Land

Excitement is in the air aboard the M/V Explorer today after seeing land for the first time last night! I had dinner as usual and then went up to the back deck to watch the sunset. Much to my surprise when I stepped outside there was lots of shouting and clapping. First let me fill you in on the less than ideal conditions for entering the Strait of Gibraltar; large waves rolling past the ship quickly, breeze easily in excess of 25kts, and thick wet fog whipping by. Not exactly the picturesque arrival I had been hoping for. Anyways, I walked over to the aft starboard corner of deck 7 and gazed south and what would you know, large mountains of Northern Africa were visible just above the clouds and through the fog! The clouds were so dense that nothing could be seen on the Spanish/Portuguese side but everybody was excited to know that we had made it! We took a bunch of pictures but you can’t quite see what’s behind us unfortunately. This morning the water has laid down and the sun has poked through some more, we could see Spain off our port side while eating an early breakfast and accommodating our last time change. Glad those are done with! Everyone onboard is busy making plans for the days in Barcelona and here are a few of our ideas for what we may do. The first night will be a highlight for sure because the Spanish soccer team plays Portugal in the semi-finals of the Eurocup. We plan to watch the game with the masses and then get a late Spanish style dinner before going to a famous nightclub that we have tickets to. Hopefully they win so the city is alive all night! The next couple days we plan to tour around to the famous sites and visit the FC Barcelona soccer stadium and museum. If we get a chance to get some free wi-fi I will try to post some pictures to make these readings more interesting. Thanks to all who are following along back home and a special cheers to Brooks for his birthday! Hope it was an epic one buddy, did you get my email? We dock tomorrow morning around 8am, stay tuned for a report in about four five days from our adventures in Barcelona!!

Jeff