Home of Don Quixote, Picasso, bull fighters, flamenco dancers, guitars, Christopher Columbus, plunderers of the gold and silver of the Incas and Aztecs, ... who wouldn't want to spend a few days there!
I can't remember if I've mentioned it, but we made an offer on Bon Accord just before Easter weekend. The offer was a lot less than the asking price, but the boat needs a lot of work.
Knowing that the owner would probably be in denial about the state of his boat, we decided we'd better have a backup plan B.
In fact we've seen a few boats called Plan B, so this is obviously a fairly common situation.
There is a good looking Formosa 51 ketch, plus a few other similar boats in Spain. Instead of sitting around here biting our nails we decided to make the trip to Madrid, hire a car, and drive to Denia, about 100kms south of Valencia to check it out.
We arrived there in the evening, picked up a little gutless wonder, a diesel VW Polo, and put our faith in "Carmen", the Garmin gps we bought in the US and renamed. She guided us to our hotel on the other side of the city where we had the most expensive meal of our whole time in Spain. Room service for a couple of sandwiches served with chips was just a fraction less than the cost of the room. We had entire buffets for less away from Madrid.
The next day we got going early, not daring to have breakfast until we were well on the road to Denia, on the coast.
The trip was uneventful apart from the occassional huge black profile of a bull from time to time. No words at all, just the huge billboard-like Torro we got used to seeing dotted around the countryside.
By the time we got to the marina it was a sunny afternoon and we immediately felt the warm, casual, happy mediterranean vibe that draws holiday makers by the millions every year.
The sea was a beautiful, pale aquamarine and the marina was packed with boats of all kinds.
We eventually met woman who'd been asked to show us the boat and after a short walk we climbed on board.
What can I say... you sure have to kiss a lot of frogs...
Aspects of the boat were good. We saw features of the layout we hadn't seen before, and some repairs we hadn't seen before either.
I opened a locker and saw 4 strange lumps against the back timber panel. They were soft to the touch. A little more examination was a jaw dropping experience. Four screws from the other side had come through by about 30mm. Not a problem. Carefully put masking tape over each one and paint it!
Sandy found the same repair for rot around pilothouse windows. Masking tape and paint.
We spent about an hour on the boat, mainly because we were enjoying the warm sunshine and atmosphere of the marina.