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Cruising Around the Med 19th April - 3rd May


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Posted
  • Location: East Ham, London
  • Location: East Ham, London

Just got back from a fortnight's cruising in the Western Mediterranean. Generally good weather with 25c in Gibraltar last Tuesday and 22c in Cadiz the previous week.

 

The worst of it was reserved for last weekend when we visited first Civitavecchia and then Ajaccio in Corsica. For those who don't know their geography, Ajaccio, apart from being the birth place of Napoleon, is in a sheltered bay on the west coast of the island. The captain warned us it would get rough as we left the shelter and he wasn't wrong.

 

Our course toward Gibraltar was joined by a storm which produced 60 knot wind and a 15-foot swell accompanied by clear blue skies. The chart below doesn't really do the wind any justice:

 

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/archives/gfs-2014042712-0-6.png

 

I thought it might have been a Mistral-type wind but the captain told us the storm was over the Gulf of Lyons (I thought the Gulf of Genoa).

 

The other feature was the strong Northerly we met turning out of the Med and coming back up the Iberian coast and through Biscay. All in all, fair spring weather though the evenings were often cool.

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Posted
  • Location: Mostly Watford but 3 months of the year at Capestang 34310, France
  • Weather Preferences: Continental type climate with lots of sunshine with occasional storm
  • Location: Mostly Watford but 3 months of the year at Capestang 34310, France

Just got back from a fortnight's cruising in the Western Mediterranean. Generally good weather with 25c in Gibraltar last Tuesday and 22c in Cadiz the previous week.

 

The worst of it was reserved for last weekend when we visited first Civitavecchia and then Ajaccio in Corsica. For those who don't know their geography, Ajaccio, apart from being the birth place of Napoleon, is in a sheltered bay on the west coast of the island. The captain warned us it would get rough as we left the shelter and he wasn't wrong.

 

Our course toward Gibraltar was joined by a storm which produced 60 knot wind and a 15-foot swell accompanied by clear blue skies. The chart below doesn't really do the wind any justice:

 

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/archives/gfs-2014042712-0-6.png

 

I thought it might have been a Mistral-type wind but the captain told us the storm was over the Gulf of Lyons (I thought the Gulf of Genoa).

 

The other feature was the strong Northerly we met turning out of the Med and coming back up the Iberian coast and through Biscay. All in all, fair spring weather though the evenings were often cool.

Stodge,

 

Yes there is a wind similar to the Mistral which blows between the Massif Centrale and the Pyrenees - it is called the 'Tramontane', whereas the Mistral blows between the Massif Centrale and the Alps - The Golfe de Lyon is that corner of the Med included in ,say, Montpellier to Perpignan and the coast line, originally going east to west, does a left hander to go from north to south.

 

We have been down here since 15.05.2014, the first couple of days were great with temps 28C, but it went gradually down hill after that with a couple of days of rain and the Tramontane picked up, making it feel cold at times especially in the evenings but in the middle of day it was great with the temps, say about 20C with the warmth coming from the sun and sheltered from the wind.

 

Now although it has been gusty today, the wind is gradually dying down and should be down to a gentle breeze by Monday when I hope to go gliding at Narbonne; the temperatures lifting next week to the low to middle 20's with just one cloudy/possible some rain about the middle of the week.

 

By road we are 25 kms from the Med, our nearest beach being Valras Plage, this being in the Golfe de Lyon.

Edited by mike Meehan
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Posted
  • Location: East Ham, London
  • Location: East Ham, London

Thanks for the above and the explanation, Mike. It all makes much more sense. The GFS map suggests the LP was over the eastern part of the Gulf of Lyon but the wind was a North or North North Westerly as it reached the ship travelling SW from Corsica toward the Balearics and impacted on the starboard side (where we were).

 

The ship was moving slowly and pitching in the 60-knot wind but the remarkable thing was the bright evening sunshine which was warm (if you could find shelter). By morning, when we passed to the south-east of Menorca, the wind had died down considerably.

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