Costa Brava

Princess with her prince.

And the castle.

We can dream, can't we?

Meanwhile two days after the crew (Barbara and Alicia) left... in real life: It’s four in the morning and NOT a good time to be suddenly woken up to a screeching, howling wind rattling the rigging and pulling on the mooring lines. Looks like we’re having a tramontana and the only good thing about it is that I’m in a marina and not an anchorage.

Even though it’s already past the middle of April, mornings are still cold and the nasty north wind doesn’t help, so the little electric heater is humming away while I quickly poke my head out the hatch to check the wind instruments. Nearly 30 knots. Then I return to the cosyness of the cabin and my very early cup of coffee.

Costa Brava and the Gulf of Lyon are infamous for tramontanas or mistral wind. It appears suddenly out of nowhere and often reaches gale force strength in a quarter of an hour. You don’t want to be at sea when it blows, or a lee shore anchorage. Time to stay put. Also, time to check the engine, which has been misbehaving and the sails that were torn recently. Time to wait for new crew to arrive and also perhaps time to do some sightseeing of this beautiful part of Spain. From land.