Last week, we spent a few days on the west side of Ibiza, but for a change of scene and a marina berth for a couple of days, we moved around to San Antoni on the north side of the island. San Antoni is party-town in Ibiza, populated by the young and not so young (and probably should know better) partying around the clock. There’s always something going on: clubs, restaurants, foam party (which looked like fun!) and bars everywhere. The place was heaving with humanity; a fun opportunity to spend a while with a beer people-watching from [m]any of the bars on the seafront.

We enjoyed a cooked breakfast ashore on the morning after our arrival (sausages are just not the same as at home though) and a walk along the waterfront. A few jobs done, but mostly making lists for the winter work we want to do at Marseille and cooking a meal for the journey back to mainland Spain.

On Friday we sailed from Ibiza to Torredembarra, a marina within a shortish train ride from Barcelona, where we were to say goodbye to Liz after her two weeks onboard, and hello to Robin (Nigel’s eldest) and Mark ‘Snakehips’ Slawson from our Atlantic ARC+ crew.

In the planning stages for this stopover some months ago, we had somehow overlooked the fact that Barcelona is hosting the Americas Cup this Autumn. Marinas in the immediate vicinity are variously fully booked or massively expensive - €350 per night for a boat like Cassini. We managed to find Torredembarra, further south and an hour’s train ride from Barcelona, and very much better value, thank goodness.

We spent the first afternoon scouting out the train station and ticket options for Nigel to get to Barcelona where he met Robin on Friday night and for Liz, leaving on Saturday morning for her flight home.  

Torredembarra ‘old town’ is lovely: paved streets and old squares had been decorated with all sorts, including some hanging umbrellas across the street – not quite sure what that was about – and then stalls selling trinkets, drinks, cheeses, chorizo and other delicious things to eat.

Without realising, or certainly not planning it, we’d come to the town during the Indian festival. So far as we could tell, it’s a celebration of the departure of the emigrants from Spain who left for (what is now) South America. Sunday’s highlight for us was an open-air concert in the evening. A four-piece band played Spanish folk songs and sea shanties, which we could not understand a word of and frankly it didn’t matter; we just made our own words up! The performers though were terrific; during one song the double bass player, mimicked the slurry and wobbly drunken sailor, and the lady lead singer, disdainfully rebuffed all his advances – absolutely comical. The singing concluded with a lot of audience participation which we imagined must be Catalan independence songs or some such, given the gusto with which they were rendered. We of course joined in!

Monday morning, we set sail for Marseille, a distance of about 230 miles around the Spanish coast and across the Gulf de Lion. Weather forecasting as usual was somewhat scratchy with a different one for our passage every day for the preceding few days, none of which turned out to be what we got. We did get some wind though, and made good early progress.  We managed to observe a little of the Americas Cup racing from some distance away as we passed Barcelona, but then a heavy thunderstorm caught up with us and diverted our attention. We avoided the very worst of the lightning flashes hitting the sea about a mile distant but the wind blew at over 30knots for a while and we tested our oilskin waterproofing.

If all that was not fun enough, early yesterday morning there was a strange smell emanating from the saloon. I investigated the source with Robin and on opening the battery compartment, found the engine battery severely overheating and spitting liquid through its vents and gassing furiously. Shutting down the engine immediately (to stop the charge going in), we measured the temperature and measured our chances of removing it quickly over the side if it actually caught fire. Thankfully, with the charging current removed, the battery slowly cooled. Robin’s job as an electric car engineer came in handy; apparently, he’s used to batteries catching fire! His experience and help to find a solution to adapt the system to operate without the engine battery was great.

We have a crossover switch to enable us to start the engine from our domestic batteries, so losing the engine start battery was not too limiting on our plans. The only real impact is that we have to manually monitor the charge from our solar, wind and water generator to ensure we don’t overcharge the batteries and limit the use of the engine. A trip to the chandlery in Marseille for a new battery should fix things, something hopefully, we can easily do this week.

Simon 

Skipper (and on this trip, rather thankful to be one of three Engineers!)

Not sure quite what the Foam Party involved and not ‘brave’ enough to find out! 

Those umbrellas going up ahead of the Festival

The offending battery; Robin and I putting a ‘fix’ on between Engine and Domestic battery banks. The only thing missing here of course is Mark (Marine Engineering Officer, RN) supervising us with his torch and some encouraging discourse :-)