GRAND TOUR PART 1
Having cruised their Marlow 72 Azura from Germany to Portugal over the previous summer, Thomas and Jutta Kittel dust her down ready for a busy new season touring the Mediterranean
The first in a new cruising series sees our contributors Thomas and Jutta Kittel start their grand tour of the Mediterranean
Anyone who thinks that it is always warm and sunny on Europe‘s southern shores has a lesson to learn today. It‘s the beginning of April and Azura, our trusty Marlow 72 Explorer, has just emerged from her winter hibernation in Portimao marina on the Algarve to be greeted by sheets of rain and gusts of wind billowing across her decks. It is so unpleasant that we even have to turn on the heating – just like we do on her usual home berth in the North Sea.
Portugal has been complaining about the worst spring in years but farmers urgently need the rain. When we left the country in November, the newspapers were full of reports of drought, empty reservoirs and forest fires. It’s just a pity that the much needed rain happens to coincide with our return.
We are not the only ones suffering. The maintenance crews, whose job it is to prepare people’s boats for the coming season, are gradually going grey waiting for the weather to improve so they can crack on with painting, cleaning and antifouling the boats they are responsible for before their owners arrive.
We are lucky; our maintenance company has done a good job of getting us afloat and ready for the new season. The biggest problem we have is one of our own making: a spare part for one of our watermakers is missing – so only one is operational. Our electronics technician also seems to be late to the party. After four months of dithering, he finally starts to take care of things just as we are about to get going again. Oh well, these things happen – even in Germany!
Doris and Thomas from sailing yacht Blaubär, whom we met last year, are also busy cleaning their boat. They stored her ashore in Lagos over winter and have now come to join us in Portimao, where we make plans together. Our next port of call is Ayamonte at the mouth of the Rio Guadiana, the river which marks the border between Portugal and Spain.
It is still dark when we get up early to leave Ayamonte on the ebb tide. With our navigation lights on and the electronic displays dimmed we slip quietly out of the still sleeping harbour. It’s a chilly 13°C on the flybridge, so we wrap up warm against the cool morning air. The sea has calmed since yesterday and we watch mesmerised as the sun creeps over the horizon on our port side, while the full moon still hangs over us to starboard.
En route to Chipiona we encounter numerous fishing boats and even more lobster pots that often require us to slalom out of the way. For two of the six hours, our depth gauge seems to go completely awry. Whether it’s a technical problem, a trapped foreign object or large schools of fish, we do not know but it seems to clear itself by the time we arrive.
The port of Chipiona is located on the outskirts of the village and offers everything a watersports enthusiast needs. The town centre, which is about a 20-minute walk away, impresses us with its beautiful waterfront houses and long promenade that encompasses both Spain’s tallest lighthouse, the 69m high Faro de Chipiona, and the beautiful sandstone church of Vírgen de Regla.
However, we are already experiencing some language difficulties that we did not expect in today’s Spain. In the port office most people speak English to a greater or lesser extent but as soon as you move further inland their ability and/or willingness to speak English soon disappears. We are hoping to cruise the 55nm up the Rio
Guadalquivir to Seville but securing information about berths, lock times and bridge openings is tricky because of the language barrier.
We decide to head for the town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda at the mouth of the Guadalquivir in the hopes of gleaning more information there. We arrive on 1 May and the picturesque city centre is overflowing with life. A colourful communion service spills out of the Catholic church contrasting with an equally noisy workers’ strike on our way to the Castillo
Santiago – one of 17 wine producers in the area. This is where the famous Manzanilla is produced, a fortified white wine that belongs to the sherry family.
SCOUTING SEVILLE
Since we are still unable to nail down the details of the river trip to Seville, we decide to hire a car and scout it out for ourselves. But that is easier said than done, because there don’t appear to be any car rental offices in Chipiona. Eventually we track one down in the neighbouring Rota.
We take a suitcase of clothes with us just in case our planned river cruise falls through and we decide to stay on a couple of days in Seville. Our first destination is the Club Nautico de Sevilla – a beautiful complex with a prestigious clubhouse and security precautions worthy of Fort Knox. You cannot get in unaccompanied by car or on foot – the harbour master has to come and meet us at the barrier. We walk past display cases full of trophies on our way to see the visitors’ berths. Of course, these are not the alongside pontoon berths we have been used to but stern-to Med-style berths with permanent bow lines. Even though we knew this was coming our way, this is the first time we have encountered one. Will this be our first attempt at using one?
We communicate as best we can in broken English about the lock (no docking), the road bridge
(only opens for cruise ships but nobody seems to know the safe air draft when closed) and another swinging railroad bridge, which isn’t even mentioned in our cruising guide or shown on Google Maps. And that’s where we will need to be at 3.00pm tomorrow so we can meet its rumoured opening time, which in turn means a 5.00am departure from Chipiona in order for us to cover the 65 nautical miles upstream to Guadalquivir. After mulling over the decision during lunch in the clubhouse – we are served a two-course menu instead of the desired sandwiches because of the ongoing language problem – we decide against the river trip and extend our stay in Seville right away.
Seville is the capital of Andalucia and, with almost 700,000 inhabitants, the fourth
largest city in Spain with an old town centre to rival anything in Europe. This is where we stay in the Petit Palace Marqués de Santa Ana, a stone’s throw from the cathedral, Maria de la Sede. Along with the Giralda bell tower and the Moorish Alcázar Palace, it constitutes one of the many highlights of the city, which was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status decades ago. Those who prefer something more tranquil should hike through the Santa Cruz district to the Torre del Oro or the Plaza de España. We walk until our feet hurt – a good balance to the lack of physical activity on board.
SUNNY OUTLOOK
Before we move on to Cordoba, a different topic is attracting our attention. Andalucia not only has a rich and varied history, it also has the highest levels of sunshine in Europe. This has led to the construction of several solar power plants. Even from a great distance, you can see these towers glistening like futuristic candles as the mirrors focus and absorb the sun’s rays.
In Cordoba, on the other hand, history dominates once again. Today about half the size of Seville, Cordoba was for a time the centre of government and scholarship on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the largest cities in the world. The most important building in the city is the Mezquita-catedral – a Roman Catholic cathedral built around an old mosque, creating a unique structure with a fascinating back story. We are particularly impressed by the fact that, despite all the religious wars, the temptation to level the old mosque when the cathedral was built 200 years ago was resisted. Maybe back then people were more tolerant than some of today’s religious fanatics.
As we say goodbye to Chipiona, we can hardly believe our eyes and ears: the tranquil waterfront has become an Eldorado for motorcyclists. Blocked sidewalks, howling engines, and plumes of smoke from spinning tyres dominate the scene, while less than 50 yards away children play peacefully on the sandy beach. It turns out that the motorcycling world championship race in Jerez de la Frontera has sent the local bikers into a collective frenzy.
We leave Chipiona in good weather and calm seas but the conditions soon change. The wind picks up strength and the waves build. The ride turns bumpy and Azura is lashed with spray. In contrast to the Baltic Sea, which has a salinity of around 1%, the Atlantic Ocean is more like 3.5% so everything becomes sticky and caked in patches of evaporated salt. Regular cleaning is a more frequent necessity in the Med.
ROCK OF AGES PAST
Our next destination of Barbate has a good marina but not much else to recommend it so we press on towards the strait of Gibraltar. Even from a distance, you can see the silhouette of the 4,000m high Atlas Mountains on the other side of the strait in Africa. On the way we pass the Cabo Trafalgar, where Nelson defeated the Franco-spanish fleet in 1805 leading to a century of British supremacy at sea.
Gibraltar is a relic of that period too and after a refuelling stop at unbeatably low tax-free prices, we manoeuvre out of the narrow harbour, circle Europe Point and make our way to Marbella. Of the three marinas there, the Marina la Bajadilla only takes boats up to 15m in length, the Puerto Deportivo has switched on the Spanish-speaking answering machine and the sophisticated Puerto de José Banús initially refuses us due to lack of space.
Finally, a very friendly German-speaking lady offers us a private mooring, albeit at a price. Since our friends on Blaubär are already here, we decide to accept the offer in expectation of a first class service to match the price. What we get is rather different. To be fair, two Marineros do their best to help with the mooring line but it so heavy and dirty that even they have to use our anchor windlass to support it. How a woman is ever
expected to handle this, I don’t know. There is no second mooring line and the power supply has a socket that none of our numerous adapters fits. Allegedly there is an adapter we can borrow from the fuel pontoon – for a fee. To make things worse there are no floating pontoons here and since there is still a 1m tidal range even our adjustable passarelle won’t reach the height of the quay. Only with the aid of a footstool perched on the seat can we finally get ashore. And then there is an electric gate blocking access to the pier at night which can only be opened with a key card requiring another 75 euro deposit. We pay up but make a mental note to delete this marina from our list of places worth coming back to.
Now only one leg separates us from Málaga, where we are due to meet friends for a one-week trip to Andalucia. We have a berth booked in Puerto de Benalmádena just 11km from the airport and our arrival three days earlier than expected is handled without any fuss. Before our friends arrive we take a bike ride along the coast to
Torremolinos. We have been expecting something like this, but even so the unbroken string of restaurants, shops and hotels is a far cry from our idea of travelling the world.
In contrast, Malaga impresses us with its Castillo de Gibralfaro overseeing the city. From here you can see the old town, the harbour and the Catedral de la Encarnación spread out beneath you. We also visit the world famous Alhambra in Granada, about which everything has already been said. On the way we see the snow-covered peaks of the nearby Sierra Nevada and decide to make a detour there. We stop at the Hoya de la Mora mountain cafe at an altitude of 2,500 metres and sit in the intense sunlight, sipping coffee while snowboarders wander past to the slopes. On the way back our hire car is overtaken by a cyclist racing past at 70kmh – respect!
HEMINGWAY COUNTRY
Before we continue our trip up the Spanish coast, we explore Andalucia with our newly-arrived friends. With its immaculate white-washed villages and the picturesque Ronda, this is real Hemingway country. Among our absolute highlights is the Caminito del Rey (King’s Path), which winds along vertiginous rock faces through two narrow gorges over 200m deep. For a long time it was dubbed the most dangerous path in the world and closed to the public but it opened again in 2015 although helmets and registration online are now obligatory.
At the end of our trip we make a short detour to the old centre of Marbella and are surprised to find a beautiful place devoid of the usual tourists and the overpricing that often comes with them. The central Plaza de los Naranjos has a calming, contemplative atmosphere that reminds us of a French town square.
It feels strange to be spending so much time on land rather than at sea but it is also an enlightening experience. The Mediterranean is a fascinating melting pot, where people have been coming and going for thousands of years, leaving traces of their diverse cultures behind them. So it would be a shame to rush our journey and miss out on all that cultural diversity. Besides we’ll soon be back at sea for our crossing to the Balearics and the idyllic calas we’ve heard so much about.
NEXT MONTH: The Kittels head to Mallorca in search of the Mediterranean dream