{"id":11800,"date":"2018-04-26T15:33:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T15:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=11800"},"modified":"2025-10-01T16:32:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:32:12","slug":"we-have-been-hauled-and-relaunched-and-are-on-our-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=11800","title":{"rendered":"We have been hauled and relaunched, and are on our way"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
View from the Sant Carles de la R\u00c3\u00a0pita Marina towards the town and the surrounding mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We have not posted a blog since the end of October.\u00a0 So let me catch up briefly.\u00a0 After our car trip to Andalusia in October, we returned to\u00a0Sant Carles de la R\u00c3\u00a0pita to prepare the boat for winter storage ashore.\u00a0 As Laura was coming out of the laundry room in the marina, someone tapped her on the shoulder and said “Laura?\u00a0 Is that you?”\u00a0 It was Gesche, whom we knew from our first year crossing of the Pacific in 2007.\u00a0 At the time, she and her husband Herbert and their 4 year old son Yannick were crossing on their catamaran Yara.\u00a0 We met them either in the Galapagos or Fatu Hiva in 2007 and sailed with them in the Society Islands, the Cooks, and Tonga, and spent time with them in New Zealand at the end of the year.\u00a0 We knew that they completed their circumnavigation in 2009 and returned to northern Germany.\u00a0 The Sant Carles Marina is now home to a different and smaller catamaran that they sail during their vacations from full-time employment and school.\u00a0 It was so nice to spend some time with them again and see a now grown Yannick.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Laura and Gesche in Sant Carles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Yannick and Mark on a hike above Sant Carles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
View of Sant Carles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sabbatical III was hauled in November without incident and we returned to the US for the winter.\u00a0 We returned to Spain on April 2 to arrange bottom painting and to get the boat ready for what promises to be a long sailing season.\u00a0 Roberto from Asnau Marine and his crew did an excellent job painting and waxing.\u00a0 Gesche, Herbert, and Yannick were once again in Sant Carles after completing their first sail of the season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sabbatical III is launched on April 9 at the Sant Carles Marina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On April 18 we left Sant Carles heading southwest.\u00a0 Our first stop was\u00a0Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola, a beautiful city with a fortified old town built on a rocky headland.\u00a0 There is no marina in\u00a0Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola so we anchored to the south of the headland in a small and very shallow bay protected from the east by a small breakwater.\u00a0 As we were anchoring, a procession of large steel fishing vessels came around the breakwater into the small bay from the sea at high speed creating a huge amount of wake.\u00a0 Over a period of just 15 minutes, 25 to 30 such vessels came in as if in a hurry.\u00a0 The last two fishing boats came in just as a siren went off indicating 4 pm which is apparently the deadline for unloading fish for the wholesale market.\u00a0 After the siren, all was calm.\u00a0 When these boats left in the morning, they did so slowly and we hardly felt their wake.<\/p>\n

The old town of\u00a0Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola is charming and had lots of tourists even this early in the season.\u00a0 We toured the castle and the gardens and had a great lunch sitting outdoors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The walled city and castle of Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
The walled city and castle of Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
View from the castle, Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
View from the castle, Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
View from the castle, Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola, with Sabbatical III in the background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
View from the castle towards the lighthouse, Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Castle at Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The wind shifted during our second night at\u00a0Pe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00adscola and we had to leave the next day.\u00a0 We had hoped to spend time at the Columbretes Islands, a group of small uninhabited islets of volcanic origin off the coast, but the marine forecast was not right.\u00a0 So we sailed off to the big city of Valencia.<\/p>\n

Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain with a population of almost 2.5 million in the metropolitan area.\u00a0 \u00a0It has a beautiful old town, wonderful architecture and parks, and is famous for its food, in particular, paella.\u00a0 It also has the largest container port in the Med and that container port is adjacent to the Valencia Yacht Port where we are berthed.\u00a0 When we arrived after 5 pm on April 21, there was considerable clanking and noise from giant cranes piling containers just\u00a0 50 meters away.\u00a0 We thought about turning around and leaving, but there was nowhere to go.\u00a0 Those first few hours were the noisiest.\u00a0 It has been mostly quiet since then because they are probably unloading a ship at a different quay.\u00a0 The marina is long and linear and we are at the far end so it is 2.5 kilometers to the front gate and when you exit, you are in a wasteland adjacent to the port and quite far from the city.\u00a0 Two days ago we rented a car.\u00a0 Now we can get around and explore the beautiful old city.\u00a0 Parking is scarce and expensive in the city center so we devised a sensible plan.\u00a0 We would drive to a metro stop on the outskirts of town where there was lots of free parking, and then take the metro (subway) into town.\u00a0 We rely on “Ms. Google” (Google Maps)\u00a0 to direct us around wherever we go and she has always done a great job … until now.\u00a0 Yesterday, Google Maps sent us down a one lane country road through an artichoke farm that dead-ends on the wrong side of the train tracks.\u00a0 So we had Ms Google suggest another route.\u00a0 That route also turned into a one lane road through an onion field with a metro stop visible in the distance.\u00a0 We decided to give up and find our way into the city with the car.\u00a0 As we did so, we found the real entrance to the metro stop.\u00a0 There was not even an office with a counter, just a ticket machine and a parking lot in the farm field.\u00a0 A friendly metro employee helped us with the machine and we easily took a subway train right into town.\u00a0 More on Valencia in a later blog.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Valencia: Old Town<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

M.<\/p>\n

PS San Carles is the biggest fishing port in Catalonia.\u00a0 The large steel fishing boats come in late in the afternoon for the automated wholesale auction market.\u00a0 Here are some photos of that process from last fall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Seafood unloaded from boats, Sant Carles<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Monk fish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Unloading seafood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Wholesale auction buyers look down at a conveyor belt and computer screens listing type and weight of seafood, current bid, and name of boat, plus a close-up of the seafood up for auction.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have not posted a blog since the end of October.\u00a0 So let me catch up briefly.\u00a0 After our car trip to Andalusia in October, we returned to\u00a0Sant Carles de la R\u00c3\u00a0pita to prepare the boat for winter storage ashore.\u00a0 As Laura was coming out of the laundry room in the marina, someone tapped her … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “We have been hauled and relaunched, and are on our way”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-2018"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}