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Saturday, August 26th, Sevilla, Spain
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Marina Yachting de
Sevilla, where we currently reside, is actually about 3
kilometers from Sevilla. We have yet to make it
into the city. The 50 mile trip upriver went
surprisingly well in the wake of a somewhat hurried
departure from the marina in Chipiona. Despite our
best efforts, however, we did not arrive at the bridge
in time for the 5pm opening last night. Our real
destination is the Club Nautico de Sevilla, 2.5 miles
away, just the other side of the Puente de las Delicias
drawbridge.
The 75 mile trip from
Olhao, Portugal to Chipiona, Spain, at the mouth of the
Guadalquivir River, passed with little excitement.
Light winds afforded us only three or four hours of
sailing during the twelve hour trip. A surge of
excitement engulfed us as we got three solid hits on the
fishing rod over the course of an hour. We saw the
fish splashing around on the end of the line but all
three victims managed to throw the hook and evade
capture. The catch and escape program on Zia seems
to be making a resurgence. Nonetheless, we were
thrilled at the prospect of continued fishing. We
are still in the Atlantic, after all. We have
lowered fishing expectations for the Mediterranean as
all sources report it to be miserable in that body of
water.
Arriving in Chipiona at
7pm, we found the reception dock at the marina full of
sailboats and motorboats. We hung around, trying
to raise them on the radio and hoping that a spot would
open up for us, finally deciding to tie up at the end of
the "C" Dock until we could figure out where they wanted
to put us. There was no anchoring option in the
vicinity so we hoped for the best. Joe came back
from the marina office with a comic tale of chaos as one
woman fielded the not-always patient requests of a half
a dozen boaters as she patiently tried to understand
Joe's Spanish. Every phone call represented an
abrupt interruption of the proceedings as the sole staff
member was obliged to stop what she was doing to answer
it. It turns out that snagging the first open spot
we could find was a good bet. Although it was
clearly someone else's spot, with dock lines left for
their return, they managed to contact the slip holder
who said they wouldn't return until 11am the next day.
We woke up to fog and
more chaos at the marina office. We decided to
forgo the sightseeing in Chipiona, and the hassle of
finding a new spot at the marina, and make
for Seville. We needed to arrive in time for the 4pm opening of
the lock to be through that in time for the 5pm opening of
the bridge. We were a little nervous with the fog,
and we would be fighting the current for the first few
hours of the trip, but we decided to go for it. Visibility was about a mile and we were
heading inland so it would likely improve. Big
cargo ships regularly travel the river, so we kept a
sharp lookout, but the fog lifted almost immediately so
our concerns mostly died away. The only issue was
making that bridge opening. With both engines
running, we did our best against the two knot current,
hoping it would turn in our favor soon.
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It was
pretty boring scenery, and the further we got up the
river, the later the tide turned, so it was a bit of a
battle but we finally got into favorable current with
about three hours to go. It was going to be close.
We increased the rpms to 3000 for the last hour but
nonetheless arrived at the entrance to the lock at 4:10.
Despite our radio requests to the lock operator to wait
for us, we missed the 4pm opening and would have to hang
out until 6 and then hit the bridge opening at 8:30 the
next morning. At least we were lucky in that
Saturday was the only day of the week with a morning
opening so we didn't have to wait around until 5pm to
get through.
We were surprised when
the lock opened up an hour early but there was another
boat there waiting as well so we figured the guy just
took pity on us. We spent the night just the other
side of the lock, at the conveniently located marina.
The surroundings were a bit bleak, in the middle of an
industrial zone with cranes and heavy machinery all
around, but it was just for the night.
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Joe jumped
up first thing when our alarm woke us at 7am to call the
bridge operator and make sure he would open up for us.
They don't get much traffic, apparently, and if there is
no one waiting, they don't open. He returned to
the boat with devastating news. Although we had
briefly talked about it, and even looked it up in our
Lonely Planet Guide book, somehow the fact that there is
an hour's time difference between Portugal and Spain got
by us. It explained a lot, actually. We must
have sounded like total loonies to the lock operator,
insisting (in our pigeon Spanish) that we would only be
10 minutes late for the scheduled 4pm opening when in
fact we arrived at 5:10pm.
Sunday, August 27th - Club Nautico de
Sevilla, Spain
Saturday afternoon at
the
5pm bridge opening, Zia had been standing by close at
hand for a half an hour already, determined that nothing
go wrong since
the bridge doesn't open at all on Sunday. Our
arrival in Seville was a bit anti-climatic, but we hoped
it would prove to be well worth it.
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The last obstacle we
faced was executing
our first real Med-moor style docking which we managed without too much
drama. We dropped the anchor about four boat
lengths out from the dock and backed our stern right up
to the concrete wall where a couple of dock hands were
waiting to catch our lines. It went relatively
smoothly and we are happy to have that "first" crossed off
our list. It always gets easier with practice.
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The Club Nautico is a
vast facility with four swimming pools and a huge
cafe/bar, ping pong tables, tennis courts and
playgrounds. We haven't been able to officially
check in yet so we don't know the whole story, but once
the office opens up on Monday we are hoping to get a
grand tour. There is a great wireless signal too,
but we also need to wait until Monday to get our
computer set up with permission to access it. The
price tag is about double what we have been paying
elsewhere in Spain but it is understandable given the
scope of what is included.
Seville is a city of
700,000 inhabitants, the fourth largest in Spain, with a
long history that goes back to Roman times. We
spent a few hours on Saturday and another few on Sunday
exploring. It is HOT, so that is about as
long as we can handle without getting really cranky.
Listening to the kids whine about the touring brings
back memories of being dragged through Europe with my
parents at the age of 12 and 13. We try to be
sympathetic and pepper them with ice cream and pool time
to make up for it. There are a ton of fabulous
sights to see so we need their cooperation!
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Next entry
>>>>>>>
Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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