All too soon we were on our way back – the sky was amazing as we departed Valencia harbour past another huge cruise ship.
We were heading back to Gandia as it is the most reasonable distance for a day sail from Valencia, I would like to say it was a full day sail but as you know by now that is rarely the case, that day we managed a couple of hours sailing before we had to motor our way to the marina. The weather was stunning and we had trouble keeping ourselves out of the sun all day.
We were on a completely different berth this time at Gandia and it was a much better experience. We were right in the middle of the marina and we could watch the world go by on the promenade. We were both still pretty exhausted after the exertions of the weekend so we decided to make the following day another rest day and explore a bit of Gandia. I had heard that it is a very popular holiday destination for the Spanish and I can see why. The beach is amazing and the sea front part of the town is really very pleasant as well. We didn´t actually venture to the inland old town but I was assured that it is a simply bus journey away so will aim to do that next time we´re here.
In the evening we went to a restaurant which overlooked the beach, it was absolutely fabulous and the perfect end to a lovely day.
All too soon we were on our way again, this time heading from Gandia towards Cabo de la Nou, however, once again we were in wonderful calm beautiful conditions – just not for sailing. After a valiant hour under sail we gave in and headed into Denia for the first time. This is a fairly large harbour with 3 marinas inside it, plus a ferry port and a fishing port. It is the place where most ferries depart for the Balearic islands and we had to study the pilot guide to make sure we knew exactly what we were doing going into the harbour.
Unfortunately we also had to navigate round a partially submerged wreck of a ferry that had run aground on the breakwater a few weeks ago, we had heard navigational warnings on the radio about it but nevertheless it was still quite shocking to see. The ferry was full of people and cars when the incident happened and they all had to be got off safely, which was a successful operation thank goodness. We just saw the hull which would be the last part to be dismantled I guess.
Denia marina is lovely and extremely calm once you´re inside it (which takes a good twenty minutes at least). There was a regatta going on over the weekend too and we had great fun watching the fully crewed regatta boats come onto their berths later that day. Most of them made a few mistakes (no damage done) including one running aground by going the wrong way so we felt much better about our abilities to come into marinas with just the two of us aboard 😉
The next morning was also very calm as we motored out of the harbour.
The great (and quite surprising) thing as we headed towards Cabo de la nou again was that we managed to sail!!! Not very fast but nevertheless we were finally engine free and we had a fabulous few hours sailing towards Moraira. We only ended up putting the engine back on when we had just too many more tacks to make to go round the headland and we were so close we could almost smell the beer!
Amazingly no sooner had we moored up than a familar yacht came alongside ….
We had actually seen this very same charter boat about a year ago when we were sailing round Majorca, obviously with a different crew. This time it was crewed by a group of Russians most of whom seemed to live in Germany who were very friendly. We were obviously laughing with them about the name of the boat given that Skipper Nigel had just poured himself a drink 😉
We watched a wonderful sunset and resolved to stay another day in the lovely port of Moraira.
The Adventures of Gemini J 