It was early in the morning when I left my house more than a month ago, scooping up all of my necessary documentation off of the kitchen table. I made it through Bermuda's airport, a New York airport and Dublin's airport with absolutely no troubles on my Bermuda passport. But once I landed in Madrid's Barajas Airport everything began to fall apart.

At the Customs desk, I presented my passport, which seemed to confuse officials. The thing is, apparently, to enter Spain with a Bermuda passport you need a visa as well. In fact, I was told later that we need a visa to enter any of country belonging to the so-called Schengen countries with a Bermudian passport. Live and learn, I suppose.

I was escorted to another room where I was told I was being sent to a detention centre because I was traveling on the wrong passport without a visa. The official told me I would stay in the detention centre until they found me a lawyer and english translator.

I was then passed off to another guard who removed most articles off of my person. My contact solution case was stripped from me, my belt, and so many other things. Pretty much the only things I was left with were my novel and a fleece sleeping bag. Thank God I had those though, because when I was actually processed and placed in the detention centre's holding area I saw that it simply consisted of one large wooden bench, several locked doors, a television (which was playing annoying Spanish cartoons), and a bathroom.

In the holding area with me were two Argentinians who spoke English very well, five or six other Spanish-speaking individuals and one Muslim lady who spoke neither English nor Spanish.

I was glad to meet the Argentinians because they were able to ease me over the extreme possibility that I was about to be deported from Spain for traveling under the wrong passport. It seemed these guys had run into similar problems and were to be deported later that night.

All around me people were crying and visibly stressed beyond their breaking points. This led me to take the realisation that there were two ways I could approach the situation; I could laugh,or I could cry. Again, thank God I had the two Argentinians to lean on because their translations of what others were saying connected me with the rest of the social circle.

After a few hours it was dinner time where we ate the mussels and rice. Suddenly, in mid-conversation my two new found friends were escorted away from me. "Good luck Dylan, I hope they let you continue on your way," they said. And with that I was, or might as well have been, the only English-speaking individual in the whole of Madrid. I spent the rest of the night trying my hardest to subdue my stressful thoughts by reading my novel until I fell asleep.

"When I awoke I realised several of the larger problems I had taken for granted the night before, including the fact that I had no way of contacting my parents, the Bermuda Sloop Foundation or anyone else for that matter, along with that fact that due to the language barrier I was unable to tell what time it was.

At 10.30 a.m. the guard popped his head back out and directed me to follow him. It was finally time for my interview. The guard lead me back to the same room where I had met my first English-speaking Spaniard. In this room I was promptly introduced to my lawyer, translator, and immigration officer. I was asked questions like "do you know that you are not allowed to travel in Spain under this passport?", or "why are you trying to go to Vigo, Spain?". The latter to which I responded: "To get on a Tall Ship. It is pretty much a life experience."

It is pretty funny, in retrospect, that I answered his question in this manner because when the whole interview was over and done my translator turned to me and said: "I am sorry but they are going to send you back to Dublin. You need to have a visa to travel in Spain but this too is a life experience, my friend."

I spent the next 12 hours in the detention centre reading my book as the day crawled by. Finally a guard came with my personal effects and I was locked in a van before an armed guard escorted me on to the plane.

At this point I thought my troubles were over but in fact they had lost my bag. In the end I did manage to make it on the Spirit of Bermuda for transatlantic sail. All's well that ends well, and I guess this really was what you would call a life experience.