Valencia 4/25/1936
39°27′ N. 0018′ West
position taken from the sea chart Peter’s differs a little.
Many thanks for the poppy dog for my birthday, I was not the least bit afraid of it. Now I have to go to bed, therefore good night and loving greetings from Lars (not dumb)
Kapitan einer langen Reise (captain of a long journey)
Yes, where should I begin and where should I end? I will first tell you that I have the darkest conscience and following that I will right away start with the excuses, first and foremost Peter has been in bed on account of calm! One evening outside a little tiny harbor we decided to motor in and spend the night, and the next morning when Peter pulled the lines one line jumped out of the ring and he lost his balance and unfortunately he didn’t fall into the water but down on a fishing boat that was laying alongside and hit one side badly. Luckily there was a doctor in the town who gave him an injection since it hurt him to breathe and afterwards, he was told to lay quiet and not to move. This was not too far from Peter’s nature but the worst was that I had to take over the jobs he otherwise has on board, carrying water, cleaning up, going shopping etc, and when it also turned out that it was a bad harbor I had to get up in the middle of the night to tie up the boat, I sure had enough to do. This lasted for 14 days. Afterwards I had a great big laundry, and finally we didn’t have to far to go to reach Valencia where we were expected by mail from you which anyway should be answered and therefore Mary had not been able to serve a “letter from Else” with the morning coffee until now. We got your letter when we reached here 14 days ago and thank you. In Pensacola we got the card for Lars, where we received the mail from the consul, but imagine, the letter with the sample we never received, what a shame, that you cannot rely on the postal service. tomorrow I will go to the consul and ask if he has seen it and sent it to Pensacola and to talk with the postal service. From your letter I see that you have also been very busy with guests and snow storm during Easter. We have had and still have good weather, summer, sunshine and sailor’s humor we had in Pensacola. We had a doctor and 2 young students to entertain us, They came every afternoon and one of the last days I served coffee and the next day they came one of them bought the coffeepot of his mother and said that they now were going to treat us with their coffee, but it was a cup of coffee that I believe Marie would grow pale! bitter and strong. Then the discussion for 2 or 3 hours was all about coffee, coffee making, coffee maker, coffee dark and coffee with milk, coffee, tea and many other things. Peter and I became very “coffee smart”. The town Pensacola was as such very interesting, if we only had stayed there one day. It is built on a stone peninsula, cliffs connected with a very narrow strip of land started by the Greeks and probably not changed very much, so it is definitely better suited as museum than a place to live for people who are alive. The streets are very steep and without any paving and you can’t find any shops, at least not if you hadn’t asked, I asked with signs and a couple of Spanish words and was then pushed into a house which outside made absolutely no advertisement. The people were of course just like the town and with no exaggeration I could say that I counted 22 children staring at us, they run along with me the first time I went shopping. Way up on top of the cliff there was an old castle where the Pope Papaluna resided during his exile. You could also ask Salmondsen, he probably knows more about the whole thing than I do.
From Pensacola we came to Castellons and it was a complete contrast to Pensacola. A newly built harbor with palms planted along the key which otherwise is filled with oranges – 3 million cases are exported every year – and uncountable amounts of the golden fruits found their way down into “Restmore” and in into “Restmore’s” crew’s stomachs. It was so nice that we decided to do the laundry there and we made the acquaintance with several of the captains from the Scandinavian ships who bring out the 3 million. One of those Danish steamer’s “Jenny” was especially friendly and obliged to know where we might be splashing about later, so I gave him your address, when he someday may come to Copenhagen although it might take a long time. It had been at least 3 years since he was home the last time. From there we finally reached Valencia this morning. The speed here in the Mediterranean is a record in slowness, we can’t make any more than one knot an hour, and today we celebrate Muses 2 years birthday with crying in one minute and joy the next minute, spanking and cakes. The last of Lars’ funny ideas I also have to tell you. Peter tries to teach him the fingers, it is the thumb and this is the pointer, and Lars interrupts, that is the dirty finger, but it it belongs to Lars or to Peter nobody knows. The story doesn’t tell and the wonderful film still hasn’t reached Copenhagen yet.
We saw it in Barcelona and thought it was well done. Lars recognized us right away and hollered “Restmore is sailing”! I wonder if you also get the Sail Sports magazine, from Barcelona we have sent pictures of “Restmore” to Sail Sports and asked them to return it to you and you may keep it if it has any interest for you and now I really don’t believe I have any more to tell, oh yes, yesterday we were just about to sail on ground it was good weather with a light breeze and when we had to eat we lashed the tiller and let “Restmore” sail alone which she did very well. After eating Peter was deep in sailing directions and I was studying FYR book but there probably came a little wind up and from a different direction. When Peter looked up it was “Los! Strobiman! Wenden!” (“Go! Strobiman! Turn!”) and I then saw that we were no more than 50 meters from shore even it was an inviting beach but preferably used for swimming from the beach. We tacked in a hurry, smoothly, but when we checked how deep it was it was only 2. meters and “Restmore” draws 1.45 m and this is a saying one is to understand a chart is something else to steer a ship. This time we were lucky even if we did start on a Friday, something we otherwise never do but we didn’t even think about that it was Friday, otherwise I can tell that we have started to row not just we fed but cigarettes this is in connection with a bottle of whisky the one captain brought us and also the nice cheap wine “Landrin” Muscatel or Rum it could be that we are coming on ruin on “Restmore” but we hope that our new acquaintance Norwegian sailors mission will save us. Still we send our SOS but it doesn’t mean send at once spirits but send at once money 2 pesetas for a bottle of Rum and 2.96 for bread, potatoes etc a total of 3 pesetas to el Consulado de Dinamarca, Caribo Azøres 68, Valencia. About the letter that was lost the sample is irreplaceable but Valdemar’s golden corn can be repeated. and we hate so much to miss anything from the old Wichtel (Elves) at home in the old country, and this is after Valdemar’s letter of 14-4-36 and now at least our loving greetings to you both from all of us,
yours devoted L, A, P, E.