As we sailed out of Moraira Harbor—eight lame tourists and our captain, Jonas’ dad—one of the harbor crewmen looked out over the still water at us and made a wave symbol with his arm, rolling it up and down. Paolo pointed him out to me and all I could imagine was it was his way of saying “Surf’s up, have fun out there.” So I did the only thing I know how and stuck both arms up with Shaka’s at their ends and yelled “Surf’s up, bro,” while all of us laughed. Except for the crewman on the docks.
No more than 30 seconds later we got sight of the swell that swept past the jetty and started to doubt our own blind enthusiasm. Jonas’ sister Tara got a glimpse and decided to abandon her post hanging off of the bow pulpit. The rest of us naively stayed exactly where we were, standing on the middle of the deck with little or nothing to hang on to.
As we rounded the jetty we got a true glimpse of what was to come on the open sea: rocking, white-capped swells of water that extended at least 3 meters from trough to crest, with salt-spray blowing in our faces on the strong wind that swept towards the harbor. Nonetheless our faithful captain motored fearlessly into the fray. We clustered helplessly around the boat, a few tugging at the forestay, a few on the boom, and Marine faithfully keeping our captain company in the cockpit, where the rocking was most benign.
The further away from the harbor we ventured the more violent the experience became. It didn’t take long for everyone further forward than the mast to be soaked in seawater, either from the spray in the air or the bow pitching underneath the waves. We hadn’t made it very far, maybe 400 meters from shore, when I first started looking back to land and wondering if I could swim for it if everything went sour.
After another 100 meters of motoring, our captain decided that this was never going to become the pleasure cruise that we’d all hoped for and spun the boat around, momentarily causing even more violent turbulence as we were broadsided by the waves. With the waves pushing from behind our fear turned into delight as we surfed our way back to the harbor. The motor sputtered and spat with no water to push as the boat sat at the crest, and churned violently as it sank it’s blades into the water on our way back down the wave.
As we rounded the end of the jetty we saw the same harbor man standing there, and that’s when it hit us. He wasn’t saying “surf’s up,” but rather “watch out, it’s hairy out there.” As soon as he saw us he radioed the rest of his crew and hustled to our berth to help us tie up safely. Even with the help of three harbor employees we played bumper-cars on our way into the slip.
As we all clambered off of the boat, slightly sea-sick and full of adrenaline, we brought our unused towels and unopened beers with us in hopes that we’d still find a use for them. And it didn’t take long for that use to materialize. Jonas led us to the other end of the harbor to a place where we jumped off of the docks with the local kids and basked in the warm mediteranean water before it was time to head home.
Boating was just one of the reasons to return to Jonas’ house in Spain for a third time. Not only did the trip mark the end of Paolo’s time in Europe (for now), it also coincided with the "San Jaime” summer celebration of Benimarco. The quaint town near Jonas’ house was set to show off the best food, fireworks, and bull-running they could muster.
This turned out to be the town square fenced off with ad-hoc wooden slats, someone’s grandpa faithfully attending a grill filled with succulent Spanish pork of all cuts, and some jumpy old men in Just Do It Nike shirts in the square egging on the bulls. One after another they led the confused adolescent bulls out of the pens and towards the crowd where the naive teens, irrational middle-aged men, and an absolutely deranged old woman taunted bovine beasts from one edge of the crowd to the other.
They waved sticks with ratty old sweatshirts tied to the ends in the animals’ faces and then hid behind reinforced metal bars as they slammed their horns against the cage in retribution. The crowd, toddler to senile, laughed and clapped and cheered the runners on as they performed daring stunts like removing a ribbon from a bull’s horn. We sat there on the edge of the square, in awe and confusion, at the strangeness of the whole ritual as the sun edged towards the horizon.
Photos from our second trip to Spain
