Location: Tarragona, Spain
Evidently, today, I was skipper. I wish I had known, as Al woke me up this morning so that instead of rolling over and catching another five, I would have woken up the rest of the crew. Fail. Mitch, Al, and Matty were our chefs for the day and got everyone up and running with a full plate of pancakes and bacon. Overseeing the boat preparation was as much work as any other, as I was kept busy checking everything on my handy dandy clipboard list and making sure everyone else did their assigned tasks. We left the dock at about 9:30 and made it about 200 meters before having to stop for another hour and a half to fill the tanks with gas. The crew had some final prepping to do, closing the ports, getting everything ready for 40-knot winds and 40-degree heel, and making sure ropes were all in their places.
Nearing noon, we cast off for the first time. Pumped! I maneuvered us under the draw bridge and out of the port into the open sea. As soon as we exited the pier ends, it was go, go, go. Sweat the lines, take in the slack, and get everything secure. We started with our two mainsails and held a steady 6-7 knots. The day couldn’t have been better with warm, 20-25 knot winds, a great day for an introductory sail. Eventually, we were able to get three other sails raised. I didn’t expect it to be quite so much work. Raising a sail seems easy until you’ve been pulling the lines with another person for five minutes and aren’t even yet to the top. Everyone on deck worked really well together, and no one actually puked. This was surprising, as the staff was estimating that 7-13 people might get seasick. Guess we’re champs. After getting a few new calluses on our hands and feet and tacking out and back toward shore a couple of times, we called it a day and headed back beside the incoming tugs. Our chefs again whipped up a great dinner, serving rice, chicken, and vegetables this time around. It’s about 9:30 now, and we are just finishing up with our diving and Professional Skipper and Crew Training classes. It’s time for a shower on the docks and bed. As Texas (Mitch) would say, night, ya’ll.