To Dénia

March 10, 2024

The alarm on my iPad chirps at the unpleasantly early hour of 5:45, but I’ve been waking up off and on for the last two hours anyway, reaching over to check the time - my usual response to an early morning can’t-miss event. We don’t need anything like this much lead time really, but we want to be on the safe side. At 6:30 we’re down at the front desk, turning over the door cards. The night agent asks if we need a cab, but I tell him we have bikes.

I’ve thought through all the usual issues that might come up to delay us, but this morning throws a new one on the heap to remember for the future - the agent has no idea where the bikes are. Not surprising, since the hotel doesn’t have a dedicated spot for them and this guy wasn’t around yesterday. I have a vague memory of where we were led yesterday, but it’s not good enough. We head down one wing of the hotel to a series of doors that look like they could be the one, but they’re not. So that’s a concern, as I feel our 30 minutes quickly draining to the bottom of our hourglass.

Then I remember the room was more or less a closet, stuffed with mattresses. That’s enough of a trigger for our guy, and he takes me down a different hall and through the bar where we had dinner yesterday. Crisis resolved, and we still have twenty minutes to reach the port. We give it another five to let a little more predawn light to emerge, and then head toward the port. It’s surprisingly warm, and more importantly dry.

It’s only a few blocks but a roundabout route with a few turns, so I mapped it out on the Garmin. Unfortunately can’t read the silly map in the dark, so at every junction we stop for a map check. When we bike Rachael lags a bit behind, and I periodically call out to make sure she’s still back there.

We reach the port at about ten minutes of, and after consulting a security guard we’re directed to the right gate; and once there, when I check in with the desk agent we’re instructed to go back outside in the parking lot and mingle with the cars. It’s a long line but we keep getting waved to the front - and when we get there we’re the first passengers to board. Which works for us, because we’re also the first in line at the cafeteria, where we load up on a pair of treats and cafe con leches each.

I’ve forgotten what kind of ticket we purchased months ago but apparently it includes better than minimal seating, and we’re led a small room with a few dozen seats and shown how to gain entrance by scanning the QR code on our tickets at the door. We grab our seats, I go back on deck to take a few photos of the city now that it’s light, and then a few more a half hour later when we’re underway. I’m good for maybe two minutes, because the wind blowing at the stern is fierce enough that it’s not that easy to stand. I stupidly drop my coat to the deck for some reason I can’t recall, and it immediately gets blown away. I’m lucky to get a foot on it before it gets picked up by the wind and blown overboard. That would be a Team Anderson first on the ledger.

Leaving Palma. The tower is the Porto Pi lighthouse, the second oldest operating lighthouse in Spain and the third oldest worldwide. Behind it is San Carlos Castle.

The massive Palma Cathedral. I’m sure there’s a lot to see in this historic city. If we ever come back to this island we should save a day to look around - and one that’s not raining cats and dogs like yesterday was.

We lean back in our comfortable seats and settle in for the six hour crossing, reflecting on how much nicer this is than the agonizing crossing to Alcudia was two weeks ago. It’s light out so we can enjoy the views, we’re not jet lagged, we’re nowhere near as sick as we were then, and we won’t be arriving in the dark. But before long the ship starts swaying badly enough that a voice over the intercom instructs passengers to return to their seats and I start feeling queasy. I’ve never gotten seasick, but this feels like it could be a first.

The next two hours go very slowly. I feel nauseous, for one thing. For another, my Fitbit alerts me that my heart rate is low - at 45, it’s at least 15 below my new normal resting rate ever since my ablation surgery. It makes me anxious, as I watch it drop further until it bottoms out at 42 and then stays in that range for the next hour. My first thought is that I may have screwed up and doubled my diltiazem dose this morning somehow, which would really be alarming. That’s only happened once in all the years I’ve taken this medication, and that time earned me an ambulance ride to a hospital.

I really don’t think that happened this time though, and the fact that my rate stops dropping reinforces that. My theory is that it was some sort of weird reaction to the motion sickness, maybe also affected by my lingering Covid symptoms.

Finally though we’re out of the rough waters as we near Ibiza, the intermediate port on the journey. While we’re stopped I go out on the deck again for a few shots, and when we are seated again my HR has stabilized at a more normal 55.

Ibiza, another place I hear we should check out if we’re ever in the neighborhood again.

Ibiza is about the midpoint of our voyage, so we still have another three hours to endure. The waters are calmer though and it’s a more comfortable ride, now that I’m not worried about having a cardiac emergency. It’s more comfortable once we manage to get to our seats again that is. It’s puzzling and then concerning when our QR codes no longer open the door - maybe the system got reset at Ibiza? It’s not good though since all of our stuff is on the other side of the locked door, but finally someone else gets through and we slip in with them.

As we near the mainland, we’re surprised to see dark clouds hanging over the town. It was supposed to be fair all day, but a check of the weather app shows that there’s a bit of rain coming, starting right about the time we make landfall.

Were first off the boat, just as we were first on. I’m stunned by how striking Dénia is when we bike off the ship, but with a few drops just starting to fall we don’t tarry to look around and just bike the half mile to the restaurant Rachael picked out for us.

We lock our bikes together outside the window, get seated at the table next to it, and get served the menu of the day - a complete bargain: a flat €16 each gets us a set or four small tapas as a starter, a choice of fish or meat entree, a dessert and a beverage. Toward the end we enjoy a conversation with the English-fluent Dutch couple at the next table, who expound on what a wonderful small city Denia is -the right size, great hiking, great biking, a good community for ex-pats. They’ve been coming down here for four months each winter for the last decade and think it’s the best place on the southern coast. It gives us ideas, and makes us glad we’ve booked a three night stay here with time enough to form our own impressions.

It’s windy and just beginning to sprinkle when we leave the ship.

Our timing is perfect. It hasn’t really started raining yet when we arrive, and skies are blue when we’re done with our meal.

Arrival at our apartment is an unexpected fiasco. We registered online and received check in instructions several days ago, but the instructions don’t match the reality that greets us when we come to our six floor apartment building. They instruct us to open the black key box with the provided code, but there’s no black key box. There’s just an array of 25 mail boxes, and we haven’t even been given a name or number so we don’t know what room is ours anyway. The building door is ajar, so I check out every door on every floor of the six story building, finally returning to tell Rachael that none of them has a black key box.

So Rachael calls the emergency number (the office is closed, because it’s the weekend) and we wait for a callback. When it comes, we’re told the room number and instructed to open its mailbox. We can see that there’s a key box (white, not black) inside of it, but it’s a keyed mail slot and we can’t open its door. Our resource keeps telling us to just open it, but we keep telling him we can’t. So finally he says he’ll be over in fifteen minutes, and we wait.

He shows up. We feel foolish when he shows us the magic motion you use to open the door, and it works. You just have to know. He extracts the key from the lockbox and reminds us to put it back when we leave, so we’ll have to remember how to open the box again. And then he escorts us up to the apartment, briefly orients us, and then we’re on our own.

What are you squawking about, gull? You think you’ve got problems?

The apartment is great. Spacious, comfortable, attractive, it has everything we need now that we’re oriented. We could live here.

Not bad at all - we have a nice view of Montgó Massif from our bedroom window.

I’m feeling really good - better than yesterday, much better than the day before, almost normal. Rachael heads out to the store to provision us for three days, and as soon as she returns I’m off for a walk down to the waterfront. I’m thinking I’ll walk out to the end of the south jetty, but first I get trapped inside the marina. It’s the closest access to the waterfront, but a half mile later I’m still trapped inside of it on the wrong side of a long fence that never does have another gap through it to the pedestrian promenade everyone else is strolling on. Finally I come to the end of the property, face a wall, and turn back to return to the sole entrance.

Our street. For some reason there have been intermittent explosions from small firecrackers ever since we arrived.

Montgó Massif, the towering mountain that rises just south of town.

For Keith Adams, who loves this kind of thing for some reason.

Nice marina, and a huge one. Not worth a mile walk of its perimeter and back though.

So finally I’m outside, and on the path out to the pier with all the other walkers. It’s a long pier, and my goal is to get to the dogleg near the end where I hope for an unobstructed view back at Montgó Massif, and across the bay to the castle we biked beneath when we arrived.

As luck would have it though it starts lightly raining before I get there. Umbrellas pop out, people start walking back toward town, and I’m debating whether I should too.

It’s a long jetty. I’m already halfway our, after walking past a battery of shops and bars.

A nice view to contemplate while you’re hoping the fish will bite.

Should I turn back? If she can brave it, so can I.

I get my view across the bay to the castle, but its a pretty gloomy one.

But I’m rewarded for continuing on when the brief shower ceases and the sun briefly breaks through - just enough to cast a faint rainbow across the sky. It’s a fitting end to what’s by far been the best day since we arrived two weeks go, and probably the first one that’s honestly felt like fun for me. It feels like the tour finally began today.

This is more like it! A harbinger of better days to come.

There’s even a faint second arch in the south above Sant Antoni Cape.

We’ll be biking along the base of that mountain when we leave here in three days.

Today's ride: 3 miles (5 km)
Total: 91 miles (146 km)

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Rich FrasierIt sounds like you're both feeling better, which warms my heart! Keep it up!
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9 months ago

Susan CarpenterThings seem to be heading in the right direction - yeah! Perhaps adopting a new plan for the next few weeks relieved some stress and eased the road to recovery. And rainbows are always a good omen!
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9 months ago

Gregory GarceauI remember getting seasickness once when I was cruising Lake Huron to Mackinac Island on a ferry. I'm not sure if my nauseousness was caused by the big waves or the sight of other people vomiting overboard.

Rainbows are so cool. I think of them as the aurora borealis for people who don't live inside or near the arctic circle.
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9 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Rich FrasierThanks for the encouragement, Rich. I’m happy to report that we’re both more or less back to normal. Such a glorious feeling!
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9 months ago