Thu 7 and Fri 8 Jun

After having delayed our departure by a day to avoid the rain, we woke up to…rain. We gave up on the idea of doing a workout on the beach (I was majorly disappointed, as you can imagine 😉 ) and instead we lay in bed talking through the plan of getting the boat ready. We were both quite nervous as this was about to be the longest passage we’d done just the two of us on Bini.

We had a coffee then stashed the Nespresso machine in a locker (it needs 240v so we won’t be seeing that until we’re back in a marina), we did an engine check, Tom sorted the lines and filled up with water. I headed to the supermarket (can’t be leaving without garlic, and more wine) and on the way back it started to rain, and to thunder. I had a nasty suspicion we wound’t be leaving today either, but we decided to brave it so dug out the wet weather gear.

A small digression. In the summer of 2016 we were sailing to a marina down the coast from Barcelona and happened upon a boat with a Polish flag heading the same way. As is sailing tradion, two boats equals a race so silently for both crews, the race was on. We made a fatal error and tacked too soon which gave them the advantage and they sped off into the sunset. Later that afternoon when we finally made it to the marina they were there too (and already eating their desert) so we gave them a nod hello as we passed. The next morning we were trying to find an excuse to introduce ourselves, when bingo, the guy went to take their rubbish so Tom grabbed whatever he could find laying around and casually just happened to be at the bins at the same time. They started chatting, so us girls wandered over and joined them. We ended up spending a great day together with Bartek and Kasha, having lunch and dinner and sharing sailing stories. We’ve been firm friends ever since, and will be for a very long time. They’re simply awesome.

So awesome in fact that in the pouring rain they accompanied us on their own boat for the first few miles of our trip. We started off by stopping by the fuel pontoon to fill up on diesel then the both of us headed off into the rain at 14:30, under motor, which took us the whole way to Soller.

We were so excited to be off that we barely noticed we were getting soaked and after about an hour it cleared up. During the first few hours we were both pretty tense and feeling quite seasick, but we knew both would soon subside. The hours simply flew by and before we knew it it was time for dinner. Whilst I was preparing it Tom shouted, “dolphins!!” and I rushed up to find three leaping around at the bow. Gorgeous they are, and always look like they’re smiling 🙂

With dinner eaten the sun set and it started to get dark, and I started to get a bit nervous again. It’s a strange feeling when you haven’t done a night sail for a while to have the boat charging forward into the darkness with no clue what’s in front of you. We have charts of course, and boats have lights but still, it’s weird.

Tom went for a sleep at 22:30 so I was on watch for the next 2.5 hours. He thankfully took over at 01:30 as I was starting to get really tired so I slept and took over again at 03:00. This second watch was awesome. I saw the most incredible moonrise and had dolphins leaping around the boat in the moonshine. Nighttimes really don’t get much better 🙂 On my next watch at 06:30 I had to wake Tom up (just as he’d fallen asleep) to help me figure out what to do about a massive trawler (a fishing boat with huge nets hanging off the side). I’m not great yet with speed and distances so find it hard to know whether we’ll avoid smashing into them or not. Tom said we were all good and headed back down below.

A few hours later we arrived in Soller, and finally anchored in a spot we were happy with (after 5 attempts – such newbies!). We felt exhilarated – we’d just completed our first long night passage together! To celebrate we sat on deck and had a glass of rose, lovely!

Next job was to check the dinghy and outboard engine. We ran out of time to do this in Barcelona so were keeping everything crossed the dinghy wasn’t full of holes, and that the engine would start. The dinghy was fine (phew) but we couldn’t unscrew the outboard engine from it’s holder, despite copious amounts of WD40, boiling water and a heat gun. We rowed the dinghy to shore in search of someone who could come and take a look for us. While we waited for the shop to re-open (after siesta) we had a little wander around. Soller is really cute but it’s literally 100% tourists. We can’t complain obviously, but it’s not exactly a local experience. The anchorage is gorgeous though so it’s a great place to be on a boat.

Luckily we found a repair shop at the marina and within 3 hours the engine was collected from the boat, repaired and delivered back, working! We’d assumed it’d take days.

Last job of the day was to double check the anchor was well dug in. We took a swim (in the not so warm water) and dived down, all looked good.

As I write this we’ve just had dinner, a glass of wine and we’re sitting at anchor watching the sun set and listening to some live music from the beach. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that this is our life now, and everything we have is with us on the boat. We’re feeling ridiculously lucky, and excited about what tomorrow will bring. Even though there’s not much wind I expect I’ll be up in the night to check the anchor a few times as it’s really busy in the anchorage this evening  – better safe than sorry. It’s be great to avoid bumping into someone on our first night.