first departure

finally the time arrived to leave gibraltar and start heading towards the canaries so peter and esteban left on october 28 but after two hours had to return to port because of a minor problem with the alternator and battery charger. it was minor because they were close to shore, had they continued like that, they would not have been able to charge the batteries, so of course they turned around. the problem was fixed within the next couple of days but unfortunately there was a bad front coming and they had to stay 10 more days waiting for the weather to give them a chance to depart again. in the meantime they celebrated halloween at the marina, visited sevilla and also spent some days at peter’s house in el rompido, in the south west part of spain.

meet peter

during esteban’s stay in gibraltar he met peter; a sailor from britain who lives between spain and the UK. he was looking to cross the atlantic and esteban was looking to go with someone; they decided to cross together. luckily for esteban peter is a great cook, so i am sure he will not miss me that much. i will only meet peter when they arrive in the caribbean in december, but so far i have only heard good things from esteban, so i am thrilled he is on board and i am sure they will both bring the boat safe to america while enjoying themselves while at it, I hope!

luxemburg

during our drive around germany we also crossed to luxembourg and enjoyed a day there. very beautiful as expected, organized and clean. we can’t get enough of driving around europe and exploring little roads.

deutschland

in between the repairs on board and work back in florida i went back to europe a couple of times. once on a very short trip to madrid and gibraltar and on another occasion to germany for work. what a trip! we rented a car and stayed for 10 days driving around the rhine region.

the sightseeing was beautiful; we had the yellow and orange colors of the leaves in october and perfect weather. we traveled through small roads and stopped in little towns, eat the best sausages and of course enjoyed some very good beer. work in bonn was also a lot of fun. esteban met some of my colleagues and we spent a lot of time together. it was a great break to our long time apart.