Week 20: Valencia to Almería (241 nm)

We stayed on for the weekend in Valencia and were joined there by one of my good friends from home (who is now Zürich-based). We had a great couple of days with Lindsay exploring the city more (pro tip: rent bikes – Valencia is built for them!) and continuing to sample the city’s amazing food scene. We were reluctant to leave come Monday, but it was time to get a move on towards Almeria, our next stop on the Spanish coast.

Liv and Elliott had to head back to the UK on Friday morning as they had tickets to see Hamilton that evening (rough life!!). This gave us a nice bit of downtime before my good friend Lindsay flew in the next afternoon, so we took the opportunity for extensive naps and to tend to a few things on the boat job list.

The stormy skies cleared by the time Lindsay arrived, so we enjoyed a long walk on the beach before trying our hand at making paella aboard Serenity. We’ve recently learned that traditional Valencian paella is strictly not allowed to have seafood in – in fact, rabbit is the key ingredient. But… rules are made for breaking 😉. And I wasn’t quite adventurous enough to have a go at rabbit! Especially as they seem to only sell them whole at the market… We opted for gambas (shrimp) and chorizo, which was muy delicioso! Inspired by our success, we followed this up with a jug of sangria – and even freshly juiced our own oranges for it! It was a very [American / British version of] Spanish evening aboard Serenity. Well, minus the entertainment. Liv and Elliott taught us a new card game last week called Yaniv, which is I believe Israeli (but also played in Nepal?). It is quite addictive, and we were excited to introduce Lindsay to it after dinner. Luckily, she is as competitive as we are!

Sunday dawned with glorious blue skies, which was perfect for the day we had planned exploring the city by bike. Valencia has very impressive infrastructure for bikes, with separated bike “roads” alongside many of the city’s throughways. Highlights included the science and art museum complex, biking through the city’s riverbed park, wandering the streets of town looking at the lovely buildings, and eating all the snacks (plus more paella!).

On our way to dinner, we wandered via the public marina area, which is nice to walk through as it affords lovely views of the super yachts and some cool nearby buildings. This day though, well, we got more than we bargained for. Since the last time we’d walked this way (maybe 1 or 2 days?), someone had installed a series of metal sculptures that were extremely sexually explicit. It was a double take moment and took a few minutes for us to collect our jaws up off the floor! Despite much discussion, we couldn’t think of any possible explanation for the sculptures, but a news article was able to tell us that the artist had been inspired by “ancient Greek art.” Still doesn’t explain why you’d put these up at a marina, but I guess we just don’t “get” some art!

Once we’d recovered, we found an excellent tapas bar to sample (so much cheese – it was wonderful). Then we waddled home to prep the boat for our trip the next day and to get an early nights rest after such an active day!

Monday morning dawned, and it was time to head south to Almería. This is where we’d be able to leave the boat while we nipped back to England for Alec’s Granny’s 90th (both his grandmothers turned 90 this year – very impressive ladies!!), so we needed to make a move in that direction. Lindsay was saying goodbye to us in Valencia, but she joined us on Serenity for a mini jaunt from our pontoon to the fuel dock, for a bit of a joy ride! Then it was time to leave for real ☹. We’d had such a great weekend with Lindsay, and Valencia had been so good to us – we were sad to go!

The area between Valencia and Almería is definitely one we’d love to come back and explore more, as the coastline was beautiful and incredibly varied (we passed the Costa del Azahar, Costa Blanca and Costa Calida on our passage). But, for now we accepted to admire it from afar as we made our way towards our Andalusian destination. We planned to hold up there for a few days after as well, awaiting our next guest, my dear friend KC from MIT. She is a (literally) high flying Navy pilot so we don’t get to see each other that often – very excited to spend some quality time together!

We didn’t have much wind (and therefore not much to do) on that first day out of Valencia, so Alec got out the fishing lines to have play around. After one of our big game lures broke off its line (unsure if it was a big fish or some sort of trash that brought its demise), Alec decided to put out one of our smaller lures as a test. It was an instant success! Within about 20 minutes, Alec had caught a c.25cm fish! After a much easier cleaning and gutting process (smaller is easier to manage on the back of the boat!), the lure went straight back out. It quickly became apparent that we’d found our “Danny Care” lure. Flashy, small, but when he’s on fire he is on FIRE. Alec hooked FIVE total fish that afternoon – though we put one back and two more got away. Still, a very fun afternoon and we came away from it with two delicious fish! I added the first one to a paella that night 😊.

The next day, Alec decided to have another go to see if we could get an extra fishy for the freezer box. It was another storming outing for Danny! He hit literally 30 seconds after Alec put him in, and continued to do so all afternoon. With such easy success, we could afford to be choosy, and waited until we reeled in the perfect sized one!

Our journey gave us another chance practice our downwind sailing techniques ahead of the Atlantic. We were grateful for this for two reasons: first, because its complicated and we need all the practice we can get! We use the spinnaker pole (with either the spinnaker or the genoa, depending on conditions), which requires 4-5 extra lines that are all a bit tricky to get balanced and happy. But, once it is set up, we fly! In this case, once up, we didn’t touch the sails all day, and simply enjoyed flying along at 7 knots while we did our fishing!

Our second night at sea was all on the motor, but Mick did good and we pulled in to the lovely little marina in Almería with the fuel gauge just about on E. Alec got to practice his Spanish with the super nice marina staff who helped us top up the tanks (very kindly putting up with our insistence on filtering the fuel) and then park up. I know it’s a bit rusty since his time in Ecuador, but I am so impressed how easily Alec can chat in Spanish! And very grateful, since I am limited to “hola” 😊.

After a chilled afternoon, we were off to a cold and wet England, which I must say I was extremely ill-prepared for. I’ve gone soft! Next week, we’ll be back in Almería for a few days before KC arrives and we make our way along the coast towards Gibraltar.