WHAT IS WRONG WITH SPAIN ?????

I don't mean the financial stuff, the ( housing -) boom and bust, the developers delight along the spanish coastline with appartement blccks, villas, fincas, you name it they have it. The geographical destruction of the coastline, the habitat, and finally the social structure, all to the delight of the speculators. And financed with credits, no economic value creation behind it. But the profits, wow the profits. Why would a normal person buy a place, where the builder /developer makes alreay a profit of more than 100 %. And then the first time buyer sells it on for another 50 % profit after some time. Where is the reasoning, where is the logic ?

WELL FOLK, IT'S ONLY GREED.

And don't blame the bankers or the politicians or anybody else than YOU. Yes YOU ! And don't tell me you didn't see it coming. You knew. But you didn't want to see it. Because those we blame are just a good reflection of our own society . And we are part of it as everybody else. So pick your own nose. No, I don't want to talk about all this. I want to talk about the weather. 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WEATHER IN SPAIN ?????

This is the country of olive trees and oranges, of tourism and binge drinking ( by tourists ) , and that needs good and predictable weather. And see what happened to us. And the others !!!!

..... of September opened a one day window to go South-West. So we left in the evening ad headed for Ibiza.....which we only saw from the distance because the wind had changed , and we ended up in Formentera....just 3 hours before the winds came back with a tremendous force of 60 kts in the Marina. That's when it got nasty on the mainland.

Anyway, Formentera is a funny.place. Young and old hippies actually. I would not have been surprised to meet some forgotten Hare Krishna people in their 70's coming up the main road in the Marina. The german boutique owner I talked to explained that the island is famous for its beaches, the Hippie Market and the good diving conditions.  The beaches used to be occupied with towels by Germans, but today it is really Milan fashion designer type of Italians, who at least brought with them the good coffee. But gosh, it must be difficult to be a Milan Fashionista. The present 'style' is to wear a scarve around the neck and cowboy or any other boots on the feet - with the summer heat that much be quite cheesy. But everybody gets properly supplied by this Milanese boutique where the owner makes three times a profit than he otherwise would do with the same shop in Milan.

Good for him,  old Hippies have always been good at making money !

    Then there is nothing else to do. So chill out time. We are back to cooking . This time IT'S ON THE HOUSE !

The forecast for the 29th of September was a wind form the SW of 15 Kts to max 20 Kts. One should always assume up to 40% more of some gusts and squalls. A strong pocket of wind was clearly identifiable for the aerea of Alicante and Murcia on the mainland again, , and the sattelite picture showed a lot of thundery conditions along the main coast. So basically no reason not to leave. We waited until after lunch , put a big reef into the mainsail and left in southwesterly direction into the decreasing wind......so we thought.

The opposite happened. After some hours of motor-sailing we had a wind with the strenghts of 30-35 Kts, and during the night for a prolonged period  52 kts ( BF 10 !!!!!! ) with waves up to 4 metres and braking. Thank you. Is there anybody reading this stuff who really believes that sailing is fun ? I mean, here we are, we wanted to go to Gibraltar, ended up in Mallorca, for days and days we have been motoring a sailingboat, either because of no wind or wind straight against,  and now we find ourselves in the middle of the night in a force 10 ! And no cooking either........

The thunderstorms were clearly visible along the coastline, and from our view very stroong. Let's hope no further casualties. But weatherforcast right or wrong, these conditions we can do without. 

The following morning and even more so on Monday were the most beautiful days a sailor can have ........ besides the wind. Actually a little bit, but not enough. So most of the rest of the journey we motored under engine through day and night, where we finally arrived in Gibraltar on Tuesday, 2nd of September 2012, which concluded the 2nd leg of our journey.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH SPAIN ? ? Either boom or bust. Either too much wind or none at all !

Your motoring expert

Master Mike