Our sail to Barcelona, some 110 miles, was our longest leg so far this year. It was also the first time Kalle and Jutta were out of sight of land on a sailboat and their first night sail! They live to tell the tale…..

We left in the early afternoon and first anchored outside the Alcudia harbor with the aim to replace the starboard propeller of the bow thruster. Unfortunately, I was unable to remove the nut that holds the propeller. I will need to try again with a bigger pair of pliers.

We had a nice sail in a light Easterly for the first few hours but the wind was forecast to lighten and go South and it did just that. So for the first part of the night we had to motor but in the early morning hours, the Southerly came in stronger and the sails went back up. We wanted to make sure not to arrive in the dark so we reefed quite a bit to keep the boat speed down. Reefs came in when the speed went above 7kn and came out when it went below 6kn. Nothing more than the press of a couple of buttons on an Amel …..

Docking in Barcelona between a couple of large motor yachts was not a problem inspite of the strong side wind: the thruster works quite well even with only one propeller. So here we were - packed in next to three Mangusta 92s, colored white, silver and black! That’s 27m long and they look like the local mafia owns them!

Our time in Barca was spent doing what tourists do. It was surprising how many tourists there are in late April in Barcelona and how crowded things get. Las Ramblas was packed with people checking out vendors of all stripes. The famous cathedral charges a high entrance fee - as do other, lesser churches. The Gaudi houses had waiting lines and the Picasso museum had to be booked a couple of days in advance. But it did not matter. We always came back to the Placa de Reina for additional refreshments when things got too tiresome. Barcelona was one of the highlights of our trip and a great time was had by all. Check out the pictures on Smugmug. There is art everywhere in this place.