We’ve been sailing

We planned to go sailing this afternoon but by 12 noon everything was ready – kit stowed away below, sails and engine rigged and tested, visit to chandlery completed. So we thought we might as well go.

The only downside was a huge bank of black clouds. In the UK they would have meant a nasty squall but here they just seem to mean it gets a bit dark for a while, and the visibility is poor. We sailed down to Port Olimpico and back (about four miles each way) with a nice south-easterly wind blowing about 10 knots – perfect for our first sail for six months. After about half an hour our speed suddenly increased by about a knot, so we suspect that we have may have lost whatever enormous lump of marine growth we were trailing.

Everything worked fine, although the mainsail was very dusty. In spite of the grungy visibility we had a great view of Barcelona from the sea, including the Sagrada Familia. As we came back the wind died away, so our timing was excellent.

Our neighbour across the pontoon has just mentioned that there is a major water crisis in Catalonia. We had worked out that there is a hosepipe ban but apparently water reserves are down to 20% of their normal level. It poured with rain the day we arrived so we hadn’t realised things are so bad.

Wind gone

After five days of constant wind we woke this morning to peace – that is to say, less noise from the surrounding rigging, wind generators, hollow masts etc, but the sound of building, passing buses and trains is suddenly much more audible. I woke up early and worried about whether we should be hurrying to bend on the foresail during the lull, but in fact it’s now 2pm and still lulling.

Anyway the sail is now raised and furled (we took it down in early September to reduce wear and tear), the mainsheet is rigged, and Sam has changed the coolant and run up the engine. So we are ready for a sail, except there is absolutely no wind at all. The engine generates hot water which makes washing up a bit easier!

I also managed to get a (shaky) internet connection for the first time, checked a few emails and uploaded a blog entry or two. Perhaps the wind had been blowing the wireless waves in the wrong direction.

Yesterday we went to the mega-enormous hypermarket, Alcampo, at Santa Adria. It really is much too big, it’s so easy to miss an entire section and never get bread, or meat, or whatever. It’s about a 20-minute walk along the coast road to get there and we got the little bus back, so really a very painless way to get €100 of shopping. We even looked at bicycles for the canals (the towpaths, not the water), but didn’t buy one.

me on the beach at Barceloneta; Port Olimpico and copper fish behind

Catching up

Finally have a flaky internet connection - so a quick post. Will polish later.

Wednesday 26 March

Monday – a public holiday here, as it is in the UK - we flopped about a bit, slept and read, cleaned up the boat, fitted the new bilge pump, watched a DVD – nothing strenuous. Then while cooking dinner on Monday night the gas, already a bit half-hearted, ran out completely. What a blow – we’d already, as we thought, emptied the other cylinder. Fortunately we discovered that we had enough left in it to concoct a strange meal of corned-beef in tomato sauce and instant noodles.

On Tuesday Sam and I set off towards the fleshpots of Badalona in search of Camping Gaz. We managed to find the middle of Badalona, which we have always missed before – it’s laid out on a grid pattern with we don’t find intuitive (a map might help, if we could find one). At the third try, five blocks up and about fifteen over from the marina, we found a ferreteria (ironmonger) which sells Camping Gaz, huzzah! Opposite was a small supermercado, so we stocked up on the basics, fortified ourselves with coffee and beer and walked back along the seafront, taking 30 mins or so. Hooray, again, for Sam’s new trolley – without it we would have no fingers left. It carried a full gas cylinder and much of the shopping with ease. What a fantastic invention the wheel is.

Today I insisted we went into Barcelona and got Ben to pick the destination. He went for the Museo Picasso – a good choice, we thought. En route we climbed to the roof of the Cathedral to introduce Ben to the view of the Barri Gotic, the old quarter of Barcelona. There were thousands of youngsters from school parties around but fortunately they aren’t allowed on the roof. There was a queue at the museum but it wasn’t too full, and we saw the collection of paintings owned by Picasso (some lovely Cezannes, Renoirs, Mattisses et al) as well as the museum collection which goes up to 1917 then stops dead and starts again in 1959, which is quite a big gap. Back via the Born area and home again on the tram, which we like a lot.


Sunday 23 March – Easter Day

We arrived in Barcelona late on Saturday after a very uneventful flight. The transfer to Badalona was a bit more interesting, though. The bridge from the airport to the station was closed so we had to get a bus (a mile on the bus to cover about 150m in a straight line). Still, once again the Renfe train tickets were free. We decided to transfer to the Metro at Passeig de Gracia because it was late on Easter Saturday and we might not be able to get a train to Badalona either at Sants (the main station) or França (the end of the line). Big mistake on three counts: (1) the transfer at Passeig de Gracia is about half a mile up and down steps and we all had heavy bags, (2) Sam had €100 nicked from his pocket on an escalator, and (3) because of repair works the last few stops on the Metro were replaced by a bus.

Not all bad, though: by the time we got to Pep Ventura it had stopped raining, and Sam’s new trolley worked superbly. In all the transfers we never had to wait longer than two or three minutes, could you imagine that in the UK? What’s more we never heard a train as we walked down to the boat, so we might have made the right choice. We got to the boat about midnight having landed around 9.15pm.

On Sunday we finally caught up with Alan and Joan Teed on board their stunning Hylas 49 Moonstruck. On the way we strolled along the beach at Barceloneta (Ben barefoot, of course) which was bracing, and interesting, but really not very warm. Moonstruck was very impressive, beautifully made with lots of great design features. The switch panels open to display an immaculate and beautifully labelled wiring loom behind – remembering those two days we once spent trying to thread through the Navtex cable on Magewind, we were extremely jealous. Ben asked lots of impressive engineering questions (e.g. “I see you use Raymarine instrumentation, I suppose that’s all on SeaTalk?”

I probably last saw Alan when I was 17. I can just see the face I think I remember, and he looks very young, but he has changed a bit! He and Joan seem very happy together. Sam told me later that she rarely helms the yacht, which I find amazing considering the mileage they have covered in the past 18 months, up and down the US east coast and across the Atlantic from the Caribbean. Still the downside of me doing the close-quarters helming (which I usually do) is that all the scratches in Kalessin’s gelcoat are my fault. Moonstruck has no exterior scratches, although a few internal scars from objects taking off at sea. This despite the fact that initially the bow thrusters didn’t work so all the manoeuvring had to be done the old-fashioned way.

Since we arrived the weather has mostly been cool (8-14deg), clear, sunny a lot of the time with a F4-6 wind roughly from the north. This could be a Mistral, but unfortunately it doesn’t come with a label and there are few Brits around the marina to ask. So we don’t know yet. Moonstruck was due to leave on Tuesday for Blanes and then Marseille, and in fact we saw a large yacht sailing north on Tuesday lunchtime which could have been her – with winds so much from the north it could have been a rather tough sail. Easier in a 16-tonne Hylas with 75hp engine than in Kalessin, though. So far I am very glad we took the decision not to move at Easter, it would have been a cold, wet, difficult passage.


Planning, planning

We spent an excellent couple of hours down at Haven Ports Yacht Club for which we have finally paid our sub this year, talking to a couple who have spent quite a bit of time in the French canals. They had some great photos which I suspect might well come from 2006 as the weather looked fabulous at all times.

I think we are inclining towards the Marne route, coming out at St Valery sur Somme - Sam now says he is OK to skip Paris, which is good as it will save us 150 miles. If Blogger would let me I would attach my spreadsheet of options here.

We're looking at trains for some of the to-ing and fro-ing. The new St Pancras connection opens up a whole range of opportunities. It would be possible for Ben and me to get from Diss to Sete or Nimes with just two changes (London and Lille). Prices for singles are stonkingly high but I found a superb site, the Man in Seat 61, which gives you all the info - the options are either to book a return (£50 instead of £150 for a single) or to lie and say you come from Spain. You can only book three months ahead so it's all rather speculative at this stage.

In addition we need to think about how we'd get back from St Valery (if we have to leave Kalessin there for a few weeks), which is not exactly a hotbed of transport options. There are good train connections from Abbeville, and I thought I'd found the perfect connection with a little steam train which runs around the Baie de la Somme - sadly, it reaches the key station 1 minute after our connection would leave. I'm not quite brave enough to grapple with French bus timetables on line.

Our canal friends last night pointed out that if we really wanted to go for speed, we could take the Rhone/Rhine canal and then get swept down the Rhine to Rotterdam in about four days. It's full of huge barges, masses of traffic and tremendous currents, so perhaps not...

Random picture of the Saone...

Merry Christmas from just me

Video of photos made for Sam's funeral    Dear friends and family As I hope you all know, this year has been a difficult one for me. On ...