Barcelona 2

We've spent the last few days wandering around the city, basically just getting lost! Some of the best pictures we took were from the cable car that runs across the port to Montjuic - where the Barcelona Olympics were held.

Over the last few days more super yachts have been arriving, lots of work being done by the crews, polishing and provisioning - the owners must be due!  The white "slugs" you can see in the picture below are super yachts wrapped up for the winter.

View from inside the cable car tower

Our boat is in the centre of the picture close to the sand coloured building. The Sagrada Familia is in the distance.

Looking north east along the beaches

Great cable car trip.

At the cafe on Montjuic

The commercial half of the port.

Fabulous tapas bar - only serves Cava - €1.10 a glass!


Back in the UK tomorrow...

Barcelona!

We sailed slowly under blue skies from Badalona towards Barcelona but eventually gave up and put the motor on for the last mile or so.

A huge sea wall guards the harbour and from the small ships entrance to the inner harbour of Port Vell is about 1/2 mile. Fascinating to see the superyacht harbours and dry docks - unbelievable amounts of money being spent on these toys.

Sailing into Port Vell

As we entered Port Vell we realised that we were mooring in a corner of one of these superyacht harbours. Amazing!  We refuelled with a bit of a struggle as the fuel lines were more suited to big power boats and it was difficult to get the pump to run slowly enough for us - 20litres thank you, that’s plenty for us! 

Nod to Christmas - poinsettia 

What a location this port has - a few hundred yards from the bottom of the Ramblas, towards the La Barceloneta district, easy walking distance from all of the main tourist sites - well worth the cost of the harbour fees.

We tucked ourselves into our stern to berth and looked around.  To one side are yachts worth over £10m, 200 yards to other side are super superyachts, A quick sneaky look on the internet showed that one of them, Hampshire II, cost £130m, oh and the owner also has the slightly smaller, at 56m long, Hampshire I! Absolutely amazing and obscene at the same time.  The super yacht industry here must provide a huge income for the city and loads of employment though.
Fantastic facilities as well including the private crew lounge with the best view of the harbour.

Crew lounge

This is one of the great cities of the world and we’ve simply wandered around getting lost and discovering fabulous corners of the city.  We’re saving some of the more well known sights until january when the weather might not be a good as it is now - still in shorts and t-shirts!

We'll get more photos once we've fixed our camera too!

one of the many lovely buildings

Our neighbours

Sunday morning paddle along the beach

Closer and closer to Barcelona

Closer and closer to Barcelona

We’ve booked into a marina in Barcelona from the 8th December so we are currently dawdling along the coast, taking our time to do the last few miles.  We don’t want to arrive early as the daily rate at the marina is high.  We booked for a month and got a much better rate.  That said 5 miles outside Barcelona and the rates drop dramatically but we thought we’d treat ourselves to some time in Barcelona before heading further south.

On the way along the coast  from St Feliu we’ve stopped at Blanes - had three days here, great town, full of life, good fishy tapas, nice beach, great little cala within walking distance of the harbour, El Masnou - officially our most boring and expensive place to date, and Badalona - nice place and good value.

Blanes harbour

Blanes

Sailing for just a few hours each day has been very relaxing and the weather has been very kind - light winds and blue skies.  Being a sailor, I’m never happy and a bit more wind at times would have been good!

Nice coastline

Bit rough

Tomorrow is Barcelona - bit of a milestone for us as we said 15 years ago we’d sail our previous boat here but got somewhat distracted along the way  - too many interesting places to see!

Planning on a night out in the town.

Spanish entry and cruising towards Barcelona

Banyuls to Roses

Well, we made it to Spain; bit of a battle though, the forecast winds grew somewhat and changed direction to make life hard for us.  Who said French weather forecasts were good! What was supposed to be 12-16 knots ended up as 25 knots with good periods of nearly 30 knots.  The waves built up rapidly too.

Our camera lost its display screen after a dousing whilst sailing, so iPad being used.

As we closed on Cabo de Creus the seas grew to a fair size indeed, impressive enough for us not to want to be there!  Too busy and too wet to take photos I’m afraid but to give you some idea, one good one broke over the boat, shot over the coachroof, up the windscreen, over the sprayhood and dumped green water on us in the cockpit.  A proper dousing. We managed to steer around most of the other really big ones and keep them out of the cockpit.

As we passed the Cabo we were able to alter course, slowly set more and more sail and ease the sheets.  

The seas slowly lessened and we picked up speed too. Helped by surfing on some of the waves. By the time we got to Roses we were in sheltered waters, and as we entered the harbour the water was perfectly flat and wind dropped to about 10knots. 

Just had time to lower the French courtesy flag and raise the Spanish one.

The port staff were great, they came out in their dinghy and led us to our berth, helping us with the lines.

Today was only 26miles but felt like a proper marathon!

I always said I wouldn’t trust the new boat fully until we’d had a bit of a beating; should have kept my mouth shut but I do trust it now.

Roses proved to be a nice place, plenty of cycle tracks for us to explore too. Cheap restaurants as well compared to France.

Roses to Palmos

After the days rest in Roses we set off across the bay and had a gentle days sailing towards Palamos; motor sailing most of the way with little wind and a calm sea.  Had time to enjoy the scenery, fabulous little bays surrounded by steep and high cliffs.  There were some fabulous houses perched on the very edge of the cliff.

Let's go South!

We passed rocky outcrops and small islands just off the coast.

Unusual rock formations on the islands

Arrived at 15.30 into the harbour, all very civilised 

Palamos to Saint Feliu

Multi-tasking

Beautiful day - prefect Med sailing, flat sea, light breezes and a blue sky.  Oh, and a head wind! todays trip was short so we tacked up to windward to the small town and fishing harbour of Port Saint Feliu de Guixols.  

St Feliu harbour (spot our boat?)

The weather was so calm we planned to anchor overnight in the bay, sadly there were "No Anchoring" signs everywhere so we bobbed into the harbour.  Lovely place, lovely staff and not too expensive.

St Feliu bay - think my photos may be better when I can't see the display screen!

We walked around the bay and found the locals small boat launch area - they have a rail track leading into the water and a trolley with a turntable on so they can pick up the boats and turn them around ready for launch - really cool system - never seen anything like it before.

Very neat way of launching and recovery of small boats

Saint Feliu is very picturesque

Now researching where we can leave the boat for Christmas

LEAVING THE CAMARGUE

Port Napoleon is on the eastern edge of the Gulf of Lyon, the western edge is close to the border with Spain.  The Rhone valley empties into the Med here and the weather is famous for being windy. The weather patterns funnel up and down the massive valley. Sunday came bright and with a great sailing breeze, from the right direction as well - something of a miracle!  We set off at dawn and were soon out of the bay of Fos and into the Gulf itself.  Our original plan had been to day sail around the Gulf stopping each night but the weather conditions were perfect, so we headed out across the Gulf on the 120mile route towards Spain.

Up at dawn to leave

A salutary lesson to obey the buoys

Halfway across the wind literally stopped and we ended up motoring the rest of the way.  We’d planned to get to Roses, just in Spain, but decided to shorten the passage a little and head in to Banyuls in France.  It proved to be a good idea as we could see an electrical storm way in the distance over the Spanish coast and mountains.  

The boat sailed well, it doesn’t point as high into the wind as our previous boat but in every other way its faster and more comfortable. 

Land sighted as the sun set - we arrived just before midnight

Banyuls actually feels like the Med to us - for the first time since leaving the Rhone, a small fishing and pleasure harbour surrounded by ochre coloured buildings and small beaches.  We decided to stop for two nights, just to enjoy having somewhere to walk out to in an evening - and to buy some of the famous Banyuls wine.  We checked the prices at some of the towns Caves and then headed to Carrefour where a local women advised on the best priced banyuls wine.

Banyuls - our boat is bobbing about in the harbour behind

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Banyuls is a cute town

Weather permitting heading to Spain tomorrow. Have to dig out our Spanish courtesy flag.

Rigged!

We got back from Porto on the Thursday, the wind was still too strong for the crane but at least it looked like the rig was ready to go.

On Friday the mast was rigged and we started to look like a sailing boat again. By mid-afternoon we had all the rigging in place, the rig was tuned and we had sails. Finally!

mast being lifted - always a tense time

Looking a bit more like now - just the sails to go

Saturday we took the boat out into the bay for test sail, lots of tacking, gybing, reefing and unreefing - it all worked perfectly and we now look fit to go. We moored that night in Port St Louis du Rhone literally next door to Port Napoleon but we’d had enough of that place.

test sail - ideal conditions and all went well

Time to celebrate with our friends Megan and Steve who have just sold their boat and are on their way back to Australia soon.

Can't complain about this food - what a spread

Steve and Megan have signed contracts and boat sold!

Endurance competition venue in Port St Louis - brought back memories

Horse fix

 Carole's interesting  facts:

No ?:   The Camargue is a flat, wet, very windy, mosquito-ridden area.  I would not be offered a tourist officer job there.

Porto

After the comedy of the rigging now being too short - the mast was raised then lowered and will have to be raised again once the rigging is replaced - we checked the weather and realised that even if the new rig appeared the next day the wind strength was too much for the crane to operate for much of the next week.

After t’internet half hour we found Ryanair cheap flights from Marseille to Porto and a cheap city centre hotel for the same price as a weeks car hire in France. So Porto it is.

What a good decision, Porto is officially our new favourite European city, and fantastic value compared to France. Great old centre along the Douro river banks, port wine houses everywhere.  We were lucky and had hot weather with blue skies.

The difference in price compared to France was huge. We ate in a good local restaurant, full of locals, Carole had sea bass for €8, the same fish in an average French restaurant was €17.  We had 2 coffees for €1.40, compared to €4 in Port St Louis.

Carole -  I will leave you with a select of photos of Porto......

Classic Porto picture

Lovely traditional shops

Great old market - sadly falling to pieces

this is the railway station!

Another of the railway station - amazing

Porto is just so photogenic

Past the high bridge

Taken from the 'port caves' side

Pretty everywhere you look

Evening

Just which photos do I include?

The roofs of the port wine houses

Gutting fish takes concentration

This in the centre of Porto ??