Winter Training in Palma de Mallorca...

On Monday 18th Nov I left my parents house in Fleet where I have been living since the World Championships in August and caught a ferry from Dover to Dunkerque. Me, all my kit stuffed into the back of the Ford Transit van I drive with my Europe dinghy on top of the coach boat trailed behind.

Top Tip The Norfolkline ferry is by far the cheapest from my experience.

I drove to Brada in Holland to collect my Dutch boyfriend, Gerd-jan (John) Poortman. John is a pro-bowman on racing Yachts, which is great as he is not tied to one place and can travel with me. Palma is a big base for Yachts so there is plenty of work for John there. Maintaining, rigging and racing Yachts.

John took over the driving until we past Luxembourg to escape the traffic in the morning. We stopped in a service station and slept in the back of the van. It was freezing! We didn't sleep well and set off early again Tuesday morning. Clear roads all the way to the South of France. The weather warmed as we made our way further south.

I had to collect my second Europe hull from an island called Les Embiez where the International Laser Training Company, SailCoach are based. It is a fantastic set up. They have apartments with self catering facilities, a base with lecture room, TV room, Internet caf and at that time they had 29 Laser sailors training there from all different countries; ISR, RSA, TUR, ANT, SLO, ISL, IRL, USA, CAN, ITA, GER etc..

I spent last winter training here with Jon Emmett and Pete Conway. There are no distractions from sailing other than the gym and running around the stunningly beautiful island. It'' a 10 min rib ride across to the mainland where the shops supply all you need. If you are a Laser sailor starting out on the International circuit and want someone else to take care of all the logistics of transportation, coaching, accommodation and even boat charter then this is the thing for you. Check out the web site: www.sailcoach.com

Once the Europe was loaded on top of the roof of the van John and I enjoyed crepes at a local French restaurant before our second night sleeping in the van. Despite being a lot warmer than the previous night it was another disturbed night as John got nervous at every little sound! I'm used to shutting out any noises after sleeping in the van at most events this year to save the pennies.

Top Tip don't scrimp on locks, as there are bad people out there! My rib trailer was stolen from Spa Regatta this year even though I had a bike lock on it attaching it to a lap post! I now have a hard core trailer lock)

Six hours of driving in bright sunshine around the coast to Barcelona. After dinner and a couple of beers in town we caught the 11pm ferry to Palma. We decided to save 175euro on the cabin and just found a padded bench seat to sleep on.

We drove off the ferry at 7am bleary-eyed and drove around to Calanova Yacht Club where the RYA run their Olympic Training camps from January. We booked into a Hostel at 17euro per night and had a much-needed shower and a few more hours sleep!

First task was to decide on where in Palma bay we wanted to base ourselves. The Princess Sofia Regatta and European Championships are based at Can Pastilla Yacht Club so we looked there first. An agent showed us around two properties for rent there in our price range (500euro per month) both had only one bedroom and were pretty grotty. The area has a lovely sandy beach but that's all it really has going for it.

So we drove on around the bay to El Arenal. The Yacht Club manager was really friendly and more than happy to have me train from there. The beach was gorgeous and there was a great promenade perfect for roller bladeing along. However there was only a small gym with limited & dated equipment.

We saw a lovely apartment on the 5th floor, huge balcony directly off the beach! It had three bedrooms and would have been fantastic if we had more people with us but as it was the rent was too high for us. The agents didn't have anything else as most of El Arenal is comprised of hotels.

The town was all closed up for the winter so we decided against it and drove back to the other side of Palma to Calanova Yacht Club. They too were happy to have us there, at a price! They first quoted me 625euro to keep the two Europes and 4.8meter rib there till 31st Dec!! There was no way that my budget could stretch to cover that. We really liked this area the best. The town was alive, shops and bars all open, there was a good gym and apartments in our price range.

Through a Dutch sailor, John, new we found somewhere else to park the rib and extra Europe until they are needed and pay a daily rate of 2.87euro per day to the Yacht Club for my one Europe. The facilities are really good and there is 24hr security so I guess it's a good deal.

We finally moved into our new apartment on Monday 27th Nov. It has two bedrooms and a large patio area perfect for all our sailing and windsurfing kit. We have had lots of fun unpacking and making it homely.

I've been sailing 2hrs each day. It's so much nicer training in the sunshine than freezing your fingers & toes in the UK. There are three Spanish boys training in the Europe here too. They just appeared one day, crossing my transom and using me as 'bunny' for a start. I tacked off and joined in. They have a coach on the water who invited me to join in their training 3pm Wednesdays and Fridays and 11am Saturday & Sunday. It's much nicer to have other people to sail against and makes you push harder.

Our first visitor is Mark Littlejohn. He arrives on Monday 2nd Dec to coach me for five days.