David's Diary: Wednesday, February 6, 2002

Leaving Barcelona

We have been staying in the Port Vell marina in Barcelona for the last seven weeks. The marina is both a major commercial harbour with many freighters and ferries coming and going and three separate pleasure harbours. We leave Barcelona with a fair weather forecast and after filling up with diesel fuel we are ready to head south. We time our exit so that we catch the 10:30 opening of the bridge that blocks our exit from the head of the harbour. As we motor out, the wind continues to increase and we wonder what conditions will be like once we have left the harbour break wall.

We leave the harbour and the wind continues to increase. We register more than 30 knots of wind across the deck when the weather forecast had predicted only 20 knots. We put up a little sail and motorsail into the waves, but the wind keeps gusting and while we are still close to shore the waves start to build. We are still only a mile or so from the harbour entrance, but soon we will have to head up into the wind as we try and make our way to Sitges. Allen is asleep after having been very upset and Kevin is crying as occasional waves get blown over the deck soaking those of us on the upwind side of the cockpit. We don't have to be in Sitges today so we take the sensible choice and return to Port Vell. Much better to return and admit that the winds were too strong and from the wrong direction than push the family to the point that they don't want to travel any more.

Back Home (photo taken on a calm day)

We call Willy on Arbella and tell him that we are heading back in. He arranges with the marina office to have the bridge open at 13:30. The bridge has a list of times that it will be open. Only two of these are automatic (our 10:30 exit was one of them), but for 13:30 the bridge must be asked to be opened. We motor around in circles and have hot dogs for lunch. We are all hungry after our little adventure. As we are motoring away from the bridge around 12:40, Kevin notices that it is opening. We turn around and race back to pass through the bridge almost an hour before we expected to. Did they see us motoring around and decide to open it for us? We'll never know, but we appreciated being able to get back to the dock. By 13:00, we are once again tied up in our spot on dock G44. It feels like we've come home again, even though we've only been gone for a few hours.