CAP D'AGDE
PORT LEUCATE
PORT VENDRES
CADAQUES
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Sat 3rd July
Just a short 1hr trip out of the river, across the bay and around the point to the giant marina at Cap d'Agde. The sea is pretty calm with only a gentle swell but even so we wouldn't have fancied making the trip still carrying the mast. Once moored, with a bit of persuasion, within 2hrs we get a mechanic to fix a slow fuel leak (gasket) and a sail rigger to look at shrouds and stays tension, post re-masting (all ok).
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Sun 4th July
35nm, 7hrs. A proper day's sailing (at last!) although the winds are lightish until the last half an hour. Sunny, blue skies, blue seas. Great. Port Leucate is fairly large, set within the extensive Occitan sea-side flatlands, but quiet and we make friends with a French mother-daughter sailing pair. For a while they had lived in Maidstone. Sorry Maidstone, this is nicer . . .
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Mon 5th July
21nm, 5hrs 20min. So what's this about the Med being no good for sailing? Another good day and Ruth takes us into Port Vendres with 24kts on the beam, proper zipping along. A real working harbour set in a rocky inlet - sea-going fishing boats, a cruise liner, fast customs boats and a pontooned enclave crammed with pleasure craft. We're very close to the Spanish border.
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Tues 6th July
22nm, 4hrs 50min. Comeuppance time. No wind for most of the day as we motor south and into Spain. This is what we were warned about "No wind, or too much wind that comes up too fast". At lunchtime we get to Salvador Dali's bay Port Lligat - recommended to us as a good anchorage. This is important, since Med marinas are shockingly expensive and we have limited funds. It looks a very pretty place, with clear water. We moor next to an English boat sporting a big St George's cross, have a swim, open a bottle of champagne, offer some as a libation to the Mediterranean deities, and drink the rest. We should have known. A great pity, but St George's crosses invariably indicate the worst kind of English person. Our neighbour gives us more than half an hour of non-stop moaning, dire warnings and negativity about everything under the sun. Eventually (as per prediction) the Policia Local do come and tell us we can't use the many mooring buoys, nor can we anchor - this is a National Park. With no small sense of relief, we move on, to Cadaques and moor there. All of us there, including a beautiful 3-masted schooner, have a rolly night with no wind but lots of swell sweeping in.
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Wed 7th July
ESTARTIT
Thurs 8th July
BLANES
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16nm, 3hrs. We're wary of Costa Brava anchoring, except in 'easy' sheltered locations, and the next stop is the marina at Estartit. Red letter day - our first 'Med-style' berth, tied bows-to and with lazy lines to our stern quarters. The marina facilities are excellent and there's a nice beach next door. (But we didn't take any pics).
33nm, 6hrs. A motor-sailing day. Nice smallish clean smart marina at Blanes, a nice town, nice beach. (But we didn't take any pics).
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BARCELONA
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Fri 9th-Tues 13th July
33nm, 6hrs 20min. Barcelona! We berth one night at Port Olimpico in the 1992 Olympic village setting. It's a modern, lively and popular place, with lots of quayside restaurants. We take the metro to Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's world famous masterpiece, stunning inside and out, and we climb hundreds of spiral steps to the topmost pinnacle. Then into the city centre for a quick look-see, then we investigate the 'traditional' harbour Port Vell, which looks great and much closer to the centre, and so then we move Grehan there, in the face of a very choppy outside sea as the seaward swell backwashes against the long harbour wall. Then we have an excellent time in this fantastic city, doing the complete tourist bus route including Barcelona football club, the Olympic stadium and the cable car journey over the docks (just like "Where Eagles Dare"). The only down side is that our rucsac gets stolen from under our feet in a telephone shop - we lose money, credit cards, driving licences and our Spanish phrase book - and learn all about the Spanish police system. |
