Baiona to Balearic islands (20 July - 11 Aug 2013)

- We left Baiona in the afternoon of July 21st and arrived in Cascais in the evening of the 23rd. - Five knots of consistent wind in our back - We set up the spinaker and we were able to keep it hoisted during the entire second night - DOLPHINS! We saw Dolphins! Sailing to Cascais, Portugal was not only relaxing but enjoyable...I would never affiliate these two words wth sailing...and it was one of the rare moments where I actually enjoyed sailing. With five knots of wind in our back we set up the colourful parachute sail aka: the spinnaker, and our speed matched the speed of the wind! Incredible! Arbutus was cutting through the calm sea like a knife through unsalted butter, giving us an OH SO comfortable ride. During our night sails I take watch from 10pm to 1am. Paul takes over from 1am, then at 7am Paul shakes and pulls me out of bed. Begrudgingly I survey from 7am until around 11am when Paul wakes up. During Paul's long shift he sleeps and wakes up every 20 mins. My shift is short enough so I stay awake the whole time. With our receiving and transceiving AIS our nights are realatively worry free. Holy Dolphin! A pod of dolphins came to swim and jump and play with Arbutus and they stuck around long enough for me to take some pictures and video. I really had a "Free Willy" moment. It was still calm during our approach into Cascais so we took our showers on deck by hoisting the solar shower part way up the mast. Very cool experiance being naked on a moving vessel with the scenery changing around you. We anchored just outside of Cascais harbour to avoid paying 37 euros a night. We were tourists in the touristy town of Cascais, in Lisbon we visited the maratime museum, and we went on a mission to meet my friend Pipa in the neighbouring city of Almada. I met Pipa in Kenya 2011 and I was excited to see this positive, young, uninhibited, intelligent spirit again. We shared a delicious Portugueese meal at a restaurant she went to as a kid. The clams drowned in butter and garlic were delicious. We rock climbed in Sintra where I thought I lost all my confidence in climbing, but after the first climb it was ok. At the bus stop we met a classy, sophisticated, kind, and social Brazilian solo traveller who we shared drinks with back in Cascais. We hope to meet Cris again in Brazil...if we go there. I hope I can visit Portugal again because the people were so kind, even the fishermen whoes dock we occupied with our dinghy were so friendly! Hola Barbate! We arrived in Barbate just before sunset on July 29th and we were stuck there for four nights because of strong Easterly winds in the Straight of Gibraltar. After our third night in the harbour and after looking at the weather forecast that anounced 15 knots of wind, we decided to leave the following morning. Right out of the harbour we had strong winds and choppy seas. WTF? Advancing slowly...sailing with the engine...winds getting stronger...30 knots...40 knots...Eastrrly wind completley against us...tacking...not advancing...big waves...our speed is pathetic...is the wind pushing us backwards???...Fuck this...abort mission...turn around to Barbate for cerveza and tapas! We tried the next day and it was still challenging but the conditions were completley different. We sailed to Gibraltar weaving our way through the huge tankers and anchored on the Spanish side of the border. The highlight of Gibralter was getting our dinghy stolen and making a lot of new friends as a result of this misfourtunate incident. We have never locked our dinghy since we began our trip, because most of the time foulishly I think nothing bad will happen while we are still in Europe. Unfortunatly, like Larry, our American friend at the anchorage said, there are a few assholes in the world who will take advantage of a situation. I spoke to a kind English guy who spoke fluent Spanish. He helped me ask security if they saw what happened to our dinghy. He directed us to speak with Guardia Civil, they might have taken the dinghy. Kind English guy gave us a ride to the office...but no info about our dinghy...someone stole it... Holy crap we don't have a dinghy...how do we get back to the boat? Paul! Swim!! and bring the inflateable beach tire and dry sac to transport our stuff back to the boat. During Paul's swim back to the boat I was chatting with the security guard and he said his fishing friend could give us a ride back to Arbutus. Thank god! Sometimes the kindness of strangers amazes me. We had to swim back to shore the next morning and during our swim our neighbour saw us and offered us a ride to shore, and for the next two days Larry took us to and from the shore. So nice! News spread around the anchorage that our dinghy was stolen and we were able to buy a used one from Aston, an English guy. I only have good memories of Gibraltar because of the friends we met there. Unfortunatley I didn't take any pictures of our new friends...crap. We left the tankers of the Straight of Gibraltar and had a smooth sail towards the Balearic islands with picturesque sunsets and sunrises just for ourselves.