Barcelona Bound
After our lovely sojourn in the Porquerolles, it was time to keep on moving towards Spain. We spent one more night at a bay not far from Marseille which would set us up for crossing the Bay of Lyon. At its widest point, the Bay of Lyon, is around 110 nautical miles wide which would take us 22hrs.
There is also this nasty little wind called “The Mistral” that comes barrelling down from the mountains and spews itself out in the bay that needs to be considered before crossing. We managed to avoid a Mistral and had a good crossing, sailing for the majority of the 22hrs. We ended the crossing just over the border with France and Spain in an area called the Costa Brava. Now I have heard of the name Costa Brava before but to see it was great. The coastline is quite rocky and high with lots of homes/hotels built along the available spots. There were sandy beaches between the cliffs, some larger and some looked “postage stamp size” from the water. We had a great couple of nights at different bays as we made our way towards Barcelona.
Some of you may be aware that the America’s Cup is being held in Barcelona through August-October and the current defending country is New Zealand. Well as we headed towards the city, we could see some of the boats out at sea whizzing along.
Now, if you are anything like me your most recent reference point for the America’s cup was back in 1987 in Fremantle with Bondy and the winged keel era. Let me tell you the boats of the current America’s Cup era are nothing like that. They are lightweight 23 metre foiling monohulls with no keel and go super-fast.
After going to an exhibit put on to promote the America’s Cup, I discovered that it isn’t just the main America’s Cup competition being held but there is a smaller class of sailboat as well as a women’s competition plus a youth competition.
During our stay in Barcelona, we weren’t actually staying in Barcelona!! As you can imagine, the prices of marina berths in this major city would be a bit rich at the best of times, let alone during the build up to the America’s Cup. We had booked into Port de Sitges which was 30km out of Barcelona with a train line running along the coast to Barcelona.
After a very interesting night at anchor, just past the port of Barcelona and alongside the runway of the very busy airport we left for the short hop to Sitges. Sitges is a gorgeous town build on the coastline and is a holiday destination for locals, we got settled into the marina.
On Saturday we caught the train into Barcelona and bought tickets for a “hop on, hop off” tourist bus. We like using these buses as we find it gives you a chance to have a quick look at a lot of different places and then you can either jump off at the time or go back later.
We have been to Barcelona, way back in 2006 so we had some understanding of what there was to see. We had been hosted by Suzuki Australia at the time and the farewell dinner for that trip was held at Casa Batllo, a building designed by Gaudi. It was a pretty special night as this building wasn’t open to visits by tourists at that time. The building is now open to the public. Gaudi’s influence is seen all over the city in buildings, Park Guell and famous Sagrada Família.
The reason for having to be in Barcelona for a certain time was all to do with a Visa we are getting to extend the time we can spend in Spain considering Tony’s plans to possibly sail across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean. We have been helped with this process by Sharlene, who is my dear friend Tanya’s older sister, and a resident of Barcelona. Sharlene has had her own personal experiences with the special kind of bureaucracy that Spain is know for, so we are very grateful for her help.
After leaving Sitges Marina, we travelled north and spent 3-4 days waiting out some weather before we did “overnight crossing No. 7” to Mallorca.
More Photos from Barcelona in the Photo Gallery - Barcelona
