Chilling in Cartagena

We are now in the ancient, beautiful and very interesting city of Cartagena, the latest in our series of random stops, dictated by wind and weather. It was a long beat over here from Santa Pola with a Force 6 dead against us most of the night, plus unfavourable current, tunny nets and fish farms. 125 nautical miles to travel a distance of 65, but never mind, Biscay is looming ahead and it´s useful to know that all systems are in a good state of preparedness.
While we were in Santa Pola, we learned that the salt marshes there are a year-round haunt of flamingos. So, we went to have a look and, sure enough, there was one standing in the classic flamingo pose (photo to follow).
Here in Cartagena, we can hear the squawking of peacocks from the boat - there´s a beautiful park around the castillo where there are many of them. We even saw a pea-chick for the first time.
We have decided to stop a couple of nights here, since the town is so interesting and the marina relatively cheap, so we´re having a bit of R&R.

Back on mainland Europe

We arrived at our first port in mainland Spain this afternoon – Santa Pola, a fishing port on the Costa Blanca, just along from Alicante. It’s also the first time that we’ve stayed in a marina so far. This is a very new one, opened in January this year, and the shiny bathrooms were much appreciated during our first freshwater shower in six weeks! We also had to do a mammoth hand wash as the laundrette shut at the same time as we arrived – 1400.
Before we set out from Mallorca, people had told us repeatedly that there are only two kinds of wind in the Mediterranean: too little or too much on the nose. Well, we’ve had nice wind on our first offshore passage setting out from Mallorca – right on the nose – followed by no wind at all. We therefore decided to make for the nearest anchorage, which happened to be on the northeast corner of Ibiza, and it turned out to be a super spot. Surrounded by high basalt cliffs in fantastic formations, white sand with friendly fish next to some rocks and a cave to go snorkelling in. And the best thing: we had the whole place to ourselves. Unlike Porto Colom where we re-anchored twice in one day because of charter boats anchoring too close to us.
From Clot des Llamp it was only a 30-mile hop to Espalmador, a private island just north of Formentera. This is a popular anchorage and was pretty packed, but well worth it. The island is undeveloped – no shops, discos or anything, only three or four houses, a long sandy beach and shrubs. Plus the crowning glory, pools of warm mud that are a tonic for the skin (and the rest of the body, too). You rub the dark grey sulphurous mud all over yourself, walk back to the beach among rosemary bushes and rinse yourself off in the sea. The effect was amazing. We liked it so much we went back first thing in the morning and were the only ones at the mud pools.
These two stops washed away some of our cares. On the sail around Mallorca, we had discovered that the two genoas off Paul’s 27-foot Catalina were slightly too tall and we were faced with trying to find a genoa at the last minute. Luckily, Jim realised it was possible to tinker with the attachment points for smaller genoa and it has been giving us great service since. We now have a nice racing genoa with 10.5 meters luff length for sale – any takers?
Our plan is to get to Gibraltar quickly and take it slow in Andalucia and on the Algarve. Now it’s time to catch up on some snooze after our 110-mile overnight passage. Dunno why, but it always seems that the wind conditions change right around the same time as the watch is supposed to change, thereby robbing one or the other of us of some precious off-watch time. Anyway, the night sailing is beautiful, with glowing phosphorescence streaming off the boat below us and the open starry sky above.
We have now tested nearly all of the gear aboard, including the radar set, which has been rather fun. Not just fun, though. Last night, as the wind was coming up again and we were re-setting sails, we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a shipping lane. The radar was very useful to determine the position and relative courses of all the lights we could suddenly see around us. Today too, as we made the approach to Santa Pola, it proved useful for avoiding some foul ground off a little island we had to pass.
And now, photos.

Greetings from Porto Colom

We´ve had a lovely few days sailing so far and have progressed around the island to Porto Colom. Quite a busy spot, compared to the lonely calas where we spent the last couple of nights.
Immediately after our previous post, we had the tapas and sangria and then found that a bit of a blow had started while we were in the restaurant. It was an incredibly wet ride back to the boat, with waves washing right over the dinghy! Our friend´s small boat dragged her anchor towards the rocks, but not all the way, thank goodness.
Our first sail was very tranquilo, the second rather brisk (force 6) and the third simply delightful. Had our first dolphins along for a bow-ride yesterday while the self-steering vane was guiding us along to our present anchorage.
Not sure where we´ll stop next. Maybe Isla de Cabrera, maybe Formentera.
Thanks for the comments - we´ll try to get some more photos up soon.

Anchor´s aweigh

Very soon. Tomorrow, in fact.
The anchor windlass took two days longer than expected to repair and reinstall, but all is in place now. New halyards have been reeved, VHF radio installed and we even managed to pick up a bargain secondhand folding bike. So, all things being equal, we should be weighing anchor and setting sail tomorrow at last.
Our intention is to head clockwise around the island, but we´ll see what the wind is doing when we get out of the bay here.
We just helped a new friend move his boat from the mooring next to where we´re anchored to the boatyard where her motor will be hoisted into her tomorrow morning, so now it´s time for sangria and tapas to celebrate what we hope will be our last evening in Puerto Alcudia.

Happy afloat

We´ve spent a couple of nice days at anchor in a pretty anchorage opposite a little island with a lighthouse, about 20 minutes from Puerto Alcudia. The first night some little shrimps kept us awake with their nibbling sounds, which sound a bit like an electrical fire starting - luckily we were told what it made the sound so now we sleep easily.
Right now we´re having a new forestay installed, which means that we can actually do some sailing this afternoon. Tomorrow we´ll take the day off and get a bit of rest. The launch day especially was very hectic with us getting up at 6am to check that the engine would start.
We´ve had another visit from Dave and Fran and went through all the ropes, instruments etc - great help, thanks guys.
We also had a bit of an adventure in our dinghy: we found out how far you can go on a tank of fuel by running out of petrol just as the afternoon sea breeze stiffenend. Luckily, we could row over to the marina fuel dock at Alcudiamar and fill our little jerry can next to an enormous power boat.

Afloat

Just a short one, for now. We´re in the water! Launched this morning and all well. Numerous errands to run now, so more soon.

One more time, from the top

We had a very nice evening with Fran and Dave, the previous owners of Fettler. They introduced us formally to Nanette the wind vane, Sven the engine (a handsome old fellow) and the autopilots, Neville and Stan (the Force 6 man). We also found out, among a hundred useful things, that Fettler means “someone who prepares” and that she has pretty much been everywhere we’re planning to stop on the way to Edinburgh. Hopefully that will make navigation easier!
Even the last leg to Scotland will be a homecoming as Fettler spent her youth on the west coast, being an early member of the Clyde Cruising Club (sail number around 260, if I remember rightly).
Since then, we’ve been systematically rummaging through the lockers on board and sorting out little things, like mending the bag for the dinghy, repainting the markers on the anchor chain, installing Nanette and giving her wooden parts a lick of Fettler-green paint.
When we introduced our new anchor, the Rocna, into the clutch of Bruce anchors already aboard, it put us in mind of the old Monty Python sketch, the Philosophy Department of the University of Wolloomolloo (G’day Bruce! How are you, Bruce? Where’s Bruce? He’s not ‘ere, Bruce. You’re name’s not Bruce then? That’s going to cause some confusion… Mind if we call you Bruce to keep things clear?).
Yesterday, we’ve put up some of the halyards and, after having to had to cut the sliders to the right size with the Dremel, slotted our mast steps into position. Jim’s been up the mast a couple of times already – check out his aerial photography.
The hoist in the boat yard is still being fixed and we’re now being told that it will be ready to lift boats into the water by Wednesday, which would work out just fine for us.