I am happy to report that I have absolutely nothing exciting to say. After all of our excitement yesterday, I’m hoping for some boredom for the next few days.
Our afternoon yesterday was consumed with hiking into town to buy an internet sim card. Whenever we arrive in a new country our first priority is to get internet going.
We have satellite internet on the boat, but we are on a plan that limits our usage to 25gb a month before extra charges kick in. Also, the satellite internet is a good speed, but not a great speed. Our best option is usually to buy a local sim card and get cheap fast internet. Thus we hiked to the Vodafone, Movistar and Orange shops.
Ultimately I bought the only sim card I could (from Orange) and will go back tomorrow and try to buy another from Vodafone. I have a router on the boat (Peplink) that accepts sim cards from multiple sources and can combine the signals to give even faster internet.
By the time we were back on the boat my “Fitbit” claimed we had walked over 5 miles! Given that we hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and how hot/humid it was yesterday, once back on the boat sleep was instant.
It is a bit of culture shock being here. We were in France long enough it was beginning to feel like home, and then 24 hours later we found ourselves in Spain. The architecture is different, the people are different, the language is different. For some reason the transition felt more jarring than usual. Theoretically we should be at home here. We live in Mexico much of the time when we’re off the boat, but this doesn’t feel at all like Mexico. Even the Spanish feels different. The locals probably find it amusing when Roberta and I speak Spanish to them with a Mexican accent.
I’m not sure what is on the agenda today. My hope is: Nothing!
The long deep harbor through Mahon. I mentioned yesterday that it was lined with boats… The 3kt speed limit is great, in that it keeps wakes down, but even moving small distances with the tender can be painfully slow.
 The waterfront in Mahon (not my photo – I \ |
The waterfront in Mahon (not my photo – I “borrowed” it from a Mahon tourist site)
Sans Souci is no Med Moored (stern tied) to a dock with no power or water about a half-mile from town. Our generator has run around the clock for nearly two months. We’ve gotten so used to it that even when power is available I often don’t bother to connect. At dinner last night the topic of Sans Souci’s inverters came up. We have incredible inverter and battery capacity (14kw of inverter capacity! with over 2,000 amp hours of battery) – yet we never use it. If I were redesigning Sans Souci today I’d have much less battery capacity and only enough inverter to keep the electronics going for a few minutes
I’ve seen lots of tourist attractions, but this was a new one I’d never seen, so I thought I’d mention it. The #1 restaurant on TripAdvisor is a portable floating donut that you can rent. They load a cooler with food, and the donut has an outboard motor. In the center of the table is a barbecue. While you putter around the harbor (which is huge!) you can cook your own dinner. It’s a concept that could only work in a lake, but is apparently very fun. I told Roberta I wanted to try it, and she said, “We have our own floating restaurant.” She was right of course — but, it still looks fun. `
3 Responses
Thanks again for letting us tag along Ken and Roberta… and of course, the dogs too! 🙂
I’m really enjoying the pics – the towns in this post look so pretty! I envy those that live there! Also enjoying all the vids you’ve been posting Ken…. my only complaint…. they’re too short! But I can appreciate the data that must get consumed to upload them, so I fully understand, but perhaps if you take some longer ones, you can update some posts with them when you get home? Just a thought…. Keep those great posts coming!
Regards,
SUBJECT: RE: [KensBlog] Hanging out in Mahon, Menorca
That bbq pic was very interesting. I am with you. I would like to inspect it. Was it an inflatable? Elect motor? You have to reach out to steer? And maybe you could go with all the girls.
Enjoying your blog but the typing goes off the screen on Hotmail. When I get to the bottom of the blog I can move the page left and right but only when I am there. You can”t have the moving bar in the middle of the page. I am no computer wiz so I could use some help if I can fix from this end.
Gail Gilman
SUBJECT: RE: [KensBlog] Hanging out in Mahon, Menorca
ohh how I feel for you ken and Roberta,
struggling with the language, slower than liked internet the different architecture, and in those settings you poor boy, and girl.
I”m strapped to this desk chair trying to make sense of my latest small boat designs,
I fell asleep at my desk last night so leanne is in a mood with me.
god bless and continue to suffer in the much the same vein.
regards roy
Message Received: Aug 07 2015, 01:58 PM
From: “Passagemaking with a Nordhavn”
To: snowgoose@f…
Cc:
Subject: [KensBlog] Hanging out in Mahon, Menorca