Ellis -- Tell Us: Another charter closed

It’s been awhile since I’ve had enough time to sit down and actually make my brain work enough to put together a few sentences. I am currently sitting in the Zurich airport (Switzerland). After a interesting, exciting, and long nine months I have decided it’s time to move boats and allow myself a little R&R before I’m off again for another year or so. This time I won’t go nine months of work and no vacation time. The “rules” on the boat I was on were a little skewed.

Going from Fort Lauderdale - Azores, Portugal - Gibraltar, UK - San Remo, Italy - Morocco, Africa - Monaco - Genova, Italy - Corsica, France - Naples, Italy plus a lot more small cities all down the Italian coast and then over to Sardinia, Italy for the past five months, I’ve learn all of about six solid words of Italian, working a little more on my French and I feel as if I know more Spanish than I thought.

We just came off two back to back one day turn around charters. First trip was all Italian ladies who were supposed to come for five days and ended up staying nine. One day in between trips and then another trip with 11 guests for ten days. Giving my notice and knowing the date I was leaving was brutal. Even though all my crew was very supportive in my choice of leaving I was sad to go because they were such an amazing crew. For reasons I can’t really put out on the internet I only left for one reason and that reason seemed little by little to drive me to insanity. I’m happy with my choices so far and headed to Palma, Spain to see my boyfriend and travel around Europe with him. After i have some relaxation I will return to Palma for the new job search and see where the wind takes me.

(As the sun was setting, I was taken ashore and leaving behind Big Eagle - Porto Cervo, Sardinia, Italy)

As I sit here thinking about my journey so far, just today I don’t understand why I like travel so much. I have been super stressed out just trying to get from point A to point B. I started off by getting off Big Eagle and into the tender with all my crew for a small booze cruise and my sending off. We docked the tender right in the heart of the town and turned up the music and all had to shotgun and beer in memory of me. (As an American, I taught a lot of my crew what that is) We then opened a bottle of wine and sipped away as we waited for my cab to arrive. I came to the boat with a large rolling bag and a small duffle. I left with the same two plus an oversized purse/bag, a backpack and a trash bag full of stuff. I don’t know how I acquired so much stuff (well you can guess) but I had to get rid of some stuff unfortunately just to be able for the tender to stay afloat. After trying to get a taxi and get to my hotel for the night, I was able to get into my room and was expecting a nice big comfy bed and AC. I got neither of those two things. It was two cot sized beds that flipped up like a beach chair when I sat on the end of it and an AC that blew out warm air. The shower was smaller than the size of the one I had on the boat and I had to turn off the shower to shave properly and had to step OVER the toilet to get into the shower. To top it all off, I was trying to look pretty before seeing Dave and curl my hair…I don’t have an Italian converter, so that was a no go and I left my toiletries bag on the boat. No tooth brush, tooth paste, deodorant etc. Just a great start to my vacation so far. No wifi in the room and they didn’t give me my ID back. Thus far my travels have been not so good. I wake up and go to the airport and the line is out the door but not to worry I am there in plenty of time. I get up to the front of the line and they say I haven’t paid for a 2nd piece of baggage. I have to get out of line to go pay an extra 85 euros just to check another bag then get back in line. By this point, I’m very hangry (hungry and angry). Somehow I make my flight in time and now in Zurich, but my flight is the only flight delayed an hour. I just want to get to my destination and have no responsibilities for at least a solid 24 hours.

Made it to Palma…Dave picked me up at the airport and went back to his flat and just explored around old town the first day. Second day we got a cute little hostel in Daia which is north of the city in the mountains. Small town, not a lot around but has such a cute Spanish influence. Before we came to Daia we looked around and had lunch in Sollere which is another town north of the city in the mountains but a lot more touristy and crowded. The town was right on a port and had a lot of small boats and a few beaches. After a winding 30 minute drive to Daia we found our hostel at the tip top of the peak of a mountain. Covered in ivy and a spanish style roof, we had a room with a tiny little balcony and kept the room cool with the breeze coming through and we could look out into the valley of the entire town of Daia. The chickens were talking in the wee hours of the morning along with the birds singing and the enormous drops of rain hitting the roof. It was like I was dreaming. Laying in bed listening to all the amazing sounds early in the morning was exactly what the doctor ordered. We now are heading back to the city of Palma and going to go for a spa day because the weather hasn’t been good since I’ve been here. I’m ok with that because I’ve been in the sunshine and amazing weather for pretty much the past nine months and the cool mountain air is perfect.