I spent the first three weeks of October in Bilbao,Spain, supporting Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's preparations for the Velux 5 Oceans single-handed round the world race sailing race. For a quick summary of Sir Robin and the race, take a look at the following September 17th, 2006 article in the London Times:
Timesonline.co.uk article on Sir Robin
As you might imagine, rubbing shoulders with the elite of the sailing world was an heady experience. Better yet, I arrived in Bilbao by way of an amazing sail from England to Spain with Sir Robin on his "Open 60" class ocean racing yacht. These 60 ft. boats are built purely for all out speed and, as the above article states, are considered to be yachting's equivalent of a Formula One racing car.
The greatest treasure of this experience, however, were a small group of friends I made in Getxo, the port that serves Bilbao. Saioa MartÃn and her husband, Rafa Aspiunza, along with German Garcia de Gurtubai run their own website dedicated to photography and local news of the region:
http://www.aspiunza.com/
Rafa is the kind of photographer that leads one to humbly realize what is truly possible in photography (in contrast to whatever level of praise you might have convinced yourself that your own photographs should merit). As one of the other notable people I met in Bilbao, Diana, wrote later in an e-mail, he shows you things you never thought to notice even though you might have been looking at the same view. It's worth a moment's pleasure to browse through his photographs on the website listed above.
German owns a 32 ft sailboat. Two nights before the race started (and the weeks of mounting pre-race festivities ended), I was invited to join a party on his boat, the second time I had been the recipient of his gracious floating hospitality. I was the only American there and while most everyone spoke excellent English, at times the conversation moved back and forth between English and Spanish.
I've always been greatly heartened at the willingness of various hosts in different nations around the world to speak at length in their own language when I'm part of their gathering. It shows that they understand my eagerness to experience their lives as they live them, and not as a guest to be focused upon and catered to. I felt very fortunate to have found such good friends as these in such a short time in Spain.
As we sat down to nibble on various meats and cheeses set before us, German announced, “Tim, this party, it is for you." I hadn't known that. I thought I was just joining a gathering. I was deeply touched.
Eleven of us crammed into the cockpit to eat where, in the first picture, only six people are sitting (German with most of the women of the group). After sampling some of the meats and cheeses, I reached into a small bowl which, in the darkness at arms length, appeared to hold something like peanuts. I popped a few into my mouth and found them to be rather hard to chew at first but manageable.
Two years before, at my first evening meal in Ecuador with my French/Brazilian friend Manuela, she had given me a bowl of large corn kernels, dried and salted, and explained they were a typical Ecuadorian snack. That night on German's boat I wondered if these hard, crunchy kernel-like morsels were a unique but typically Basque treat. I was delighted with their curiously almost sweet-tasting center.
Halfway through the evening, someone noticed me popping these into my mouth whole and exclaimed, “Tim! What are you doing? You don't shell your pistachios before eating them?"
For the record, then, pistachios can in fact be eaten whole without any deleterious effect.
Later in the evening everyone moved onto the dock alongside the boat, bringing a few votive candles with us, and opened up the bottle of Pacharan I had brought along (a strong liquor made from a current-like berry found in the Pyrenees). Eventually a guitar was passed around.
Several different people took turns playing while everyone...everyone sang along with any song anyone could think of, most of them in English. Sometimes a few of them even harmonized, sending goose bumps of unexpected delight down my forearms.
I sat there with such a feeling of contentment, trying to balance myself between appropriately simple enjoyment of the moment as it actually was occurring and an overwhelming awe that such is the good fortune of my life to be given gifts like this. I felt so utterly happy and marvelled at all the glorious serendipity that somehow someway enabled me to be part of this evening with these people in this location at this time in this life.
Of all the people I met and all the experiences I had in those amazing three weeks in Spain, these friends and this gathering were clearly the most memorable part of my time there. I even ponder that the simple beauty of this night might have been the highlight of 2006 for me. I've done some rather amazing things (so many tales I've yet to tell) this last year but if I had to pick one moment of 2006 to relive again, it would be that night on the dock.
These friends have even dedicated an entire page to me on their website. It's in Spanish, of course, and I can only vaguely understand the gist of it but even just looking at it gives you an idea of how generous they are.
http://www.aspiunza.com/Magazine/EspecialVelux/HonorableTim/
I’ll be returning to Bilbao in April for the finish of the Velux 5 Ocean race, and again in September when Bilbao is the first stop out of Liverpool of my own round the world sailing race. Beyond those two occasions, I hope to return simply to spend more time with these dear friends and to see more of the beautiful area around Bilbao.
Between the combination of a lack of a car, my sprained ankle (long story for another day) and the heavy workload of getting Robin ready to race, it was 10 days before my life extended beyond sleeping on one of the two Clipper racing boats that had also sailed down from Gosport, working on Robin's boat 100 yards down the dock to the left, having 2-4 beers with Robin and the crew at the end of the day's work at the bar on the other end of the dock 100 yards to the right, scrounging up a dinner (if I had the energy and/or sobriety) back in the Clipper boat, then collapsing in my small bunk at 9:00 or 9:30, if not earlier.
The first occasion I had to venture beyond those small confines was only because my sprained ankle required I visit the medical facility one block away. My Getxo friends were astounded at how little I managed to see while there for such a relatively long time and are eager to show me all that I missed, and I'm equally as eager to see it with them.
I look forward to many adventures with these friends in the Bilbao area and, hopefully, elsewhere. Vague plans are afoot to rent a sailboat together this spring in Greece or some other exotic location and explore new lands by sea.
A two and a half minute/24 picture slideshow of my Bilbao experience can be found here.
