Barcelona to Marseille
Alan's Log:
Joan's Log:
Marseille, France
April 3rd 2008
Route from Barcelona to Marseille
Not to be used for navigation
Moonstruck has been tied to a dock for most of the last 6 months, since we arrived in Barcelona
on October 1st 2007. During that time
essential sailing equipment such as lifejackets and such have all been
put away in deep storage and replaced with the by-products and debris of dirt-dwelling; winter
street clothes; a shopping cart; a few guide books; a
fossil Joan picked up at Cap St Vicente in Portugal, and, well
STUFF. We spent our last days in Barcelona stocking up on a few essentials and packing away all that stuff and turning Moonstruck back from being a 'Floataminium' to a voyaging yacht. We also needed to pay a visit to the yard to have months of barnacles removed from the prop and undersides, renew the anti-corrosion zincs and at the same time we decided to have the bottom painted with fresh anti-foul paint. The yard didn't have the original color in stock, so we changed from 'shark grey' to a pleasant deep red. The red looks more industrial and we have always been slightly worried that the shark grey would in fact make us look like a shark to a protective whale and lead to a potentially dangerous 'close encounter'.
We also carefully watched the weather. We knew the Mistral (wind) had been blowing because his evil twin brother the Tramontana had been howling through Barcelona every 3 or 4 days. The Mistral blows from north to northwest and gains strength by being funneled by the Alps. In our yachting guide it is described as, "very strong, dry, dangerous". We were also getting plenty of sage advice from the seasoned Med cruisers on our dock, as well, "watch out for the Mistrals", "keep an eye on the weather", "time your departure carefully", and my favorite "if you run into the Mistral, just turn around and head back!" This sort of talk was more than enough to put fear into my already trembling heart! So, we waited a few extra days. According to windguru.com and passagemaking.com the Mistral was blowing but there was a definite break for about 3 days, which should give us plenty of time to get to Marseille without any problem.
The Greek geographer Strabo said of the Mistral, that it was an impetuous and terrible wind which displaces rocks, hurls men from their chariots, breaks their limbs and strips them of their clothes and weapons". There is another tale of a locomotive having been blown backwards 50 miles from Arles to Marseille by the Mistral. In the winter months in this region the winds blow gale force or higher 13% of the time.
So we watched the weather looking for a pattern that was unlikely to produce either of these two ferocious winds during our anticipated 48 hour voyage. We decided to sail along the Spanish coast, continuing to check the weather forecasts, spend a night at anchor in a cala (bay) and, with a decent forecast head off the next morning for Marseille across the gulf of lion.
The day of gentle passages arrived and we were off! We watched the skyline of Barcelona fade in the distance as we passed the Costa Brava region of the Spanish coast line, the prettiest coast we had seen so far. Moonstruck was alive to the helm and, for a 23 ton boat with a long keel, she seemed almost sprightly with her smooth bottom and clean prop. The wind picked up and we were able to sail about 5 hours of the first leg of our voyage. That evening we found a pretty little cala, with a huge medieval castle over looking it, and decided to anchor out instead of staying in a marina. It had been a long time since we had spent the night on the hook, and the thought of a peaceful night of silence without the city noises of sirens and cars, only the sounds of the waves hitting the beach, was very appealing. Plus we could just pull anchor and leave first thing without having to check out of a marina. It was wonderfully peaceful, but during the night what started out as a gentle movement became increasingly rolly to the point that we got just a few hours of sleep.
Mistral Mischief
We timed our departure the next morning so as to arrive Marseille in daylight. One last check of the weather forecast and it looked good! Slight winds all day and a wind from the West would build in the evening to around 20-25 knots. This would have us sailing downwind, Moonstruck's favorite point of sail. It should be a good ride through the night. We had light wind, so began by motoring.As we were sailing along that day a very major milestone for us and Moonstruck occured, we hit the 10,000 mile mark!!! That is a long, long way to sail in just about a year and a half.
The wind arrived at around 9:00 pm and it was a relief to shut down the engine. Moonstruck's speed built with the wind, till we were sailing downwind at between 8 & 9 Knots, with 10 knots appearing occasionally on the knot meter in 22 knots of true wind. This is as fast as we have sailed! The seas had not yet built and Moonstruck surged and foamed through the small waves churning up large blobs of phosphorescence in her bow wake. At 2:00 in the morning, the wind shifted to the North, off our beam and built and built. The seas gradually took on the new wind direction also, and what had been a lovely downwind ride turned into a close-reach into hard slapping waves off our beam. We were half-way across the gulf, and fortunately the waves did not have much fetch at this point, so they did not build beyond about 12'. But the wind continued to increase, levelling out at 35 - 37 knots with gusts to 40 knots. This is slightly stronger than the highest wind we had experienced crossing the Atlantic! That's when we knew we realized we were face to face with the Mistral!
Like a poltergeist in the dark, the Mistral had found out we were out there, and had rearranged his calendar just so he could meet us personally. He knew we had been trying to avoid him and wasn't too happy about it. We were punished! For the next 10 hours we got a good ass-kicking all the way to Marseille. My thoughts were...well, so much for weather forecasts! I won't bore you with too many details, it was very uncomfortable and miserably cold but definately character-building!
The dinghy was lashed in place in the stern arch, and our two bicycles were lashed to the lifelines on either side. The back of the boat looked like a garden patio! But a garden patio that was gyrating wildly from side to side with each wave and being ripped by 35 knot winds. What if something came loose?
As the wind built we reduced sail, both to control the angle of heel, and also to control our speed, we did not want to arrive at Marseille in the dark, which was now a possibility if we continued to sail at hull speed. So we reefed and reefed until we only had two table-cloth sized sails out, and still we were making 5 - 6 knots, occasionally increasing to 8 knots in the gusts. We were under control, but we were getting thrown around quite a bit and our new fear was that we would arrive at the port of Marseille in 35 knot winds. How would we get Moonstruck into a tiny slip in these conditions with bicycles lashed where it would be impossible to open the aft lazarettes where we keep the mooring lines and without clobbering half the boats in the marina? We kept to our conservative sail plan and resolved to worry more about that when we got there. After a very long night, two tired sailors (sleep was impossible) made the approach into Marseille in broad daylight at 10:00 a.m., past the barren, wind-swept Iles du Frioul. The wind was still blowing a solid 35 knots and now the French Navy wanted to talk to us! We answered most of their questions, I fretted that we would be chastized for not having hoisted our yellow Quarantine flag (it was too rough to want to go on deck unless really necessary), but they did not seem to care. The next thing we knew we turned the right-angle bend into Marseille harbor. Immediately, the wind dropped to a pleasant 8 knots. The closer we got to the Vieux Port (Old Port) of Marseille,
The lower the
wind became, until by the time we were side tied near the quay on
the public dock, around 10:30, it was a gentle breeze and a brilliant sunny warm
day! What a contrast! The harbor was beautiful and I
was relieved to be there but my blood sugar was "crazy" low. We were
both exhausted, grouchy, snapping at each other and totally starving! So we
quickly hosed the worst of the salt off the boat and ran off down the
quay where we had a lovely lunch and some wine in a great open air cafe in
the sunshine and later had a good nap on Moonstruck. When I woke up, all
was right with the world and I was ready to explore it!The Marina had been full due to a local race, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We had been instructed to tie up next to a classic yacht right in front of the Mayor's palace, with a lovely view of the entire harbor, and up the hill to the majestic Notre Dame de la Garde, with its gold statue which watches out to sea and so protects the city from siege.
Next.....We explore Marseille, home of bouillabaisse, The Calanques and the delightful nearby town of Cassis. As well as a road-trip to Provence and the Dordogne valley.