frank Gehry is revolutionary and out of the box or whatever, well, let me tell you completely objectively that Gehry could not be Gaudi's toilet attendant. Gaudi just bucks so many norms for a religious building, or any building, that it's impossible to do him justice.
For another, Gaudi makes religion actually welcoming. The place is so well-lit and contemplative and interesting that it invites a completely different way of thinking about religion and one's place in the universe. No wonder that there'd be molestation scandals in churches with dark corners; one cannot imagine anything of the kind inside the Sagrada Familia.
Finally, it takes a different kind of approach to start a project with a 140-year time span. A normal building gets built to specifications within a finite budget. Whereas a 140-year project essentially has an infinite budget. You can think big, and do something really different when your budget is so large. And most architects would crumble under such lack of constraints. Most engineers would be unable to function without a cost constraint. It takes someone with amazing vision to design a building whose completion the designer will never live to see.
Anyhow, here are the pics.
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| Apparently, Gaudi inspired the design of Stormtrooper helmets |
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| You tell me |
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