Hi everyone, hope you are all well?

This is the penultimate report out before we complete Lilli Mae’s adventure in Barcelona early next week. Our current plan is to arrive in Premià de Mar on Monday 23rd.

Since we last spoke we have had a long stay in Cartagena after which we sailed to the port of Valencia. We have sailed 425 nm since leaving Gibraltar at the beginning of the month. We have about 240 nm to our finish point.

We had a great visit in Cartagena. Clare Linton headed home and Mike, Joan and Howard enjoyed the sunshine, lovely city and made a lot of progress agreeing the Lilli Mae fix list and then fixing some of them. 

It was hot work fixing stuff in Cartagena. Between the boat work we drank a lot of cocktails and sangria. 

And whilst in Cartagena we "bumped into” sailors that had crossed the Atlantic with us and we had met in Bermuda and The Azores. That was fun!

 

We left Cartagena on the 14th and sailed the 160 nm to Valencia overnight. Not much wind and so we did have to motor quite a bit of the way. We had to dodge quite a few islands, rocks and nature reservations on the way around Mar Menor and past Alicante. On the way into Valencia we were dodging container ships and cruise liners. Currently we are moored in La Marina de Valencia.

On the day we arrived we discovered friends from the UK happened to be visiting Valencia. 

Andrew and Isobel are inter-railing around Europe and were visiting the beach close to the marina. They stopped by Lilli Mae for a beer and then we had dinner together in the town. Thanks for coming to visit Andrew and Isobel. Have fun on your adventures over the next few weeks.

We have had quite a bit of rain since we arrived here but we have had breaks in the rain that have allowed us to get into town and explore.

The centre of Valencia is fantastic and have had a fabulous time exploring the sights, sounds, food and drink.

The Agua de Valencia and Paella are thoroughly recommended.

Tomorrow (Friday 20th) we plan to head east to Mallorca for a short visit. And then on Sunday north to Barcelona. As we write this note it is pouring with rain and unfortunately it is forecast to rain tomorrow. Light winds are expected and so we maybe motorsailing a lot of the way. Hopefully we won’t get too wet.

That’s it for now. We will catchup when we arrive in Barcelona.

All the best, 

The Crew aboard Lilli Mae.

email: lilli_mae {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com
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