October 31 - Halloween at Gibraltar. Strange as it seems, the locals are all dressed up for trick or treating. We have provisioned Skylark and plan to leave with the tide tomorrow afternoon. Estimating 5 days to Las Palmas where will post next blog.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Gibraltar
October 31 - Halloween at Gibraltar. Strange as it seems, the locals are all dressed up for trick or treating. We have provisioned Skylark and plan to leave with the tide tomorrow afternoon. Estimating 5 days to Las Palmas where will post next blog.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Valencia!
Left Port Vell, Barcelona around 2 pm, October 24. Conditions after turning out of the bay were good, wind 8 – 10 knots from the south, seas smooth. We motor-sailed with genoa, staysail and main, engine at 1200 rpm, making 7 knots over the ground.
October 25 – Caught a small tuna (12 – 14 inches) at 9 am. Francois claims morning is the time when the fish bite because they hadn’t eaten during the night, just like humans. This theory is somewhat suspect given the night fishing that goes on around here. Ed attests that fish in Texas don’t follow any such pattern. So, protein for the day was provided by the good Lord and celebrated with Hank Williams gospel songs from Ed’s Ipod. Fresh sashimi for lunch prepared by the skipper and Fish Tahitian with potatoes for dinner by Francois.
Valencia
October 25 – tied up around mid-day at the fuel dock of the America’s Cup marina at Valencia (also known as Marina Real Juan Carlos I) and checked in with documentation. The marina is a beautiful state of the art facility built for the America’s Cup defense by Team Alinghi. There were many empy berths and it was obviously built for large yachts. Ed docked Skylark stern to, with about 10 feet to spare on either side. The crew rested up, caught with email and other housekeeping and ate lunch on board. That evening, we walked to one of the beach front restaurants and had the best Paella we’d ever tasted in Spain.
October 26 – the marina was absolutely still, so we unfurled all of Skylark’s 4 sails at the dock and hosed them down to remove accumulated salt. The decks and other hardware also got a good wash. That afternoon, we took the Bus No. 19 to the old town centre of Valencia. The walk to the bus stop took us past the fancy headquarters of Teams Alinghi and Prada, who will contend in the next America’s Cup races with trimarans at Dubai next year.
Valencia is a lovely old city (the third largest in Spain). We walked the old town and its many churches and prominent medieval gate (see pictures in our next post). No one was particularly hungry, so we sat down to drinks and a plate of fried pescaditos (white bait) at a sidewalk café by the old gate. Back on the bus to the marina for a late dinner on board -- Francois’ leek and potato soup and resuscitated bread from Barcelona and all turned in for an early night.
October 27 -- After provisioning with fresh vegetables, fruit and bread, we left the marina at Valencia after lunch and headed for Gibraltar about 400 miles away. Weather was good and seas smooth. Winds were light from the East initially. We flew our 1000 square foot gennaker (an assymetrical cruising spinnaker) together with the mizzen for a few hours but the going was slow in 6 – 8 knots of wind. On our rhumbline to Gibraltar, we had the wind dead downwind making the gennaker hard to fly. We furled the sail and made do with a small genoa and mizzen sail which helped us make 8 knots on low engine revs.
October 28 – yet another tuna was caught but it was somewhat larger than the last one. Same menu – sashimi and fish Tahitian. We saved the head and bones which Francois plans to make a soup with.
We have developed a nice watch schedule of 2 and a half hours each. This part of the Med has a lot of ship traffic and the night was interesting with large container ships, super tankers and coastal tramps – and an occasional cruise ship usually ablaze with lights. Tonight we pass one named Island Escape at around 3:30 am. All lights are on including a bunch strung atop the ship’s superstructure. We can only conclude these cruise ships mostly carry geriatric insomniacs lying on deck chairs and watching the moon through the night.
October 29 -- we are making good speed and should be at Gibraltar before nightfall – a bit faster than anticipated thanks to smooth seas and favorable currents.
October 29, 6 pm -- at Gibraltar but the marinas are full. We consulted the Med Pilot (a publication giving details of harbors in the area) and found an anchorage marked just adjacent to the Gibraltar airport runway. Anchor was set at about 5 metres depth. We were preparing to setlle down to clean up and prepare for dinner when we were visited by a Police boat. The men in blue told us very nicely that we were in a restricted area and had to move. Our Pilot was apparently out of date and we were informed that free anchoring in that area had ended 3 years ago. We hauled the anchor and made for the other side of a sea wall designated "La Linea" or The Line on the Spanish side. There were many large sailboats anchored, obviously turned away by the marinas just like us. It was a well protected anchorage and quite comfortable during the night. Ed set the anchor alarm on his handheld GPS which kept going off during the night, probably due to lack of accuracy in the little unit. Skylark's anchor held very well in the sand and gravel bottom of the bay.
Friday, October 30 -- morning came and a number of boats had already moved off. Ed and I motored to the marina in the dinghy for immigration and customs formalities. At the marina, we found that a berth had become available. Back to Skylark, anchor up and safely berthed by 11 am. There are many boats at the marina headed for Las Palmas in the Canaries, probably like us, to participate in the ARC. Washing, provisioning and internet were the order of the day. We were glad for water supply from the marina as harbor water was too polluted to run the desalinator.
Monday, October 26, 2009
More pictures
Skylark at the Marina Port Vell, Barcelona
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Valencia
October 24 -- Left Barcelona at 2 pm. After turning the corner from the harbor, wind was from the South at 8 - 10 knots. Good motor sailing conditions on low engine revs, able to sustain 7+ knots over the ground. Night conditions were good with more ship traffic than we'd seen in a while. Both Barcelona and Valencia are major commercial ports. The AIS transceiver was handy especially in the dark. At around 3 am october 25, we were on a head on course with a cargo ship about 6 miles away. The ship was making 15 knots and we were going at 7.5 knots. We turned 2 degrees to starboard. After a couple of minutes, the other ship apparently observing our course change on their AIS, turned about 2 degrees to their starboard and we passed nicely port-to-port without making any radio contact. We are true believers in this technology.
October 25, 0900 hrs, 39 degrees 37.99 minutes North, 0 degrees 4.7 minutes West -- the exact spot where Francois caught a small tuna (30 - 35 cm) which was promptly gutted and put into the fridge.
Skylark arrived at Valencia's America's Cup Marina around noon. It is a big, modern marina with wide berths and the Valencia F-1 circuit running around it. It has also been home to the America's Cup races since Allighi won the cup. Ed executed the stern to docking with little trouble. It has been decided that from time to time, the crew are going to practice berthing the boat to ensure all on board develop some level of comfort manipulating the big boat at the marinas we will be visiting.
After formalities at the marina office, we ate our tuna sashimi style and as a Tahitian dish prepared by Francois, withe the aid of a French cookbook. Both tasted wonderful. The afternoon was spent with the usual maintenance and cleaning chores. The marina has a good wi-fi signal that is stable onboard. So,here we are, making posts to the blog in the relative luxury of Skylark's nav station rather than a seedy internet cafe populated by tatoo'd youths intent on some gaming contest with unseen opponents.
Barcelona revisited
Skylark -- up against the sea wall at Palamos
Darkening skies over Palamos - onset of 2 days of high winds
Ed -- the fashionista, safe in port at Palamos, hot tea in hand.
Left Toulon in the afternoon on Sunday, October 18. The forecast was for moderate weather in the Golfe du Lion with winds around 15 knots from the West. Our faith in weather forecasts may have been misplaced. as the afternoon wore on towards dusk, the seas heaved as winds were holding at 30 - 35 knots and gusting to 40 knots. Waves with short periods reached 5 to 6 metres. The Force 7 (Beaufort scale) continued through the night. We used the apparent wind direction indicator to judge the angle of the waves in the dark. For the most part, it worked well, although the steep seas and short wave periods made it uncomfortable. Francois had a bad case of the Mal de Mer and suffered through the pounding for the next 15 hours or so. The next morning, winds had moderated to 25 knots and things seemed not quite so bad. Then Meteo France (the French meteorological service) issued a "special" report which almost seemed like a tacit admission that the week's forecast was way off mark. Winds were again forecast to build towards evening back to Force 7 - 8. We were about abeam the Spanish town of Palamos and decided to duck in for the night. We called on the VHF radio at about 5:30 pm and the lady at the marina told us we could have a berth for the night. We got in around 9 pm, October 19. The security guard was waiting for us at our "berth" -- the last remaining space along the concrete seawall. We had to use most of our fenders to prevent the boat from scraping against the rough concrete wall. The wind continued to build to 25 - 30 knots in the harbor. We were thankful for the protection of the seawall. The high winds continued from the South for the next 2 days, so we stayed on at Palamos, enjoying the quiet little town with fresh bread and fruit and other produce. A few sailboats came in during that time looking for refuge from the storm but were turned away. On desperate skipper tied his boat outside the marina seawall, exposed to significant wind and swell. The winds finally began to moderate and we left Palamos around 6 am on October 22 to make Barcelona (60 miles away) in daylight
Afternoon of October 22 -- Skylark is at the Marina Port Vell in Barcelona again. We arrived in a rain storm in the late afternoon. The trip was short and uneventful, other than having the wind smack on the nose and fairly steep swells from the gales that blew for the few days prior in the Golfe Du Lion and regions west of it. Though substantial, the swells were well spaced and Skylark rode over them with a gentle up and down motion. Some ship traffic as well as fishing boats, attested to the improved weather conditions. By mid-afternoon however, we were in a heavy rain storm with poor visibility. The breakwater for the harbor at Barcelona was visible only from about a mile out together with hazy outlines of major structures at Barceloneta and the Olympic port. We made the now familiar entrance to the harbor, past the fishing and commercial ports, cruise terminals and dockyards to the marina at Port Vell. The marina was crowded with very large sailing and motor yachts and the fuel dock was occupied at each end by a large motor yacht and a large (and wide) sailing catamaran. With bow lines sticking out, it made available space at the fuel dock very restricted. Generous use of Skylark's bow thruster was required to position alongside for a load of Gasoleo A. The fuel dock and marina office greeted us like long lost friends. The marinero at the fuel dock recognized Ed and I from our visit in late August and enquired about our third crew member (Francois). The office checked us in using data they already had and let us know that they'd very kindly let us have the very last berth available at the marina. There was a lot of radio traffic on the VHF indicating arrivals of super yachts that obviously were being singled out for special treatment.
We settled in to lunch on board. The marina office were unable to connect us to the shore power outlet on the pontoon due to the heavy rain which continued till the late evening. By then, there was no one around to wire up the special adapter for the power line. So, a night with no shore power meant no washer/dryer operation unless we started the generator. We did start the genset for about 15 minutes -- but only to power up the Nespresso machine just to ensure the right priorities were being observed.
Dinner at a nearby restaurant was very good with friendly and efficient wait staff. We got back to the boat and turned in early to catch up on sleep. On the way back, Ed got his mobile phone, wallet and everything else wet. How this happened is the subject of a story that may some day be told but we'd agreed among the three of us that "what happens in Barcelona stays in Barcelona...."
October 23 -- blue skies and sunshine and electricity from the shore. Much cleaning, washing and drying -- foul weather gear, shoes, clothes decorated every available horizontal line on deck while the dryer churned on below deck. We walked to the Cathedral which had scaffolding on some parts as it was undergoing repairs. Then a long walk to the yet unfinished cathedral by Gaudi -- an impressive sight from the outside. The line to go in wound around for a couple of blocks. We admired the unconventional and complex gothic structure from the outside and then decided it wasn't worth the 2 hour wait to get in. Got into the metro and headed to the mercado at La Rambla for a lunch of grilled seafood.
Back at the boat after a visit to an internet cafe for email and news, more housekeeping work. Dinner on board prepared by Francois was a relief from eating outside food. This evening, I am at another internet cafe with the others -- on our way to an Italian gelato shop.
We head for Valencia tomorrow and then on to Gibraltar. Will post Barcelona pictures in due course.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
More pictures
Ed in serious discussion with attentive audience, Francois is truly back.... and Gin 'n Tonic pushpit seat
To Barcelona
We are off to Barcelona this afternoon. The mistral blew all night but things settled down in the morning. Sea conditions in the Golfe Du Lion are forecast to be rough (Force 5 - 6, wave heights 3 metres) but Skylark should have no problems. Expecting to arrive Barcelona on Tuesday morning.
Some final pictures from Toulon in this blog. More when we are back in Spain.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Back to Skylark
October 4, 2009 -- we are back! A long flight from Kuala Lumpur to Paris and the TGV from the station at Charles De Gaulle to Toulon. Sister Maria (sibling, not a nun) had come from Lille to join Miew Ling and I at CDG with TGV tickets in hand. It was a treat to see her but better yet, she’d splurged on first class train tickets for us. Ronnie Tan was at the Toulon rail station with his rental car to help with luggage while his wife Idah was hard at work at some internet cafe. Skylark was in good shape if a little dusty as it hadn’t rained since I left Toulon on September 14.
Ronnie and Idah came from Bandol to have dinner with us. As it was Sunday, many places were closed and we ate at a so-so restaurant on the waterfront.
October 5 – a worthwhile day trip to the beautiful town of Aix-en-Provence. The drive through the scenic foothills of the Alps with numerous “perched” villages high on the rugged hills was a treat in and of itself. The restaurant at Aix recommended by the Lonely Planet guide was very good. Aix is a charming town and the street fair with all manner of Provence specialties made for an interesting afternoon. Bought some gingerbread and apricot nectar from the friendly vendors. Back at Toulon, a simple dinner on board and an early night.
October 6 – took the train to Bandol to visit with Ronnie and Idah at their holiday digs by the beach. Ronnie’s friend from long ago, Rudy, arrived in the evening just in time for Ronnie’s famous chicken curry cooked with spices from KL. Rudy is Swiss, born in Singapore and 202 cm tall. He made quite a contrast when he greeted Idah at 150 cm, We had a fascinating dinner conversation about how he became a major supplier of Tilapia - a fish he farms in Asia and Central America for export to North America and Europe, and about politics in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.
Oct 7 – Some routine maintenance and oil level checks on the boat. Ronnie, Idah and Rudy visited with us at Skylark for lunch and some excellent Rose wine from the region. It must have been a good lunch as we broke away at around 4 pm.
Oct 8 – Miew Ling and Maria left for Lille in the afternoon after a morning of wandering around Toulon. ML will spend a few days at Lille reacquainting with nephews Frederic and Sebastien and meeting grand nieces Constance and Octavie for the first time, before returning to KL.
Oct 9 - went to Hyeres to visit with Amel and to settle bills for work done. Amel has scheduled Monday for some factory recall work on the Volvo diesel (replacement of a suspect transmission damper for the ZF gearbox). Ed arrived in the afternoon, declaring he was glad to be "back home" on the Skylark. We ate a nice meal on the waterfront that evening.
Oct 10 - Francois returned to Skylark just as a Mistral was predicted by the weather services. A Mistral is a strong wind that blows through the Rhone valley, turns left and then right and hits the coastal areas of the Golfe du Lion really hard.
Oct 11 – the Mistral is blowing really hard with winds up to 40 kts in the harbor. It must be really horrendous out beyond the bay. The gusts threw up sprays of marina water which is probably 50 per cent toilet discharge from the boats.
Oct 12 – the Volvo technicians came to start the recall work, the mistral is still blowing but fortunately, few vessels are including the ferries are running and the chop in the harbor isn't too bad.
Oct 13 - the Mistral finally settles in afternoon – the harbor waters are unbelievably glassy in contrast to a few hours ago.
Oct 14 – the weather conditions between Toulon and Marseille and western Med are tough due to the low pressure to west and the anticyclone east of Toulon. Very rough sea conditions. Watching forecasts for Golfe du Lion – forecast to be not good till Sunday which is now the planned timing for the sail to Barcelona and Valencia.
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