The Island of Mallorca lies just of the east coast of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea. The Baeleric Island group is made up of three major islands, the largest and middle island being Mallorca, Menorca to the northeast, and Ibiza to the southwest. I arrived in Palma de Mallorca at midnight on Friday to discover that my luggage did not make the last of 4 legs of my flight from the US. I checked the bag in Barcelona where I had a 6 hour layover and somewhere between there and this little island my bag and I were separated. I was in good spirits though, thinking my bag would arrive the next day. I grabbed a cab with another american who was in town to also go sailing and asked the cabbie to take me to the cathedral where I would meet up with my friends who were out at a nearby bar.
As I walked around the narrow streets of Palma
searching for the bar my friends were in, I heard my name shouted and saw Tom walking toward me. After hours of traveling alone it was good to finally see a familiar face. It is such a strange feeling to travel halfway across the planet to a strage town and without having firm plans, run into the person you were trying to find. The group was tired and headed to bed, but Tom and Brett (the captain of our boat) understanding my excitement for finally arriving, accompanied me out to a small Irish Pub for a beer. I walked up to the bar and in my best Spanish ordered a beer. To my astonishment the bartender responded to me in English with a strong Irish accent. I looked at Tom and Brett and said "What county am I in"?The next day, Saturday, we woke and met the rest of our sailing crew in the lobby of the Hotel. There was Captain Brett and girlfriend Johanna from San Fransisco, Mike and Carolyn from L.A., Jennifer and George, captain of boat #2, from Tucson and Jennifer's friend Tricia from Pennsylvania, Megan and Ragnar "the honeymooners" from Houston, Jimmy from Chicago, Gisela (originally from Barcelona) and Kristof (originally from Germany) but now both live in Paris, Julien (from France) and his girlfriend Lysh, who is American but also live in Paris and Tom and I. There were 17 of us total. We left the hotel and hauled all of our luggage (mine consisting of one small carry on backpack) down to the docks where we spent the rest of the day provisioning our two sail boats with food and drinks for the trip. The rain was pouring down on us and we were unable to set sail, so we spent the night in port. I called and called the airport to try and retrieve my luggage but all they could tell me was "we have no information about your bag". Tom, Johanna and I went into town to the largest department store I have ever seen, the Corte Ingles, and I bought a toothbrush, deoderant, and a few essential clothing items to survive the trip. (Seriously, this store was amazing! Imagine a Dillards size department store with 6 floors, a floor for women, one for men, one for children, one completely dedicated to groceries, a floor with discounted items, and another just for makeup, perfume and accessories. I couldn't believe it!) My one saving grace on the trip was that on the airplane I had wrapped around my waist my friend Ryan's $200 waterproof rain coat. The weather was freezing and the rain seemed like it would never stop.
Sunday we woke up in the morning to an overcast sky, but no rain. With the weather looking as promising as we had seen since arrival, we set sail early and headed west to start our trip around Mallorca. I headed below deck and fell asleep, as I was struggling with major jet lag. A few hours later I woke up to Tom calling my name to come up and see dolphins that had surrounded the boat. I ran up the stairs and up to the bow of the boat where the rest of the crew were all laying on their bellies looking over the front of the bow. There must have been a school of at least 20 dolphins swimming up between the middle of the catamaran, looking up at us and then swimming ahead to jump and play in the waves. They swam and played around the boat for over 30 minutes, some of them jumping out of the water and fully breaching. As they would swim up under the catamaran they would swim upside down and look up at us looking down at them. We could see the whiteness of their bellies and it was like they were waving up at us to say hello. It was our own personal Sea World show.
This was truly a turning point in the trip. Tom said if you see dolphins at the outset of a trip, you are blessed with good luck for the rest of the voyage. We left the rain behind us. It no longer mattered that I had no luggage...I was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea!Part 2 ....coming soon.....
