April 2017

In the Netherlands I packed as much as the car could carry and left for Sant Carles de la Rapita in the Northern of Spain.
On the first day I arrived at Perpignan late in the evening and managed to get a hotel.
The next day I left for Spain. It is a bit hard to get LPG for the car in Spain, so I left the ‘Route Peaje’ for a fuel stop near a town called VIC. Suddenly while I was driving up a motorway a car hit me. Airbags filled the car with smoke. It took a while before I realized the car was gone.

Well a car fully loaded, 250 km away from the destination. Shit. I just lost my last little home. Services came right away and the car was towed away and I managed to hire a van. Finally, after a lot of searching for roads, public transport, etc. I had my stuff in the apartment and the van back to the car rental. That’s 750 km by van, train, metro and buses.

The next day I visited the catamaran while it was lifted. Very dirty, but that seemed to be normal here in the Mediterranean.

I agreed with the owner about a working and testing schedule;

Testing the hull turned out good, but the next day I measured a lot of moisture at the back. We managed to have a look inside and a lot of water came out. We where both very disillusioned. I saw my plan fail completely. All my stuff had to be stored somewhere and I could start my search all over again. The owner saw a lot of costs and no sale this season. Well we both took a deep breath, gave it some time and finally agreed upon repairs. We both worked on the hulls and the report from the engineer about both engines turned out good. The repairs will be done by a neighboring yard. It could take 2 weeks starting the 24th of April, but I could live on the boat at the yard. So my first sail will be in May (I hope).
We skipped the antifouling, because the boat will be lifted again and stay ashore for another two weeks and every drying it gets is good.
The surveyor did a thorough job and all turned out well.

The last step will be, getting an insurance and registering the boat in a country. I was thinking of Belgium for the low costs and easy administration.

Next . . .