Season’s greetings everyone, from Rota, Spain, where we were stationed with the Navy from 2000-2003. We’ve now visited all of our duty stations east of the Mississippi since we set sail from DC in March 2018. We made landfall here on 5 September 2019, after a circuitous transatlantic crossing that began in St. Augustine, Florida, in February. We made stops in Dominican Republic (3 months), Puerto Rico (1 month), the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands (2 weeks), Bermuda (1 week), and Faial, São Jorge, Terciera, and São Miguel Azores (1 month), before the final leg into the Bay of Cádiz and Rota. We certainly didn’t think when we arrived in Rota that we’d still be here nearly four months later!
One reason we thought we’d be elsewhere is we could only legally stay in Spain for 60 days, because we spent 30 days in the Azores, and Americans can only stay in most of the EU countries for 90 days (combined) out of any 180-day period. So on the 89th day, we flew back to the U.S. to apply for non-lucrative visas, which will allow us to stay in Spain as tourists for a year. And any day we spend in Spain with our visas in hand, stops the clock with respect to time in other EU countries. Applying for a visa is a story in an unto itself, and we’ll describe it in another post.
Once we decided to go back to the U.S., we thought we might as well max pack the visit and stay for a while, and that’s exactly what we did. We flew into Miami (which, as Florida residents, is where we had to apply for our visas) and went straight away to the Spanish Consulate to apply, then drove to Orlando for reunions with brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews, and then to St. Augustine for a Seven Seas Cruising Association sailing symposium. St. Augustine has unexpectedly become like a homeport for us. It has ample services for yachts and yachties, and our dentist is there; and it’s close to Naval Hospital Jacksonville, where we receive medical care, and to Green Cove Springs where we receive our snail mail for forwarding to us wherever we might be. We’re grateful to USNA classmate Ed & Linda Turner for inviting us to stay in their comfortable ocean front condo during our week stopover in St. Augustine.
After St. Augustine we visited a first cousin in Savannah, where he’s been a riverboat captain for ~15 years, and then on to Patuxent River, MD, where David officiated at a promotion ceremony for Navy doctor whose family he cared for back in the mid-1990s when the new commander was a junior enlisted Sailor on a ship in San Diego. Then it was on to Arlington for Thanksgiving week with granddaughter Maebel and her parents. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving reunion with all five us together for the first time since Shelby’s wedding in 2014. In addition, Travis’s parents braved some nasty weather in Colorado to make Thanksgiving a true family affair. We were back on the road the following day, though, retracing our route back to Miami, with a stopover at David’s sister’s home in Merritt Island, and then back to Miami to pick up our visas and catch our return flight to Spain. Whew!!
We returned to Spain a month to the day after we departed, and made arrangements to relaunch At First Sight, which we had hauled out of the water while we were away. Our month back in the U.S. was the longest both Vicki and I had been off AFS at the same time since we moved aboard in August 2014, and putting her in the “marina seca” seemed like the least stressful thing to do (except, of course, for the stress of the Travelift itself). The crew at Puerto Deportivo De Rota, did a great job hauling, blocking, and relaunching our home, and we’ll probably return to this picturesque and secure marina in February 2020, when we go back to the States when Shelby and Travis bring our second grandchild into this world, forecasted to be our first grandson.
As it usually does, December flew by in the blink of an eye. Charlie joined us a week after we arrived, and we were full of good intentions to get underway for the Straits of Gibraltar and the Med. Unfortunately, a series of cold fronts passed through the area and we had four days and nights of driving rain storms, 40+ knot wind, and heavy seas, all of which kept us securely tied to the dock in Rota. By the time the nasty weather had passed, we were into Christmas week, with kind offers to spend Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) and La Navidad (Christmas Day) with the Diaz and Peñuelas families, muy muy amigos from our years stationed in Rota.
Charlie will be returning in a few days to his life in Atlanta as a 2nd year medical student, and with his departure and the passing of the holiday season, our lives aboard AFS will return to some sense of normalcy – whatever that is when you’re living aboard a sailboat. We intend to pick up where we left off a few weeks ago. Specifically, we have our eyes on the marine weather forecasts for the Straits of Gibraltar and the western Mediterranean, where we hope to transit during the first week in January.
In the meantime, we send you our best wishes for safe, healthy, and happy New Year and a joyful and gratifying 2020.