We’ve arrived! First 24 hours on board
Yesterday at 10 am we got off the plane in Almería, Spain. At 4 am we woke up and after some coffee and last minute stress (“Mom! I lost my sunglasses!” Unpacked everything from the backpack and eventually find them in a side pocket…. ) drove to the airport at 5. The kids were overjoyed; getting up ‘in the middle of the night’ and watching the sun come up from the departure hall was a very exciting big deal.
With a little bit of trouble we loaded our luggage into the boot of the rental car and headed to Almerimar. I think it took no less than 5 minutes for the kids to fall asleep in the back seats!
Upon getting here we found there was apparently a bit of a miscommunication about our date of arrival; the boat hadn’t been cleaned yet, there was desert dust everywhere! And we had no key. Udo, our contact here, thought we would arrive the 16th. Not a problem, we just went to a nearby restaurant for drinks while he sorted everything out and had our boat hosed off.
After drinks the kids rediscovered their room and the playmobil we kept there. What amazed us was that they knew exactly what was there! (“Oh, here’s the mommy penguin, but where is the other baby penguin? We had 3! And where is the fridge? It should be here.”)
Rene and I both had a short nap while the kids played. In the afternoon I made the beds and while I was busy doing that, we had our first visitors. A French-South African couple with an almost 6 year old girl knew we were coming (facebook is so great for cruisers!) and she was dying to meet up and play with kids who spoke English. So only a few hours after our arrival here our girls were already playing and making a new friend!
We went out for dinner because we didn’t get any groceries yet and we were all knackered. We all went to sleep at 9 and slept until 9 this morning, even the girls! We needed that!
This morning we went to the store for some breakfast and then slowly started to unpack. Important things first: the kids’ toys and stuffed animals. I noticed Robin instantly felt better about having her own stuff around. Udo delivered the boxes we had mailed here. We unpacked a few (schoolbooks!) and stored the rest in the spare cabin to sort out later. We are trying to take it real easy!
We then went to visit the boat from our new friends we met the day before and let the girls play for a bit while we chatted. Now we are back at our boat and all three girls are busy playing. I can hear them chatting from their room right now. I’m so proud of Robin and Lauren for knowing how to speak English and for making friends so easily!
It is very windy out today. We even had the girls hold our hand walking back to our boat because it’s quite stormy. The boat is swaying and the wind is howling through the masts.
But it is sunny and we are here. Even with boxes everywhere the boat feels like home already. We still have a lot to unpack and we’ll probably rearrange some stuff to make it work better (and again, and again), but all in due time. We are not in a hurry anymore.
Or as the Spanish say: Mañana, mañana. There is always tomorrow.