On Sunday morning we went for a long bike ride on the coastal path that runs to the south from Denia. You can walk or ride for about 6 miles along roughly paved track and with warm sunshine and a coffee stop we had a good time weaving in and out of all the promenading Spanish and expats - we could hear lots of English spoken. We got back to Splice about 14.00 hrs for a late BBQ lunch and a lazy afternoon.
On Monday we were up early as the dinghy was due to be delivered on the first drop of the day. But this is Spain, and as we wanted an early start to avoid another days charges in the marina you can guess what happened. A frustrating day for us and Carlos from the chandlery as his phone calls chased our dinghy delivery truck around the region. It turned up at around 18.30 so it was 19.30 when he brought our new ‘car’ over and towed our old one away (Chris certainly didn’t cry!). We were about to eat so all Chris did was hoist her up on the davit to make sure she was safe for the night (it’s harder to steal a dinghy that’s hoisted out of the water as it makes more noise than just cutting/untying a line so we habitually do this)
We were keen to test ‘Fid’ as she has been christened, so straight after breakfast on Tuesday we dropped the outboard onto her and went for a spin around the harbour. As there is a speed limit we couldn’t open the engine right up but she purred along well and should do us a good job as our workhorse. We also spotted another Broadblue catamaran in the other marina so motored over to say hello. ‘Enigma’ is a BB385 and we chatted to Ray for a while. As there are not many of these boats about we usually go and say ‘Hi’ if we see one.
After coffee we then prepped Splice to leave for our sail back to Moraira, dropping lines at 11.30 hrs. The first hour was a ‘bit bumpy’ into 2m seas with a F4 NE wind but as we turned the first corner it became a touch smoother. This has been our first real ‘sail’ of the season as the wind was previously absent. Splice went along well on a beam-reach (wind on the side) and as we turned further south the wind came behind us and we prepared to gybe. Of course, as we did so the wind increased to 20+knts and we had an exhilarating (Chris’s word not Carolyn’s!) 30 minute blast into the shelter of Moraira bay, our maximum speed reached 9.3 knts which we think is a Splice record. Once in the shelter the wave motion disappeared and though the wind is still gusting past at 20 knots we are sitting comfortably tucked behind the headland.

Any non-sailors know why we chose to call the dinghy ‘Fid’?

Photo: Fid on her davits during our boisterous sail