To and From Valencia

To Valencia

Early start from L’Ametlla with light winds and a flat sea left us motoring most of the day. Got some great photos of local fishermen though.  Most of the fishermen seem friendly towards us sailors, but we do do our best to let them get on with their work without having to worry about us getting in their way.

Morning rush hour

We also passed Peniscola, a very pretty fortified town built on an isthmus, didn’t have time to see it but it’s on the visit list for the coming season.

Peniscola

A couple of nondescript harbours followed (although one, Benicarlo, had a proper Indian curry house on the harbourside; so I forgave the rest of its boring bits) as we made good progress along the coast, eventually stopping at Burriana, about 30 miles shy of Valencia itself.  Nice and very cheap marina but a real ghost town; may be it gets more lively in the summer.

We had some lovely sunsets

Weather forecasts - we religiously check them, usually several and tend to believe the worst of them.  

Today we set off to Valencia with a forecast 10 -18 knots lovely sailing weather.  Just after leaving the harbour the wind was a steady 15 knots on the beam - full sail and going well.  An hour later it was 20 - 25knots, now reefed but still going well.  Another hour later out was 25 - 30 knots, well reefed but the boat was great, seemed to be loving it, doing 7 to 8 knots with only a small main.  For about half an hour we had 30 knots gusting to 35 (tiny main now!), Carole was on the helm and she peaked at 8.5 knots; the boat won’t go any faster than that.  The best part was that the boat was completely under control and loving the conditions. To be fair we were going across and slightly down wind, the fastest direction and the seas were only 1 - 2 metres high, so all the conditions were right, but we simply romped along. Over the days sail we averaged 7.3knots - not bad at all for a fat 36’ cruising boat, and we’d slowed down as we approached Valencia and got some shelter from the shore 

Making way nicely

Its amazing how used to speed you become, less than 7 knots felt slow, the odd occasion when we dropped below 6 felt painful!  Normally we’re happy to sail at 6 knots.

Just as we sailed into Valencia harbour the Spanish Lifeboat came powering back from somewhere, hadn’t heard anything on the VHF so hope it was just a training exercise.

In Valencia now, booked in for 3 nights so we can see the city.

Valencia.

Stopped at the Marina Real Juan Carlos I, a huge harbour built for the 33rd Americas cup races a few years ago. a bit soulless but great showers!  Two problems though, it s a fair old cycle ride to anywhere in the city from here and a swell works its way into the marina and the boats continually jerk and swing about no matter what you do to the mooring lines - not a restful place but cheap!

Valencia is an interesting place

Lovely squares everywhere 

Valencia is a great place to see by bike - we cycled all over the place. The old city centre is full of great architecture and some of the best tapas bars we’ve found in Spain, the linear city park created in the old river bed lead up from the harbour and is just a wonderful use of the space; full of people walking, running, cycling, playing with their families.  Built at the bottom of the park is the futuristic Science museum and “Palais de Belle Arts”, amazing modern architecture.

Map of Valencia showing the previous river bed; now a park from the marina into the city

interesting trees

Armed and ready for shopping with fold-up shopping trolley.  No loss of street cred here  - everybody uses them!

Pretty market

Market stall

Great tapas bars - Just where to start  

Belle Arts building

dramatic new architecture

After a day of heavy winds the swell entering the harbour caused us to worry about the safety of the boat such was the  jerking on the lines; quite a few of the local boats had damage to them.  The following day gave us a weather window to escape down the coast to another harbour before a series of really strong weather fronts were due to hit the coast.

Interesting headgear for the IMAX film

On from Valencia

We set of early with a plan of either making it to Gandia, or if we had a good run and the sea’s weren’t too bad we’d head on to Denia.

We made Gandia by 14.00 and the seas and wind conditions appeared stable and OK so headed off to Dernia.  We made good time but the swell was increasing and at times was pretty big as we approached the harbour.  Denia is a ferry port for the Balearics and has a deep dredged channel into the outer harbour. We surfed the boat into the channel and were soon into the shelter of a great marina.  The staff helped us moor as the wind was picking up and we were soon enjoying a cup of tea on the boat.  We’d seen snow on the hills as we approached and there was about 1/2” of snow on the boats in the harbour - Med Sailing?  

entrance to Denia - snow on them there hills, you can just see the masts of boats in the harbour

Snow on the boats!

The forecast storms hit in the early hours of the morning and the best place to be was definitely tied up in a safe harbour!

The forecast is for severe storms for the next few days so we’ll be safely  tucked up in the harbour and may catch a small train along the coast and into the hills - called the “Limon Express” - for some sightseeing.

Med weather??

So glad we were safe in a marina

The local papers were full of the weather situation