Location: Tarragona
Greetings from Spain! We are in a new country! This morning witnessed the conclusion of our longest passage so far. Over the past several days, we have sailed a full 325 nautical miles from La Spezia to Tarragona. Pulling into Tarragona was cool as we went under a drawbridge. Once we docked, we began a session of boat appreciation, which is a nice way of saying that we began cleaning Vela extra thoroughly. Everything got scrubbed. The galley was torn apart and de-greased, the cabins were sprayed down, and the deck emerged from the brushes and shined like the sun. Although it took us until mid-afternoon to have everything done, our efforts were well worth it.
Vela deserves every bit of time that we put into her today; she has been wonderful. The remainder of the day was spent on shore exploring Tarragona. A contingent of us did some laundry, some others went swimming at a nearby beach, and still others hit the gym. I walked around with Eliza and James, and we explored a ruined Roman Amphitheatre, which was amazing. All of us returned to Vela in the early evening so that we could assist with bringing provisions ashore (thanks to Emma, Dan, Eduardo, and Grace C. for going on the expedition to the grocery store!). Two cars full of food arrived just as the galley team was cooking dinner. The whole scene was quite something to behold. The salon was littered with mounds of canned veggies, about twenty bags of cheese, a pyramid of butter, 80kg of meat, and so much more, and all of us were tossing things to and fro as the chefs boiled potatoes and shredded chicken. To make things even more interesting, it was raining a little. It was a fun time. The day ended with another stint on shore before bed.