Feelin' Good Spain to the Mediterranean 2024

After a long day of travel via bus, train, plane, along with multiple airport transits, Art, Andrea, and I finally met up for the last leg of our trip to Pietarsaari, Finland. Over coffee in the Helsinki passenger lounge we could hardly contain our excitement for what lay ahead: finally seeing Feelin’ Good 3 fully complete and ready to launch.

No sooner had we collected our bags inside the Pietarsaari terminal, we almost literally ran into Nautor Swan CEO Giovanni Pomati, and his head of product marketing, Vanni Galgni. The pair seemed to sense immediately that we were “Swan people”, and after a cordial exchange, they kindly offered us a ride, but we had a ridiculous amount of baggage, a long drive ahead, and our own secondhand rental car waiting… somewhere.

After multiple text messages with the car’s owner, we picked up the keys, and we were off in our manual shift VW hatchback. It was late at night, but still daylight out, when the car’s wheels crackled against the gravel driveway of our rented cabin deep in a Finish forest. Located on the island of Larsmo, our three week, “cabin in the woods” experience was a remarkable contrast to the sea adventure that lay ahead. Beautiful and magical, like something out of a movie, but fortunately, not a horror film, the cabin was truly wonderful.

It was May 31, 2024, when we first arrived at the Nautor Swan shipyard. All three of us buzzing—totally thrilled to be there. We had no idea what lay ahead: a challenging, totally exhausting, utterly thrilling, four month, 4200 nautical mile journey, from our launch point in Pietarsaari, Finland, to our home port in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

The passage from A Coruña, in the northern tip of Spain, south along the magnificent Atlantic coast of Portugal, (successfully dodging Orca whale attacks) followed by a cracking fast sail through the “Pillars of Hercules” in the Gibraltar Straits. This final leg was to be the most challenging, beautiful, and just plain fun, of the entire trip.

The last push for our home port, with stops in Estepona, Cartagena, Formentera, and the Cabrera Archipelago Maritime-Terrestrial National Park, were not without their own challenges, but wow, these places are so seductive. The richness of the culture, the charm, the people, the food… my gosh, I see why so many dream of living here.

On the morning after our last anchorage of the trip, and before our arrival into Palma de Mallorca, we awoke to find some of the roughest sea conditions of our entire 4200 nautical mile passage. But with the spires of the Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma almost within view, and with the experience we’d gained after four months of sailing the Swan 58, we set sail.

Like everything else she’d faced, the Swan 58 took on the wind and waves without issue. We all took turns helming the final leg, sailing into Mallorca and dropping anchor alongside a host of summertime “party boats”, their revelers having no clue that we’d just completed a journey of a lifetime. The accompanying video is, perhaps, the most special of this series. It’s hard to encapsulate so many remarkable experiences, but the spirit of Feelin’ Good is in every frame.

To friends and family, and to everyone at the Swan shipyard, we wish you all the best—We are feeling good!