Valencia

Wednesday/Thursday, Aug 20 – 21, 2014 –

We motored north from Cartagena toward Valencia in very calm seas and almost no wind.  Fishing is a major industry along this coast and here it is common practice to use “tunny nets”.  Tunny nets are fish nets anchored to the sea bed for up to 6 miles long in depths of 50-100 feet.  A pattern of red and white lights on a boat or float mark the two ends of the net.  The local chart book tells us the nets are capable of stopping a small freighter, making us more vigilant on watches for the nets as well as other boat traffic. Overnight we saw multiple sets.  The challenge there was to try to identify which lights made up a pair for a single net so we knew which way to maneuver around them.  Fortunately, the fishing boats working the nets all had AIS  transponders so we could easily identify their activity on the plotter.

The coastline of Spain in this area, and much of the south coast, is made up of high cliffs of rock.  Occasionally it would open to a small sandy beach or cove. Unfortunately, the coves did not wrap around very far and do not present anchoring possibilities.  The only option for pleasure boaters is to hop from marina to marina. For cruisers, this is a costly portion of the trip through the Med.

On Thursday, unforecasted winds kicked up to 20 kts which whipped up the seas very quickly.  We put out full sail which gave us better motion even with a wave period of only 3 seconds, and we were able to shut off the engine.   Unfortunately the current was against us.  Normally we could tell by looking at the instruments to see the difference between “boat speed” and “speed over ground”.  That difference is the speed of the current.  However, the “boat speed” instrument is not providing information due to fowling–another thing for the project list that never seems to get shorter.

By early afternoon we headed into the Marina Real de Juan Carlos I, originally known as the America’s Cup Marina.  It is just north of the city of Valencia.  The marina is huge with large pontoons and wide, very wide, fairways. Docking is Med-moor but there are lazy lines to pick up your bow lines after backing in.  Plus, in the practice of “customer service” the dock hands jump in a launch to take you to your berth and assist you with docking.  Wow!

Since we have yet to acquire a passerelle (boarding walkway) we back in slightly closer than normal and use our wonderful back steps to get on and off the boat.  Love those steps!  When we were putting together our “wish list” of features for what would become this boat, the aft steps were high on it.  They make getting in and out of the dinghy easier as well.

bDSC_0329.1Once settled, we walked around the area and found the America’s Cup Museum.  The museum is situated right in the heart of the harbor where all the special docks and challenger headquarters buildings were for each of the teams. The massive marina  built to host the races shows the incredible commitment that the city made for the event. Even the manhole covers were cast with the “America’s Cup Logo”. bDSC_0322 Fortunately for Spain they were able to host not one, but two races owing to racing success of Team Alinghi.  (n.b.: The Swiss Team Alinghi choose the Spain venue for the races since Switzerland is landlocked.) Both the 2007 and 2010 America’s Cup Regattas (Series #32 and #33) were held here along with all the challenger races leading up to final event. The museum was an excellent multi-media experience, and it was free!

bDSC_0313There is a broad sandy beach that runs for miles to the north from the marina with a wide boardwalk.  It is active all day.  We noticed the snack food here is different along the boardwalk.  We expect to see people eating ice cream.  Here, every few hundred feet, there is a small grill set up with vendors selling grilled corn on the cob.  Instead of a plate it is served right in the husk; pretty corny…

 

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