One hull or two?

We had a wonderful weekend in Madrid; it was lovely to see Louisa and Richard again. Like London buses, having not seen Louisa for 20 years we have seen them twice in 2 years!











After a days rubber necking we hit the town for a fabulous tapas dinner- then on to the clubs! Well sort off, we went to a Flamenco club to watch them strut their stuff and it was impressive indeed! Real Flamenco isn't the red flouncy dresses that you see in the tourist resorts that are a poor take off of the Folie Bergere. Flamenco is mostly danced by a single male or female seriously strutting their stuff and was well likened by Richard to a David Attenborough nature show on birds puffing their chests out to impress the girls! It was very intense, fabulously noisy from the tap shoes and very engaging. We thoroughly recommend it for a nights entertainment in Madrid!












And of course, when in Madrid, you have to do the tourist bit!

Do we follow the demonstrations of the world round the world or do they follow us? From Gays and Fascists in Sweden to Gay and Lesbian parades in Paris and now independence demonstrations in Madrid!






Within 3 days of getting back from Madrid we were on the great silver bird back to the main land again, this time to Barcelona. The story to this one spreads over about a month.
Melanie doesn't like to tip on a boat, nor does she like to roll (with that I have to sympathise). Having rolled for 400 miles down the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal I convinced myself that it wouldn't happen in the Med; in the Atlantic we had 30 knots of wind most of the way and, well, it was the Atlantic, the Meds just a big pond right? Well yes, and the swell is smaller, but its short and its steep and within the first 200 miles into the med when my glass flew across the cockpit during a particularly big roll I just thought - this has got to stop- I don't like this never mind Melanie! The way to stop the rolling - 2 hulls - and so the decision was made, we would cash in my beloved Moondance with whom I have shared so many adventures and get a catamaran.


Coincidentally we are in the mega center of the sailing world for cats. Everywhere we anchor there is at least one cat so a little cheekily we rowed over to every cat and said hello and asked if we could take a look! There are many fewer makes of catamarans than mono hulls so very quickly we were able to home in on what we wanted. The more we homed in the luckier we got with viewings; exactly what we wanted to see would pull into the anchorage and over we would go with some beer for a look around!
The next piece of luck was that, having homed in on what we wanted, there was one available close to us just south of Barcelona so we went over to see it yesterday. So many cats are frankly floating sheds and after having had such a beautiful sea worthy boat I couldn't face one of those; we did manage to find a well built boat that did actually at least resemble a sailing boat. The angle of the photo and the 'tent' round her cockpit do not do her justice!
We liked her very much; we have put in an offer; watch this space!