We sailed on along an increasingly attractive coast, the Costa Brava, which is the last 200 kms before the French border. There are more cliffs and trees and old castles, and fewer hotels and houses. We made several marina stops and sampled more good restaurants, particularly enjoying the mandatory Catalan bread with meals. It's thin long piece of a toasted baguette, on which you rub a garlic clove and a cut tomato, pour oil and sprinkle salt.

We passed a day sight seeing in Sant Feliu de Guixols, and were entertained at the end of our first night by more fireworks and a four piece Catalan band and singers, standing around the starboard navigation light that guides boats into the harbour. As they were dressed as sailors, we assumed they were singing Catalan sea shanties, especially as Sant Feliu is a working fishing port. Whatever they were singing, they were very good and the crowd sitting along the sea wall appreciated them. Sant Feliu claims one of the heroes of the 1571 Battle of Lepanto, in the Gulf of Corinth, the site of which we passed in 2013, where the Ottoman Turks were defeated by the Holy Alliance including Spain, and Cervantes was wounded. It put paid to the Turks desire to control the Mediterranean.

On day 2 in SFdG we took the tourist mini train which took us around some very attractive residential streets as well as passing an elevated church, Sant Elm Hermitage, with a magic view. The building had been a strategic fortification used to defend the Sant Feliu Coast since the 15th century but demolished by French troops during wars in the 18th century and rebuilt in 1923. It was at the lookout point here that the writer Ferran Aquilo came up with the name Costa Brava to describe the rugged coastline.

The route then took us around the adjacent bay Badia de Sant Pol where there were actual waves and surfboard riders. Many beautiful people were sunning themselves but there was also the occasional overweight lobster. All in all a very pretty bit of coastline.