Gustav in the Balearic Sea, preparations for departure

The journey continues this year, our area is the Balearic Sea, destination along the Spanish coast to Denia, from there we will cross over to the Balearic Islands.

To do this, a few preparations are necessary first.

Once we arrived in el Masnou, a weather window was emerging, so it was not difficult for us to quickly make our preparations.

Our supply battery bank stopped working a few weeks ago, and we had the Lifepo4 battery with us. Our storage spaces in the kitchen and in the cabin are to be illuminated. The bicycles are to be fitted with an alarm system. The external fuel pump is to be controlled directly via the unit.

Our dinghy "Moina" was still lying unmotivated on the fly, and in order to dock in the usual Roman Catholic manner, the Moina was supposed to hang under the gangway, as a kind of large fender 😊, between the stern and the jetty on the David. For this, a longer gangway was needed, which we finally found in the neighboring harbor. This is how the new bridge on the Kwai was created.

In the meantime, Moina had also been given an electric drive, which still had to be installed on the Fly in a way that would make it suitable for sailing.

Finally, when everything was in its place, our bicycles also got a place on the Fly. We didn't want to tie them to the bow, as bow waves, salt water and the metal components would definitely not mix well.

Now the Epirb and life raft are in place, the bridge on the Kwai is pulled in, the Moina is pulled up on the David and secured, and after 2 weeks Gustav is ready to march.

In the meantime, we have explored the area on our bikes, been in the mountains, along the coast, visited hardware stores and looked for parts. We rarely found exactly what we would have bought for the purpose at home, but in the end we still had a good result.

We kept the first leg short, to test whether everything worked as planned after many hours of planning. Vilanova i la Geltrú was the first port, 34 nautical miles away, and we wanted to fill up the tank there, as the petrol station in el Masnou had been closed for repairs since we arrived.

Once there, we headed for the petrol station. We had just moored when we were greeted by two marineros. After filling up, we were immediately shown a place to moor. To make things easier, we moored forwards; the jetty was high so that we could easily get out over the bow.

After registering with the harbor master, we took a short walk around part of the new town, bought bread, had dinner, and finally the next day we had our mammoth stage, 200 km along the coast, scheduled.

200 km in one go is the distance from Mallorca Port to el Masnou and we wanted to know what it means to drive for 15 hours in one go.