May 07, 2005: We arrived in Madrid, Spain a little over a week ago. That was the easy part - a 14 plus hour flight from Seattle. Then we started pondering how we were going to get our four duffels of boat spare parts plus our briefcase on wheels plus Jan's rolling backpack ("the goods") to the boat in Rota. This involves taking a taxi from the airport to the train station in Madrid, hopping a 2 hr train to Seville, grabbing a taxi to the bus station in Seville, then hopping on the local bus to Rota (2 hr ride), and finally, taking a cab to the marina in Rota.
The first cab flatly turned us down when he saw our stack of luggage. We think this is true, but because of the language challenges, we're not really sure. Anyways, the gods were with us when we snagged a cabbie with a luggage rack on top. He could only fit one of the duffels in the trunk (cabs are small in Spain), but we pyramided the remaining 3 duffels on top of the little car and started speeding along the Madrid freeways, weaving in and out of traffic at will. Jan kept looking back to see if any of the bags had broken loose, spreading assorted stainless screws, life-rings, and other boat parts along the highway, but we made it to the Madrid train station without any further problems. The movement of "the goods" from the entrance of the train station to the actual train platform was accomplished in stages. That's when we decided that maybe spending the night in Seville would let us recover from our jet lag and perhaps allow us to formulate a new way to manage all "the goods." The next morning we tipped enough people and took two taxies from the hotel to the bus station, about three blocks. This eased the transition of getting all the baggage from Seville to the Rota Marina. We arrived about Noon (Thursday April 28).
The first thing we did was report to the marina office as it was scheduled to close for afternoon siesta at 1:00pm. It was 12:45pm when we got there. Spain was getting ready for the May 1st holiday and we had heard from Dick Bishop (TRIUMPH) that the yard was completely booked for launchings until May 9th (two weeks away)! Well it was true, they would not give us a launching slot until May 9 -- of course that was unacceptable, we didn't want to just hang around for two weeks. So we talked and talked and finally the woman behind the desk talked to the yard manager -- who said that if we could launch right NOW he would launch us. We hadn't even seen the boat yet and I (Steve) asked for at least an hour. NO, was the answer, either right now or May 9th. We didn't have much of a choice. I said I would take it. Jan left with Dick and Eileen Bishop to remove the winter tarps covering SUGILITE, I remained to pay the bill, which took 25 minutes of very complete Spanish bureaucratic paperwork to finish, then off to pay the mechanic's bill, another 15 minutes. By the time I finally saw the boat, Jan, Dick and Eileen along with Hank and Julie (TAPESTRY) who I hadn't met yet, were madly cutting tarps from the decks. The travel lift was heading our way to pick up the boat. "Quick, check the through hulls, think fast what had to be done." As we were cutting the last of the tarps, the travel lift was getting the slings in place and we were lifted off and moving to the launch site. As the boat was moving towards the water, Dick said "What's that hole in the side of your keel?" Whoa -- stop everything, I forgot about the bilge drain. I found the keel plug, threw it down to Dick, he ran to the mechanic and found a screwdriver and averted a real disaster. That little hole would have filled the boat full of water . . .
Anyway, we made it. We were launched, then warped ourselves over to a close by dock and proceeded to eventually get the engine running and move into our slip. We were actually floating by 2:00 pm - 75 minutes from arrival in Rota to Sugilite floating in the water. It is a new world record, and one I don't want to try to repeat. The remaining days have been filled with cleaning, tuning, projects and generally getting everything put back together.
The two major projects that we have to have finished before leaving Rota are a replacement of the house batteries and a recall/maintenance service on the engine. I have been dealing with Hallberg-Rasy (the builder of our boat) for the past eight months to get our batteries replaced (as they failed during our first year and hence, I hoped, were covered under the warranty). There has been a long series of emails between HR in Sweden, Tudor (the battery mfg in Sweden, Tudor in Madrid, and the local distributor in Cadiz). HR and Tudor, Sweden & Spain assured me that the batteries would be ready and waiting for me in Rota when we arrived.
We emailed Madrid to let them know we arrived and wanted the batteries. The next morning (Friday) the local distributor showed up with the batteries, but would not leave them as he wanted to be paid for them. He didn't know anything about a warranty. I tried to call Madrid, but they were closed and then it was the weekend. Also Monday and Tuesday they were closed for the May 1 holiday in Spain. On Wednesday, I finally got in touch with Madrid and the lady told me she would check on it. She called back on Thursday and said that the Distributor would not change the batteries unless he could check the old ones. And he would not come back to Rota for at least a week. OK, if he won't come back to Rota, we will take the boat to Cadiz. It is a couple of hours to motor across the bay and we arrived mid-day on Thursday. The distributor indicated, he would not under any circumstances, check the batteries in the boat. They must be outside and on the dock. Each of these batteries weights about 100 lbs and they are located way in the back of the boat, under the aft berth. After much grunting and whining (by Steve), we got the batteries on the dock and the distributor finally arrived about 6pm to check them. Yep, they were bad. Was he going to replace them now? NO, he had to check with Madrid because they were too old and not covered under warranty. And, it was now too late to check with Madrid, because they were closed.
On Friday, we called Madrid, they said the batteries were too old to replace under warranty. I said that Sweden has already OK it and that I had been trying to get them replaced for a year already. She was going to call Sweden. A little problem with that because Sweden is now on some sort of holiday and will not be back to work until either Monday or Tuesday, I'm not sure. Europe has a lot of holidays.
We also got a call from the Volvo mechanic. He indicated he would come out to service the engine on Tuesday. I'm hopeful that we may start for Gibraltar on Wednesday.
So, we are sitting and waiting for things to happen. But, all is not lost. We are in the city of Cadiz, the oldest maritime city on the west coast of Europe. Records of it's history go back to at least 800 B.C. Beautiful buildings of European/Spanish/Moorish architecture abound. During the 1700s, Cadiz had the monopoly on trade with the New World. It has been estimated that over 75% of the Spanish trade with it's colonies came through Cadiz. This made it a very prosperous city and that is reflected in it's buildings and churches.
Cadiz is a major port for shipments coming into Spain. It is also on the cruise ship route as there are three different cruise lines in port as I write this. As we walked around town today, we passed Holland-America tour group after tour group, each one having a group number on their identification badges. We have a book with four different tours of Cadiz and today we did the "purple tour." We have plenty of time waiting for the batteries/ mechanics to finish the three other tours before heading to Gibraltar to meet up with our friends that we've met last season. We do a nightly radio chat at 7pm to catch up with what all the boats are doing. Tonight find's TRIUMPH and TAPESTRY in Gibraltar while ALCID and TWIST OF FATE are on the eastern part of Spain getting ready to go over to the Balearic Islands. Once we leave Cadiz, our next chapter will be called "Rendezvousing with the Pallet of Boat Parts we sent From Seattle in March." Rumor has it that it will arrive in Gibraltar May 12th - which could be the same date as we arrive.
As mentioned earlier, last week was "Feria" for Rota. This is the town festival and it is taken seriously by the town citizenry. The entire town closes down for 4 days, and everyone goes to the fair grounds and has a good time. Almost all restaurants, stores and business are closed. People dress up in costume, dance, ride horses up and down the street, eat, drink and generally be merry. It is very charming and interesting to see the town coming together for this event. It would not be possible in a major American city like Seattle. At best in Seattle, you might get some sort of community event.