After a few weeks back in the UK we are back “home” and hosting more visitors. For weeks now we have been in the Barcelona area, and we are starting to make it a more permanent place as there are lots of places to visit in the city as well up and down the coast.
Tuesday 16th September 2003 – Handforth to Barcelona.
We have done all our jobs this month, which included a flight to Tenerife to check up on our flat out there as well as pay a visit to H’s parents, who are very kindly looking after Colin.
Colin is a beautiful black moggie that we took on when we lived in Harrow. We got him in August of 1998 from a cat rescue charity; we think he was born in January of the same year. We love him dearly, but of course, it was going to be a problem if we were to sell up and sail the Med. What do we do with him? We did, at one point, consider cancelling the whole idea of sailing. We couldn’t take him with us, although as we discovered last month, people do take their pets, including cats, on the sea with them. ‘Jack the cat’ was a perfect example, but back then, we didn’t know the ifs and hows.
We did think about asking H’s Mum and Dad if they would take care of him, as they too were very fond of him, so one day Del plucked up the courage and asked them. They didn’t hesitate and agreed to look after him while we were away. It was a relief. The plan was back on, and we moved full steam ahead knowing that Colin would be in safe, loving hands in our absence...
… So, it’s goodbye to Colin and ‘see you again soon’ to H’s parents, who we will see very, very soon. Dad drives us to Liverpool, after an uneventful flight, always the best way we find, we are soon back ‘home’ in Barcelona. The hotel for tonight is nice, and we have late tapas and beers at a local bar just around the corner. Tomorrow we will be reunited with Stargazer.
Wednesday 17th September 2003 – Masnou to Port Vell Barcelona. 12NM, 25 euros
Today we have the most uncomfortable part of the journey, up and down steps on the Barcelona metro with our heavy bags. It’s a nightmare. Stargazer is already in the water when we arrive at Masnou marina, so we settle our bill with the marina office and sort a few things out on board. She’s so filthy, but apart from that, everything is okay.
The sea is flat, and it’s a lovely, warm, sunny day for our trip to Port Vell, 12 nautical miles south of here. Two hours later, we are making our way up the very long entrance to the marina. The entrance is shared with huge container ships and cruise ships in and out of Barcelona, and the Port Vell marina is just tucked away deep inside.
It’s much nicer here than Port Olympic, plus we are right in the heart of the city. We have a lot to do. There is, of course, as always, laundry to do, and the boat needs cleaning. There are three trips to the shops and so on. A big reset.
It takes a while to do the reset; we are constantly traipsing up and down the pontoon, when suddenly we are shouted and waved at by a familiar face on the pontoon opposite. It’s Paul from ‘Antigua Lady‘, Jack the cat’s boat. What are they doing here…? It turns out they’re staying here for six months, and they pop round for a drink later with Jack to tell us all about it.
Dinner on the boat tonight: pasta and salad.
Thursday, 18th September 2003 – Port Vell, Barcelona – Day 2
Today we get visitors… Again… H’s parents are arriving today to stay with us for a few days in the boat, so while Del sorts the boat out for visitors, H sets off to the airport early to meet them.
They are more or less on time, and they head back towards the boat by train and Taxi, getting pickpocketed on the way! They love the boat and the marina, so after a welcoming drink of cava, we take them out to sea for a sail after unpacking.
We have dinner on board and then turn in for the night after a stroll around the marina. Our bed is in the bow, the parents are in the back bedroom, which has a double bed and plenty of cupboard space. Hope they sleep ok back there.
Friday, 19th September 2003 – Port Vell Barcelona – Day 3
We are touring Barcelona today with our day passes for the Barcelona Metro.
It’s tiring work this tourist thing, but we see the Sagrada Familia, Arc de Triumph (yes they have one here too) the park and Plaza España. We get back to the boat exhausted.
Dinner on board tonight.
Saturday, 20th September 2003 – Port Vell, Barcelona to Premier de Mar, Barcelona. 10NM 24 euros
Barcelona is setting up for one hell of a party starting from today. It’s the La Merce Festival, a celebration of Catalan culture. There are stages, marquees and market stalls and fairs all over town. We are leaving the marina today to go to Mataro, which is just north of Port Vell. We will be able to see some of the activities just outside the marina.
We see two jet fighters and then the Spanish equivalent of the Red Arrows.
Six of them are flying and we have a great view at sea as they perform their display, fab. We decide to go to a different marina, Premier de Mar rather than Mataro as there is a lot of talk about big investment there. We shall see.
Oh dear… This place is a bit of a disappointment, no facilities, a dirty closed pool, one part of the marina filled in. It looks like a project that will never be finished.
For dinner. We eventually end up at a local beach restaurant after walking around town and finding nothing there. We have Escalivada while mum has half a cow!
Sunday, 21st September 2003 – Premier de Mar to Arenys de Mar. 35NM, 27 euros
We are up early today. We set out at nine. We are heading to Blanes, 23 miles away. The wind is patchy so we motor most of the way. We arrive at Blanes, eventually and radio in asking if they have a place for us to stay the night.
Sadly there’s no space for us unless we want raft and we don’t fancy that at all. (Rafting is where boats are tied up side to side, which means that you could be climbing over other people boats and they over yours, to get on and off!), so we fill up with fuel and head back to the nearest marina, which is Arenys de Mar, a favourite of ours. Its only 12 miles away. We sail for a while but the wind is too much on the nose, so we give up and get the motor back in.
The pool at Arenys de Mar is closed, which is a shame. We have dinner on the boat. The parents seem to be enjoying their temporary mariner life…
Monday, 22nd September 2003 Arenys de Mar – Day 2
As we can’t get into Blanes by sea, we will get there by rail. We have a nice lunch in Blanes while we are there, and look around the town and the marina. It looks like they have spaces today.
For dinner, we find a great local restaurant in the backstreet run by one man, H has stuffed peppers with cod followed by prawns flambéed in brandy. Del has a delicious butifarra and a potato starter. Tonight there is a storm which appears very quickly out of nowhere with heavy rain, thunder and lightning.
Tuesday, 23rd September 2003 Arenys de Mar to Mataro – 5NM, 20 euros
The sea is calm today. Visibility is good after the storm last night we anchor for lunch outside the town of El Balis before heading to Mataro. This is a nice marina, compared to the disappointing Premier de Mar a few days ago. It’s very neat here with new buildings and facilities springing up. It’s just a shame we are berthed on the far wall with about 1 mile to walk until the start of the town.
Dinner is on board tonight. Del has left the SSR (boat registration) papers at the last stop, Arenys, so he has to take a train to Arenys de Mar to get it back. We have solved a small gas problem. We had French bottles which is a different shaped bottle.
Wednesday 24th September 2003 – Mataro to Masnou. 6NM, 27 euros
It’s very windy today with a heavy black sky, so we decide to head to Port Olympic. At first it’s all fine, we have the red reef in and are moving along somewhat ponderously, but suddenly the wind and sea pick up and it’s a moderate sea with winds of force 6 to 7. Mum seems to be enjoying the journey as the spray washes over the deck, she has her Pac-a-mac on, while dad chooses to stay below decks keeping out of the weather.
We decide, as the sea continues to build, that Port Olympic is maybe a little too far, mainly because we don’t want to scare the parents, so we bail out and to Masnou.
Oh well, no matter. There’s a good paella restaurant here which we do indeed visit that night.
Thursday 25th September 2003 – Masnou – Day 2
At last Masnou is open for business and the chandler that was shut on our last visit in August is open to sell as a local sea chart and a new Windex, at last. We have been without a windvane since ours was blown off in our second week out during a strong wind.
We book the marina to fit the new windvane tomorrow. We visit Barcelona by train and see Port Olympic. The bikes that we left there, against a lampost many weeks ago, are still okay.
We have a nice cheap Chinese lunch together then walk the full length of la Rambla before heading back. We are all tired today so we have takeout pizza on board which is very nice, then to bed early-ish. It’s the parents last night tonight.
At 4 am we are woken up by the sound, and feeling of the rudder scraping the rocks below, so we get dressed and go out and loosen the back ropes allowing us to drift away from the wall. It turns out that it’s spring tides tonight and we were obviously on the borderline of scraping. No harm done, we think.
Friday 26th September 2003 Friday Masnou to Port Vell, Barcelona. 12NM, 25 euros
H leaves for the airport with her parents, early. Del stays behind as the new windvane is being fitted today… When H gets back she’s disappointed that she has missed the excitement of that as we set off for Port Vell.
We are planning to stay in Port Vell for three weeks while Del works and we will have another new visitor in a few days. Natalie, H’s best friend from school is visiting us in time for her birthday in October.
There is a largest swell out in the bay and we achieve 7.9 kn motor sailing. We are hoping to get a long stay at Port Vell, but unfortunately they can’t give us many days as they are full. The boat show is approaching so we book 2 days and start to think what to do.
We do the laundry but Del isn’t having a good day. He loses the laundry token in the machine then loses a towel which is now recovered as he is walking from the showers. He is now banned from doing stuff for the rest of the day. He also has his first taste of washer rage in the gents. oh dear.
Dinner is pasta pesto and salad.
Saturday 27th September 2003 – Port Vell – Day 2
It’s raining today – Brighton style – (just dull drizzle). There are great big black clouds surrounding us and it looks like the the rain is on for the day, so we get our ‘oilies‘ (sailors waterproof coats), and head for the dryness of the local IMAX cinema. We see a film called Space Stations 3-D and Alien Adventure 3-D both very good.
We are already soaking from our walk. H’s shoes have pools of water inside them, so we decide to walk up the la Rambla to the Easy Internet and have some tapas on the way. We end up in a basic fisherman’s bar with sawdust on the floor. where we have a delicious and differently done Patatas Bravas.
We get back to the boat and get dry clothes on, at last. Del goes to the marina office to try again and get more stay days form them. He is successful in persuading them to let us stay until he gets back from a job in the south of Spain at Benalmadena with Ian, the friend who came with Paula a few weeks ago.
Dinner is a Spanish stew. Yes it’s still raining.
Sunday 28th September 2003 – Port Vell – Day 3
The rain has stopped and the sun eventually makes an appearance. Today we are going to head off to Port Olympic to pick up the bikes that we left a few months ago. H’s shoes are still wet and they’ve started rubbing her. The bikes are pretty rusty now but we spray them up with a few squirts of WD-40 and pump up the tyres. Good as new. Well not quite. Del keeps skidding to a halt when he tries to coast. His chain has seized up, but we get back safe.
We think we may dump the bikes when we leave Barcelona as they will drip rust on the boat and that’s not good.
Monday 29th September 2003, Port Vell – Day 4
We are taking the boat out to sea today for a potter about, so we can empty the black tank ready for my few days alone. It’s a good sailing day and we get 5 knots out of her, but the best bit is that we see some dolphins, about 10 of them ,they’re beautiful and graceful and a couple approach the boat surfacing just 10 m away. This is the closest we have seen them in the wild. They hang around at a distance almost all the time until we go back in when they jump clear out of the water in front of us.
When we get back to the marina we clean the boat, she’s filthy from the rain. We take a walk and a train up to Park Guell. How do tourists find this place. After a kilometre trek and a slog uphill we arrive and it’s packed, we see the tile lizard and the pillars. There is a great view over the city today.
We order a TackTick wireless wind indicator. Dinner tonight is with Paul and Karen, who have found an all you can eat Japanese restaurant, a kaitensushi. What more could you want? What a great find…
Tuesday 30th September 30, Port Vell – Day 5
Today Del is off to work in Benalmadena. He leaves early. H goes back to bed once she has seen him off.
All my plans for the day are binned off as it is pouring down, the heaviest I’ve seen it yet, it’s relentless until about four when it eases to a normal rainstorm…!
I seize my chance to pop to the supermarket. I get my oilies and wellies on and head off to the local supermarket, but half of it’s flooded out! I have dinner with Karen and Paul on their boat, “Antigua Lady“, a very nice spaghetti bolognaise. The rain has finally stopped just long enough for us to eat outside. I get to see Jack the cat as well. All very good…, until it starts raining again…
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