Sailing North with special guests on board - very exciting !
22 September 2024
Donna Smith
Just a few days to get the boat ship shape for our next visitors.
This time Tolly, Ricky's nephew and his beautiful, soon to be wife, Terri, the time flew and we were soon sailing again - this time North up the coast towards Pobla Marina.
Both Tolly and Terri were not sure how they would fair sailing, but they needn't have worried. The weather was good and they both took to crewing in their stride. Keen to learn the ropes, literally !! Good job guys! Pobla was only a short sail but we made the most of the calm waters jumping and diving off the boat and of course holding onto the end of a long rope and being towed through the water - just because we could.
The last time we visited Pobla back in March 2016, it felt more of a local boatyard marina, just a good place to get work done on boat, which we did very successfully. This time however it had more of a fun vibe. There was a bigger selection of boats moored, more plants dotted around and definitely more bars than we remember. We thought it may even be a place to consider leaving the boat for a change from Valencia. We managed to get a price from the marina staff to lift boat out and anti foul and a yearly mooring. Yikes! Not sure what I was expecting but same price as the city and far more difficult to get to from airport as no direct metro so sadly it's a no.
That said we enjoyed our stay and as T and T helped us sail and moor up so we decided we all deserved our 'traditional arrival at a new port' cool beer and later found an open restaurant to have veggie paella for tea x
From Pobla we sailed to Club Nautico at Burriana. This was a wonderful Yacht Club marina. It even had a swimming pool, which sounds weird because we spend so much time on the sea, but was actually a treat. As too was the fabulous Italian restaurant Tolly booked for a very posh supper. Our pasta was actually cooked inside a huge cheese in front of us. The silver service and the VIP treatment we had was wonderful, but not stuffy or pompous. Some how they managed to make it casual. Maybe it's an Italian thing. The whole restaurant atmosphere and friendly staff were so welcoming. The best or as they say in Italy:
"Il migliore!"
Tolly helmed us out of port, while Terri and I sorted ropes and Ricky said he was impressed (cheeky sod -haha x) A longer sail back to port this time but T and T managed to hang on to their sea legs as it was to be fair a bit lumpy.
We did try again later in the week to sail out of the marina to anchor off the beach, but unfortunately the sea was just a tad rough and we had to turn back. Ricky got the water toys out though and we all took turns playing on the paddle board and kayak . Tolly was very determined to master standing in the paddle board and Terri very determined to wobble him off - such fun!! The youngsters did some of their own exploring on land, relaxing in the shade and of course planning 'The Big Day !' Looking forward to it guys - I get to buy a new hat x