Funny the way the smallest things surprise you the most when you do a new thing in life.

I'm sitting here aboard the boat, at the Club Nautico in Palma. Outside, the wind and the rain make it impossible to go out even for a drink at the bar. We've spent a week cleaning up the mess and making it look nice, because when they took it to the water after the reparations, it looked as if it was a battleship right out of the Gulf War. But now it's the final run, so the captain and the second (I'm the last monkey aboard) are discussing how long will it take, and it's just fascinating to listen to them.

Curious, to realize how little we care about the weather in our normal lives nowadays, the sun or the rain just means a good day at the beach or watching a video at home. But here, at sea, the weather strikes back and reminds you of how it must have been for the ancient sailors, when they didn't have satellite weather reports and radio forecasts. And, still, listening the radio call all ships and talk about wind speed and waves and temperatures, and the crew listening carefully to the news, then grabbing the pages fresh from the fax, going through them, thinking about possible improvements on the conditions. After all, far away from safe ground, we'll just be a small cork floating away on the lonely sea.

Mum calls, she wants to know what time exactly we'll be arriving in Gibraltar... "I don't know, mum" I just realized a boat is not a bus, you don't have departure or arrival times, sometimes not even dates. Slowly, here they talk miles and knots, and currents and winds and waves. Nature, nature, nature...the same as 2000 years ago, nothing has changed much, if there's no wind, there's no wind, and no matter how advanced and evolved, we can't make it blow.

So yeah, that's it. I'm living in a very reduced space now, my cabin is a two bunk Liliputian room on the tack of the boat. Every corner is used for storage and I confirmed that I did bring too much luggage, the high heels don't fit too well on the shoe compartment underneath my berth...

This home moves a lot, one more of those facts one comes to notice. Everything has to be secured to the walls and the floor and the tables, the kitchen swings when the boat heels to one side so the pots and pans won't fall over...and you leave your shoes outside at all times, no stepping on the carpet with those dirty things!!

My two teachers in this adventure are Mike, the German captain and Miguel, Spanish. He already has experience with this boat and he will be with us until we cross the Atlantic and, probably on the way back. I hope, by then, I won't as clumsy as I am these days.

I feel like a child, really, and we haven't even set off to sea yet. I can't wait. Also because it's cold and disgusting here now, and I'm eager to learn everything, the night watches, the ropes, the GPS, the sails...and especially all this new vocabulary spoken amongst sea people, the names, the traditions, the superstitions, the uses, the life aboard...What a romantic profession is this, no wonder they say "Once a sailor, always a sailor".