Uphill all the way to Greenwich
Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Mon 21 Jul 2008 19:22
38:37.8N 00:00.1W
Monday 21st July
Said cheerio to Paul and Harriet off Kalliste (Regina 43) having agreed to join them for drinks this evening if we end up in the same spot! Some confusion here as they have an old pilot book/almanac and the marina or anchorage, that we are heading for has just changed its name from Puerto Luis Campomanes to Marina Greenwich, so they may or may not arrive here tonight!
Said cheerio to Paul and Harriet off Kalliste (Regina 43) having agreed to join them for drinks this evening if we end up in the same spot! Some confusion here as they have an old pilot book/almanac and the marina or anchorage, that we are heading for has just changed its name from Puerto Luis Campomanes to Marina Greenwich, so they may or may not arrive here tonight!
Left Santa Pola around 10.00am in a flat calm and a
fairly flat sea which meant that we were able to sit back and read today’s Daily
Telegraph and eat a sticky Danish pastry which Sarah bought this morning as a
treat, but gradually as we made our way past Alicante the wind began to
rise as did the seas in tandem. Before long we were beating into a force 6
pretty much bang on the nose and some very lumpy waves which were slowing us
right down to barely 4 knots when we hit the big ones. Felt that we had already
done too much motoring lately, so we pressed on sailing. The headland just past
Benidorm proved to be a very awkward obstacle and it took some hours to tack our
way through the bigger waves past this dramatic bit of coastline. Sarah was
fully entertained watching the tops of the very high cliffs where the perfect
sea breeze cloud formations were occurring in front our eyes in very fast
forward.
Finally we were able to set a course direct to our destination and as this was a little way off the wind, we could free the sails a touch and Serafina responded by leaping away and romping at a very comfortable 8 – 9 knots, shrugging off the waves now with impunity. Very rugged bit of coastline here (photo of the approach on the website www.rhbell.com ) but the marina itself was easy to enter, well protected and very efficient. Mind you it has turned out to be easily the most expensive by a large margin! It does appear that as you get closer to the Balearic Islands, all prices climb rapidly. The Marina Greenwich is really a self-contained village and all the shops, restaurants and facilities are within just 100 metres of the boat. Some rather impressive boats moored here although it is actually quite small. (Our web site www.rhbell.com has a picture of a super yacht moored just up the pontoon from us.) Even the HR 62 that arrived ahead of us looks quite ordinary and we were made to feel rather inferior when we discovered that the lazy lines for our berth were too short for a little boat like ours! We had to extend them with our own lines just to reach the quay. Mind you, you should see the expensive cars in the car park! A sort of who’s who of Italian car manufactures and an immaculate Austin Healey 3000.
Finally we were able to set a course direct to our destination and as this was a little way off the wind, we could free the sails a touch and Serafina responded by leaping away and romping at a very comfortable 8 – 9 knots, shrugging off the waves now with impunity. Very rugged bit of coastline here (photo of the approach on the website www.rhbell.com ) but the marina itself was easy to enter, well protected and very efficient. Mind you it has turned out to be easily the most expensive by a large margin! It does appear that as you get closer to the Balearic Islands, all prices climb rapidly. The Marina Greenwich is really a self-contained village and all the shops, restaurants and facilities are within just 100 metres of the boat. Some rather impressive boats moored here although it is actually quite small. (Our web site www.rhbell.com has a picture of a super yacht moored just up the pontoon from us.) Even the HR 62 that arrived ahead of us looks quite ordinary and we were made to feel rather inferior when we discovered that the lazy lines for our berth were too short for a little boat like ours! We had to extend them with our own lines just to reach the quay. Mind you, you should see the expensive cars in the car park! A sort of who’s who of Italian car manufactures and an immaculate Austin Healey 3000.
Sarah made the happy discovery that the beach was
made up of the most perfect round stones (she is an avid collector of
‘interesting’ stones) and so she spent part of the evening hunting and
collecting perfect specimens to take home. (Probably as part of my baggage
allowance.)