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.