11th July Ibiza to Valencia

Sealion
Richard Martin
Sun 12 Jul 2009 07:00
Our night at anchor in St Antonio was not quite as peaceful as we should have liked bearing in mind we wanted to leave at 6.00am. Having just gone to bed fireworks started (on the shore not in bed - it's all in your mind!). Then of course the occassional party goer was heard - in fact acted as a good alarm at 5.30am.
 
Off we went with a wind forecasted on the beam F2-4. The first hour or so of dawn was calm with just a gentle breeze as expected. See picture of sun rising over Ibiza behind us. After a while the wind picked up, so up went the sails but we had to continue motor sailing to keep a good speed up to cover the 80+ miles we had to do. Come early afternoon the wind picked up further to 15 knots as expected and the motor was cut all perfect - but the wind continued to rise providing us with a good 20/23knots for the last three hours. Boat speed was great as we surfed on the ever increasing swell. Being a beam reach Alison didn't notice the following sea until it came time to go head to wind to put the sails away - quite exciting - I think Alison got a buzz out of it really!?
 
Anyhow we arrived at 6.00pm after 12 hours sailing and 81 miles. The longest trip for Alison yet and well out of sight of land for much of the time.
 
Quite a few Yachts passed us around mid-day heading for Ibiza but few were going our way. The marina is still very cheap at 24 Euros a day. Although the Valencia F1 weekend - the course goes around the marina - would cost 1500 euros.
 
Oh yes having gone to bed fairly early we were awoken again at midnight by yet another firework display - and very impressive too.
 
The plan is to stay a few days and do the sightseeing bit before moving up the coast to Barcelona 
 
No wild life to report this time.

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