Hotel LONE STAR - Open for Business

For the first time this season we went backwards and remembered how great it was to go somewhere we had been before. We had forgotten how wonderful it was to go where you did not have the stress and anticipation of a new harbor. We made the trip from Valencia to Denia on the 17th in 6 hours and were on our bicycles hunting for camping gas 40 minutes after we docked. Yes, we did have our beers before we left. The next set of friends we are expecting are college friend Cajun Joe, his wife Dinah and their two daughters Holly and Natalie. The Matthews’ are alumni – they visited us on Seabbatical when we were in Antigua. Denia was the perfect spot. The Matthews were scheduled to fly into Barcelona from Paris the morning of the 19th and would get into Denia mid afternoon. The marina had a roof top pool with palapas and a tiki bar and several nearby restaurants. What a great way to unwind after a week of turbo touring as they had been doing.

Well, the best laid plans don’t always quite work out. Turns out after an examination of their tickets the Paris departure time was 9PM not 9AM! This would put them into Denia well in the middle of the night. The solution was to change the tickets to arrive in Barcelona in the morning. However when that was tried Expedia lost all the tickets – old and new! Nothing could be done until the New York office opened and Joe could talk to a human which wouldn’t be until 6PM Europe time – well after the morning flight left. Once human conversation commenced the problem was resolved with a 9PM flight to Valencia (where we had been but weren’t now) and a 1 hour taxi ride to Denia. However, once the driver arrived in Denia he couldn’t find the marina.

Several phone calls went back and forth between Craig and Joe with Craig finally hopping on his bike at 1:30 in the morning riding into town, finding the taxi which was only a couple of blocks away and leading the way back to the marina. I wish I would have had my camera. What a sight. It looked like Craig leading the Charge of the Light Brigade. Oh well, so much for relaxing around the pool and tiki bar! Even with the very late night and not much sleep everyone was up early with excitement. We were headed for Ibiza! At 0940 we slipped the lines and LONE STAR was on her way.

Joe, an avid fisherman, took care of the first order of business – get the lines out. True to what we had heard about lack of fish in the Med, nothing was caught but that was ok we knew the restaurants had seafood. At 1759 we dropped the hook in Calla Badella and commenced celebrating our arrival in the Balearics. The details of the trip are best described by an email blog we received from Holly and Natalie after they got back home. All we can add is the visit went by way too fast; the sights – sunset dinner on Calla Bedella, the “deserted” island of Espalmador where we learned from a fellow American about wintering a boat in Turkey (more on that later, changes are in the air), and St Eulalia
were beautiful. The anchoring fun at Cala Llonga (what happens on the boat, stays on the boat! but you might ask Craig about setting a second anchor and see what he says) and finding the right fuel dock in Palma – (3^rd time’s the charm) in hindsight were funny and the friends were the best of all! We can’t wait to have the Matthews Clan back on board! Jan and Craig are already storing "factoids" in order to keep up with Dinah.