Barbate, Cadiz to UK

[logan1]

I know most of you have made the reverse trip but I am just finalising a deal on a motor cruiser in Barbate and although it would be good to keep the boat in Spain, a limited amount of time means I will need to bring it closer to home. The farthest south I have been is the channel islands and wondering if anyone can give me some advice on making the journey back. Don't mind if I do this in stages, but would need to find good, reasonably priced moorings on the way if having to go back home in stages. When going back up the coast not ever been to a Spanish/Portugese marina, are you best to ring up beforehand and is this a possibility when I don't speak Spanish/Portugese. Any help/advice you can throw at me would be great as this is unknown terroritory.
Thanks.

 

[tcm]

i have motorboated this trip both directions.

Barbate seems to shut at 6ish and the same sort of thing may apply to many marinas. You can bribe the fuel dock to open aftr hours tho as i did.

Be incredibly careful just outside barbate ( well i think it was barbate...) with the masive fishing enclosures. Barbate (if it the same marina) is narrow in highishwinds near Gib, we were 23metres, so a good ruse if you need to turn is to hold the bow and let wind spin the boat.

Further up, vilamoura has helpful mechanics, nice enough marina tho a bit holiday resortish. They will "close" these marinas inhigh winds, dunno what exactly is involved or "closed" means but get decent forecasts to avoid problems.

Sines is a bit grim - it's a fuel refinery where you go thru the refinery to reach the inner harbour. I wd strongly recmmend you don't try going in at night with many skulking ships.

Cascais is a helpful place and telephoneable in advance - i think the BP station is also a road taffic sevice station so handy enough. Nice nough anchorage and marina if i remember.

Bayona is a nice target: intothe bay and the marina is actually part of the fort. There is fierce competion between this marina and a new one just next door - so much so that the new marina sends out dinghies to shepherd you in! But you want to smile and wave no thanks if they take you the wrong way - the rightmost marina right behind the fort and of whichthe old fort formks the bar gives you a nice view withdrink fromthe yacht club bar terrace of bay, boat and town beyond.

I hear all the Rias are very worthwhile so iff you were goingto break the trips somewhere like vigo might be cheap enough. I hear bayonna airflight £££ back to uk though, dunno.

La coruna is nice nough, and getting in a big boat on the old fuel dock was quite a fiddle. The town is a bit run down really but nice enough. It is cab distance to Santiago di Compostella, also a bit ancient and knackered but one of theose must-do things. I did ryanair another time...

Further along the coast is Vivero, v protected inhigh winds for a weekend, everyone nice and pleasant but agaunbdo not expect english on the vhf tho they will have a go at english if you have a go at spanish, or er if you want to buy 3tonnes of diesel i suppose.

But seriously, in marinas and ports all along they are fine about arm waving or even once we both convrsed inrubbish fench: they know that as a small boat on passage you aren't in best condition on arrrival and they are very good without exception, and no messing withreservations or that stuff. It is not super-busy either. Like many seriously exposed places in uk, they will definitely find you a spot somehow, somewhere. Vilamoura, cascais, bayona, had english speakers on phones. Vivero, sines and lacoruna didn't, but were helpful just the same.

Beauracracy exists, but they simply have a big form to fill in - you haven' done anythingwrong. Passports,boat doc, insuance, next port and last port are amongst the tickboxes.

Bilbao, again i just stayed at the fuel dock, hohum. It is noticeable that the marinas stopdead around lunch, no chance of fuel between 1pm and 3pm

Further up I stayed at brest once the Moulin Blanche. the toen is awful, not worth a trip. Camaret across the river is nice but press the buton to get the bloke to release the fuel first else it delivers it in 90 euros per shot...

Up the coast of portugal it is a good idea tostay as far offshore asyou can -i went at night with radar and fuelled during the day firstthing inthe morning and late inthe afternoon, mimises marina poncing about and also the time when youare likely to hit stuff - inshore.

If this is a delivrytrip, then it is praps worth running offshore if radar up to it, park upfor fueland make food and off again worked well. And if you had a realy good spell of weather it would be a shame to be snoozing in a marina. The harshest conditions can be around la coruna, top left hand bit of spain so wait for decentweather and drone along.

It is just under 1200miles with directrunover biscay, and we did it in 60 hours running all day and night stopping only for fuel. There again, southbound er it took about 2 weeks cos we had rubbish weather and bustd fuel pump so best not set any targets.

Timing - you can be readying to go anytime now late april onwards with gales minimal from now till mid august. You mayor may not be insured beyond 15th august so even if you are, it makes sense to gone by then.

There is a lot of fishing activity, from big ships t small boats. These all might have anylights at all, strobes, falhingyellow or red or anything. Also, a bloke waving is not saying hi or help - he is warningyou're about to run over his nets - engine off and we managd to float over once.

Northbound is good from viewpoint of shipping lanes 0 there are a few bits of designated TSS, and the ships observe these and the connecting straight runs too, with northbound inshore. I ran just inshore of these. so you have targets to spot but are as offshore as possible to avoid fishing pots.

Places you can leave a boat include vilamoura (faro) and lisbon, vigo, la coruna (find the newer marina nearby "sade" summink), bilboa and brest moulin blanche marina. Ejet or ryanair from all these.

have good trip

 

[jimbaerselman]

First, don't worry about the language barrier. It's always easy to sort things out on site after arrival in this area. Just go for it.

Second, the sunny marinas in S Portugal are more expensive than many of the places you'll pass on the western coasts en route north.

Third, depending on your timing for the trip, northerly winds will be a boring reality. My web site advises some strategies.

Fourth, prices in the various marinas en route do vary widely. Modern spots such as Cascais, off Lisbon, are similar to those in sunny climes. Doca de Alcantara (sp?), up the river a bit, is much cheaper. Your best bet for info is to go to Dave Lumby's site. He's a genius on Portugal. Link from my website in the 'Sailing' tab, Portugal section.

Fifth, once at Bayona, you enter a cruising heaven (The Rias of Galicia) with reasonable prices which you might find difficult to leave! How cruising was in England was a few decades back - with warmer temperatures.

Barbate Eh? Bit windy there at times!

 

[alant]

Sines & Vigo are ok for fuel - Sines may ask for cash.
Try to ensure that fuel is from a good source (eg dubious stuff in La Coruna Yacht Club although the main marina there is good - just arrive, no booking necessary in most areas)

 

[FAITIRA]

Sent a PM.

 

[SolentVenture]

Great advice above.

We did the N to S trip last year (sailing) started from Hamble and finished up in Portimao just along the coast from Lagos.

I understand the Rias of N Spain are wonderful, we didn't have the time and it would have meant a westerly beat close to the wind so we took a diagonal from Les Sables d'Olonne to La Couruna. Before Les Sables we called in to Camaret, prior to that St Peter Port and you know the rest.

Don't expect to get any response to your VHF calls to marinas. Spain & Portugal are nothing like the UK as far as radio is concerned. If you do get a response be very surprised. Mostly we just turned up, tied up somewhere convenient and then someone arrived to sort us out with a berth.

Cascias has an excellent anchorage just outside the marina facing the beach, I understand the marina is expensive. Good train service to Lisbon within walking distance.

It's worth going up the Rio Tejo to do some touristy things in Lisbon and parking in the Doca de Alcantara as mentioned above.

The almanac says that the bridge into the marina is not manned in fact there is now an office and you can call them on VHF, the Ch number is on a large board by the bridge.

The marina is in an old commercial dock and is not the nicest of places. But it's secure and the facilities are OK also it's the only place bigger boats can get in. Fortunately the main drag into town is only 5 mins walk away and you can catch a regular trolley bus into Lisbon centre (about 10 min ride)
Get yourself a bus pass from a kiosk in the city square where all of the buses terminate, it's much better value than individual tickets.

Be aware of the Portuguese trades blowing from the NW during July to Sept. We had a great ride going south but felt sorry for those we saw beating north into the wind and big swells.

Colin

 

[BlueSkyNick]

"Be aware of the Portuguese trades blowing from the NW during July to Sept."

interesting - I am planning the trip north in the last week of May and understood that the trades are Northerlies - but have seen comments that they start in April and others saying June. You say July - We will just have to go and find out for ourselves !

 

[jimbaerselman]

The trades start when Spain warms up, fitfully at first. They're occasional and not too strong in May. In June, more frequent and becoming strong in the afternoons. July to September they sometimes blow 24 hours a day, but you can usually find morning light winds if you hang around for a few days.

See my website for north bound strategies along this coast.

 

[BlueSkyNick]

thanks Jim, I have been using all the info on your website as a very good source of information, as well as David Mumby's.

It's a case of reading up as much as possible and practical to plan, then making one's own judgement based on the forecasts at the time.

 

[samwise]

Don't rush it, enjoy it. We did the trip south last year and even though we dawdled there was a lot we missed.
Language is not too much of a problem, but the Portuguese mostly speak English and are a bit more friendly.
Lagos is probably the nicest of the Algarve spots, but there are stretches of the southern Portuguese coast that you want to cover quite quickly because a big swell can force them to close. Fog can be problem there, so radar is useful. The Spanish are keener on paperwork. Part One registry makes life easier, but you may not want to go that far. Insurance docs must have a Spanish translation, but your insurer should know that when you define your cruising ground.
Some posts were a bit unfair on poor Sines. It looks rubbish from seaward but the marina is nice with a great beach and a very impressive new marina building and shower block. They even an additional junior size lavatory in each of the loo areas with colour coded seats, blue for the boys and pink for the girls!

The Rias are excellenrt, Baiona and A Coruna too. Gijon would make a good start point for Biscay.