Spain – Plan B

As usual, we had many guests arriving and grand plans. Also per usual, the weather dictated something different. We were greatly looking forward to exploring the Balearic Islands, as were two groups of our guests. Unfortunately, with the timing and inclement weather, we ended up sticking to the coast of mainland Spain instead, not that that’s anything to sneeze at! We have just found that this coastline, with the constant wind that comes from various directions, is more of a “marina coast” as opposed to an “anchorage coast” like we’ve been used to. Thankfully, Spain has a plethora of nice, available, inexpensive marinas and beautiful towns to visit.

Our first group of guests consisted of our son, Rory, and several of his college friends who were joining us after experiencing the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. With only three short days, we collected them in Tarragona, spent a full day there, then hopped to two more towns further south. (This was generally planned.)

Tarragona

Established back in the 5th century BCE, historic Tarragona has a beautiful old quarter with many ancient Roman ruins – an amphitheater, circus, Forum, tombs, etc. All set atop a hill along a beautiful long beach. Later additions include the impressive cathedral, city walls, and several castles. In addition to having many festivals and Roman re-enactments, Tarragona is known for another popular tradition – “castells,” which are human towers. The locals perform this feat during many of their fiestas, and the city even hosts an international castells competition. While we didn’t see these live, we did see a neat sculpture depicting how these work. 

Vinaròs and Castellón de la Plana

With our remaining two days, we focused on letting the crew simply experience days at sea. There were not any other large, exciting towns to visit within reaching distance, but we were able to reach Vinaròs after a relatively long 54 nautical mile trek and then Castellón de la Plana after about a 38 nm trek the next day. Both are local holiday beach destinations. There was much relaxing taking place on board, then strolling and enjoying local cuisine in town.

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As we said goodbye to Rory and his lovely gang, they took public transport back to Barcelona to catch flights and we took off for Valencia. And here is where our plans had to change.

We had a few days to reach the island of Ibiza to meet our Californian friends, Andy and Diane. They would cruise with us for a couple of days then we’d have a few more days to make it up to the island of Mallorca to collect my dad and his friend, Jeff. Except we had no good weather window to make the crossing over to the islands. Even if we did, the conditions at the islands were not looking good for the coming week anyway. Another mistral was getting started and the CAPE Index was looking way too high. The CAPE Index is another weather indicator Conor carefully started tracking after recent catastrophic events in both the Balearic Islands and Sicily. The index describes the instability of the atmosphere, and thus, how likely extreme storms are to develop.

With big crowds and high prices, maneuvering around the islands and finding shelter in available marinas was also looking dodgy. So, Conor made the call to stick to the mainland. Unfortunately, this meant everyone had to change flights and plans, but that’s boat life.

As it turns out, Conor could relax because that stress was taken away, and we ended up enjoying a great time in Valencia with Andy and Diane and then Dad and Jeff. It was a good call too because we definitely experienced strong storms (from the safety of the Valencia harbor) as did the Balearics. Overall, we were in Valencia for twelve days, so you’re just going to have to stay tuned as Valencia completely deserves its own post. 😉