Hotel LONE STAR - Open for Business

For the first time this season we went backwards and remembered how great it was to go somewhere we had been before. We had forgotten how wonderful it was to go where you did not have the stress and anticipation of a new harbor. We made the trip from Valencia to Denia on the 17th in 6 hours and were on our bicycles hunting for camping gas 40 minutes after we docked. Yes, we did have our beers before we left. The next set of friends we are expecting are college friend Cajun Joe, his wife Dinah and their two daughters Holly and Natalie. The Matthews’ are alumni – they visited us on Seabbatical when we were in Antigua. Denia was the perfect spot. The Matthews were scheduled to fly into Barcelona from Paris the morning of the 19th and would get into Denia mid afternoon. The marina had a roof top pool with palapas and a tiki bar and several nearby restaurants. What a great way to unwind after a week of turbo touring as they had been doing.

Well, the best laid plans don’t always quite work out. Turns out after an examination of their tickets the Paris departure time was 9PM not 9AM! This would put them into Denia well in the middle of the night. The solution was to change the tickets to arrive in Barcelona in the morning. However when that was tried Expedia lost all the tickets – old and new! Nothing could be done until the New York office opened and Joe could talk to a human which wouldn’t be until 6PM Europe time – well after the morning flight left. Once human conversation commenced the problem was resolved with a 9PM flight to Valencia (where we had been but weren’t now) and a 1 hour taxi ride to Denia. However, once the driver arrived in Denia he couldn’t find the marina.

Several phone calls went back and forth between Craig and Joe with Craig finally hopping on his bike at 1:30 in the morning riding into town, finding the taxi which was only a couple of blocks away and leading the way back to the marina. I wish I would have had my camera. What a sight. It looked like Craig leading the Charge of the Light Brigade. Oh well, so much for relaxing around the pool and tiki bar! Even with the very late night and not much sleep everyone was up early with excitement. We were headed for Ibiza! At 0940 we slipped the lines and LONE STAR was on her way.

Joe, an avid fisherman, took care of the first order of business – get the lines out. True to what we had heard about lack of fish in the Med, nothing was caught but that was ok we knew the restaurants had seafood. At 1759 we dropped the hook in Calla Badella and commenced celebrating our arrival in the Balearics. The details of the trip are best described by an email blog we received from Holly and Natalie after they got back home. All we can add is the visit went by way too fast; the sights – sunset dinner on Calla Bedella, the “deserted” island of Espalmador where we learned from a fellow American about wintering a boat in Turkey (more on that later, changes are in the air), and St Eulalia
were beautiful. The anchoring fun at Cala Llonga (what happens on the boat, stays on the boat! but you might ask Craig about setting a second anchor and see what he says) and finding the right fuel dock in Palma – (3^rd time’s the charm) in hindsight were funny and the friends were the best of all! We can’t wait to have the Matthews Clan back on board! Jan and Craig are already storing "factoids" in order to keep up with Dinah.

Holly and Natalie's Sailing Adventure Blog

Being on Craig and Jan’s boat was an awesome experience! The first minute we saw them they greeted us like we were family, even though it was 12:30 at night! After all the trouble finding the harbor we got to catch up and before we knew it, it was 2:30 in the morning. When we woke up we were exhausted but we had fun during a long day of sailing.

That was the first day we got to experience the feel of sailing again since being on the Seabbatical. For about 7 hours the boat rocked a lot, and my mom began to be seasick. Although she was a little dizzy, she was prepared with sea sick wristbands. We had a wonderful dinner then went quickly to bed, sleeping great!

The next day was Father’s Day, and we celebrated with love. We didn’t have any presents, but the girls decided we should go to the beach and let the boys have their relax time, and afterwards the moms should get their own time too. Mothers are the reason fathers exist! We all had a great time swimming, sunbathing, and talking. We ate dinner at a beachside restaurant and had a wonderful waiter! After we got back aboard the Lone Star, we watched Ocean’s Eleven. By the time it ended we (meaning Natalie and Holly) were the only ones still awake and watching. We quietly went to bed.

The third day was Holly’s fifteenth birthday! We decided to go to the super secret island called Espalmador only about 2 hours away. We sailed there, and it turned out to be not so secret. There were tons of ships and boats there, but we didn’t care. We met a couple from another American boat. Craig and Jan said this had been their first American boat they had spotted in the Mediterranean Sea other than theirs. We went to shore and went exploring in the little bushes and trees behind the beach. We found a sulfurous mud pit the size of a lake covered with salt! You could soak into the mud up to your knees if you wanted to! We smothered mud all over our dad and surprised Craig, Jan, and Mom (Dinah) back at the beach.

After we washed off and ate a nice potato and steak meal on the boat we continued the movie series by watching Ocean’s Twelve. The next day was our last day. We had to sail ten hours to get to where Craig and Jan needed to be for their next guests, but they were so nice to get us started off at 6:00 in the morning and let us sleep through half of the sail! That meant only about 5 hours of sailing left, and we didn’t even feel the fist half! Those hours went by fast and finally we docked in the Los Palmas Marina. We went to the yacht club pool and swam and sun bathed. Afterwards, while our dad had to have a conference call, we all went shopping to surprise my dad with white hats for all of us to wear as a private joke acting like the “Privado” family. When we came back to the boat we laughed then went out for dinner at a tapas restaurant. There we met some of Craig and Jan’s friends and chatted with them for a while. We had so much fun and the food was great. That night I think we had a little too much to eat! When we got back onto the boat we all went to bed ready to get up that next morning at 5:15 am. Craig and Jan woke up happily to say goodbye to us and then we were off. We had such a wonderful time being with them and learning so many things along the way. We are looking forward to another trip on the Lone Star and hope to spend much more time with the wonderful Captain Craig and Admiral Jan!

Denia to Valencia and Back Again

The afternoon of June 12th we pulled up the anchor in beautiful El Rinconet Bay and made the one hour journey to Denia. Notice the word sail was not used. Once again we were motoring. Our purpose in stopping at Marina de Denia was to scout the area out as a potential spot for meeting the Matthews Clan who were due to arrive on the 19^th. We had chosen Denia as the rendezvous point because the location provided the shortest sail to the Balearic Islands. After checking out the facilities and surrounding area, which we deemed excellent, it was off to Valencia the next morning. It seemed that someone on board was anxious to get to the home of the last Americas Cup Campaign. Apparently Craig thought there may still be an open spot for a new crew member during the next America's Cup challenge.

Valencia is approximately 40 miles north of Denia so it was a pleasant day sail and the sailing gods were smiling on Craig because there were two Swedish America's Cup boats sparing with each other as we approached the harbor. Then they came right by our boat when they were towed back to the compound in the inner harbor. Needless to say Craig was in a swoon and Jan had to manage all of the boat functions while he imagined how he could have made the difference if they would only have taken a 57 year old grinder during the last challenge! You would have thought that would be enough, but Jan had to dodge a trimaran that was preparing for an around the world speed challenge as we were coming in.
As has been our practice this season, we had a successful docking and we enjoyed our cold Spanish beers before embarking on Craig's quest to be the oldest America's cup grinder in history.

Craig’s quest turned out to be a failure as the America’s Cup compound was almost completely deserted. At this point when or where the next Challenge will occur is being held up by the various lawsuits that have been filed over the current rules and regulations. Oh well, the sights of Valencia would have to be enough and they were. The old city of Valencia is quite beautiful with several museums,


cathedrals, historic buildings and an awesome market.
We even happened upon some crazy festival where people were throwing buckets of water from balconies on to the crowd below! The marina is located next to the main beaches which are wide with white sand, beautiful walkways and of course many, many restaurants.
Before turning the boat around and heading back to Denia we made sure we stocked up on the wonderful Valencia oranges and had our fill of Piaella which originated in Valencia. We also thoroughly checked out the marina for Sadie and Dennis who were looking for a place to keep GRACEFUL while they make a trip back to Guernsey later in the summer. That being taken care of it was time to backtrack – friends were on their way!

Mar Menor and Continuing up Costa Blanca

On June 7 we arrived in time for the 2PM bridge opening to the Mar Menor. The Mar Menor is a unique feature on the Costa Blanca coast. The Mar Menor (minor sea) is actually an inland sea 12 miles long and 6 miles wide separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow band of sand, the La Manga. The area reminds you of Cancun with it’s lagoon and hotel row facing the ocean. The Mar Menor is very shallow – in fact barely deep enough for Lone Star, and in heavy winds, which we were experiencing the day we arrived, extremely choppy. We had planned on anchoring out however looking at the chop we decided that didn’t look like any fun so instead we pulled into Puerto Tomas Maestre Marina for three days. From that vantage point we were able to enjoy some of the many restaurants along the Menor and took a dingy ride clear across the Mar Menor on the third day once the winds had subsided.

The last evening we were there we met a British couple, Denis and Sadie from Gurnsey in the Channel Islands who had just pulled in on GRACEFUL, a Moody 54. As it turned out, like us they were headed for Alicante the next day so we decided to sail together and left on the 10th in time for the 10AM bridge opening. After a nice 6 hour motor sail we were safely tucked into the Alicante marina. This place gave us our first taste of “in season” Med marina prices with the bargain overnight price of 107 euros. Ouch! The town, however, was inviting with a beautiful promenade that challenged your equilibrium.

That evening we had sundowners and snacks on LONE STAR and learned that a number of years ago Denis and Sadie had completed a trip across the pond to the Caribbean and back and then a complete circumnavigation with (at the time) their young children. They also kept a boat in Greece for several years and are very knowledgeable on that area. Needless to say we were impressed.

The next morning we had planned to sail on to Denia but instead, because we were enjoying their company and the pictures of Calpe were beautiful, we decided to sail with Denis and Sadie to Puerto Calpe and spend one more day together. During the sail a momentous event occurred. At 1416 we crossed the Prime Meridian. At 1507 we arrived at Puerto Calpe and since the marina staff was on siesta we side tied to the hammer heads on the dock and were feeling quite good about our good fortune to be in such a lovely location. After our traditional celebratory docking/anchoring beer (meaning that no fiberglass was damaged) we walked into town to do a little exploring before the marina staff returned.



About an hour later, we came back to the marina and learned that we were being kicked out because the hammerhead docks had to be left open for safety reasons and only one other slip was available for Dennis and Sadie. As we considered this new piece of information we remembered being kicked out of entire countries (those of you from our Tales of Seabbatical days probably remember our story about Guadeloupe) so this was no big deal. We were preparing to leave when Denis and Sadie came to the boat and said they were leaving also and why don’t we all just go anchor out at El Rinconet Bay five miles east.

Our misfortune at Calpe turned out to be a good fortune. El Rinconet was a beautiful, idyllic spot with gorgeous waters. Craig commented that he would not have anchored so close to land if Denis was not leading the way. We anchored in sand about 100 meters off the shore and were shortly in the water swimming for the first time in the Med. and checking on what kind of plant life our boat bottoms had picked up since leaving the Channel Islands and France.


We met for sundowners and appetizers that evening on GRACEFUL and eventually took our dingy to shore and had a nice (but a bit expensive) dinner at a local restaurant with fabulous views. Based on the price of the meal, we also paid for the views!

The next morning Craig finished removing the unwanted plant life (scrubbing the bottom) and Jan took off in the dingy for her first solo drive. In the afternoon we reluctantly bid farewell to Denis and Sadie. We headed on to Denia and they planned on spending another night on the hook before sailing to Ibiza. We really enjoyed the time we spent together, said we would keep in touch via email and hoped our paths would cross again.

Cruising the Costas del Sol and Blanca

After Jennifer left us we spent two more days in Benalmadena recharging the batteries (ours – not Lone Star’s), itinerary planning and provisioning for the next leg of our journey – cruising the Costa del Sol and Costa del Blanca. The temps were continuing to rise and the overall conditions were improving so we decided it was time to leave the world of marinas behind and find our anchoring “mojo” out on our way to the Mar Menor. The Costa del Sol (the Sun Coast) stretches from Gibraltar to Cabo de Gata and averages 300 sunny days a year. Cabo de Gata is the point where the Spanish coast turns north. Costa del Blanca, the coast between Cabo de Gata and Cabo de San Antonio is named the White Coast after the white chalky cliffs that line the shoreline. Along both coastlines is a combination of high rise condos and stretches of some of the largest greenhouses we had ever seen. Apparently this part of Spain is the winter vegetable growing capital for all of Europe. Unfortunately because of the hazy conditions we could not get a clear picture of these football field size sheets of plastic dotting the landscape like a patchwork quilt. We spent 6 nights anchoring out as we made our way up the coast. All anchorages were beautiful, one was a bit rolly and one, Puerto Genoves, offered us protection for 2 days as another levante swooped down on the area. At one point while anchored, we sustained wind gusts of 40 knots, but the anchor held and we were glad to be tucked into a safe harbor. Not only a safe harbor but also one surrounded by mountains with hiking trails to lookouts with views and nude sunbathers.