Costa de la Luz & Costa del Sol

June 8th Tuesday
Cadiz
Another nice city that deserves a visit and I probably never would have, other than being on a boat. The old part is a warren of narrow streets, mostly pedestrian (too small for cars) and full of attractive houses with tiled entrance-ways, ornate balconies and smart inner courtyards. We got there by taking the ferry across Cadiz bay from Puerto Santa Maria, a place made famous for containing all the major sherry warehouses (Puerto Sherry is just round the corner). We had a snack, walked around most of the centre and found an internet cafe, a bit more trecking and we'd covered most of the "tourists sightseeing walk" - in that heat it took two beers and two ice-creams - must be at least 95f. Back at Club Nautico - Santa Maria we checked the weather at the marina office, not good....There's a 'Levante' blowing through the straights of Gibraltar. These are easterly winds that can continue for days on end and, given time, can make the seas quite rough and almost impossible for sailing boats to get through.Given that although this marina is cheap (12 euros per night), has a swimming pool, tennis courts, shaded bar area and restaurant, it still has one major drawback which is that in the early hours each morning a fleet of fishing boats returns with their catch and apart from being noisy they create a lot of wash which rocks all the boats in the marina quite violently. There's a 4knt speed limit in the river, but only a few of the fishermen stick to it. So we will be leaving tomorrow for our shortest sail yet, 3nm across the bay to Puerto America, which is on the SE tip of Cadiz and 2km away from the centre of town.

June 9th Wednesday
Cadiz
Breakfast of toasted ham and cheese sandwich, a cup of real coffee at Santa Maria and Liz and I discussed our options. There are none really so we set sail in a 20+ Kt wind across the bay, almost keeping up with the ferry which left at the same time! Liz noticed a dark patch on one of the seams on the headsail while we were out, better get that checked. After mooring up and signing in, we walked to the nearby chandlers and were put in touch with a sail repairer straight away, he turned up a quarter of an hour later and told us he could repair the sail by the next day - fantastic. He also looked at the mainsail and offered to repair the eyelet on the second reef point. In the end he did both those things as well as strengthen ALL the seams on the leech of the headsail, replace a lost batten on the main and cover a slight tear on the luff of the main - all for the princely sum of 50€. Here's a free ad for you Antonio..

I spent the rest of the day fixing a lock on the anchor locker and repairing a crack on one of the cockpit locker clamps. It seems like if we are going to be here for any length of time then we may as well do something practical. Liz went into town and acquired a coolbox - wow, cold beers from now on. Tidied the galley, threw out old food and ate onboard.

June 10th Thursday
Cadiz
Ho-hum. the sail-maker woke us up at 9:30 (must have been tired) with his delivery and after some coffee we put the sails back up and gave them a good rinse with fresh water. We also washed all the lines in some mild detergent, just to get the salt out of them. A shame that the retaining clip for the mainsail broke off the mast during all this - yet another repair to be made before we attempt to leave Cadiz and make our way to Barbate (35 miles south of here). Went into town to get food & had a consolation Burger King "Whopper", a rare junk food treat.

In the Evening one of the other British sailors came over to say hello, his name is Barry and he had sailed down from Poole with a couple of paid crew in his 49ft Jeanneau which is only three months old. We visited later and met Roland and Alberto - the crew, for a beer, some wine and some food. Liz and I soaked up the luxury of a huge saloon, deep fridge, water maker, 3 large cabins, 2 heads (each with shower) etc etc. Barry bought the boat with his business partner and is trying to get it to Barcelona to use for personal pleasure and as an incentive for his employees back in the UK. On the way back to Iris we bumped into Jean, a French guy who is delivering a 48ft Catamaran from the West Indies to Antibes with a friend and his son. Another immense boat with 4 cabins 2 heads.... We polished off a large quantity of rum and orange and at about 3:30am staggered back across the finger pontoon to our boat. More than enough socializing for one night.

June 11th Friday
Cadiz

spot Iris (hint - 3rd boat from left)

Our boats might not have a lot in common, but we are united in our desire to get past Gibraltar and into the Med'. This morning there are gale warnings being issued by the Spanish met office and notice of "high seas" in the Straits until Sunday at least. None of us are going anywhere. Woke late with a 'slight' hangover and mooched around until the afternoon when we walked into Cadiz. Had a quiet evening on the boat and watched a couple of distressed yachts come into the marina - both with bad damage to their sails, in fact one of the yachts didn't really have much sail left. One crossed the Gulf of Cadiz and the other tried to get through the Gibraltar Straits. Strange how it looks so calm in the Bay of Cadiz and yet only a few miles out is weather bad enough to stop the progress of fully crewed 50ft+ sailing boats (Jean next to us in the catamaran is a professional sailor for a French yacht that competes in trans-oceanic races - if he stays put then so will we).

June 12th Saturday
Cadiz
We arrived in Cadiz on the 7th but it feels like a long time ago now. We are running out of things to do on the boat and the weather is too hot for much anyway. Jean (our neighbour) left this morning for Rota, a marina on the north side of the bay, just for a change. I am listening to an American forces radio station which is crap, there's a US navy base in the bay (why?) and there seem to always be a couple of warships posted off the coast, twittering to each other on Channel 16 (emergency VHF radio channel). At night they do exercises and we can frequently hear the drone of helicopters and the screech of small jet aircraft. Noisy bunch.

In the evening we went into town to try and watch the opening games of the European football cup. We arranged to meet a Roland and Alberto (crew for Barry) at O'Connels Irish bar, they didn't turn up and I can understand why, the TV was on but the 'company policy' was to play music all night, regardless of whether Spain was playing! No wonder it was empty, but we failed to find anywhere that was 'buzzing with excitement' and ended up going back to the small bar at the port. Even there the owner turned off the TV at half time and closed up - Doesn't seem like football is the thing in Cadiz.

A last minute check on the NAVTEX (our on-board weather information system), describes F4-F6 winds off Cadiz and still F7-F8 gales blowing in the Straits of Gibraltar. That's been going on for five days now! Every time I look up at the masthead, the windex shows that the direction of wind is directly from the east. The forecast has been revised and is now valid until Monday 2400hrs. When will it end?

June 13th Sunday
Cadiz
We spent the morning cleaning the decks, sanding down the grab rails and oiling most of the wood on Iris. The wind has backed 180 degrees to the west which is hopeful, it was still very hot - about 35°C. In the evening we stretched our legs and went into town to watch England play France. Great game until the last ten minutes when France scored twice making it 1-2. Bad substitutions by Sven I say.

June 14th Monday
Cadiz
Woken at 4am in the morning by the boat pitching about and the noise of the wind. It's turned again to an easterly and we watched the windex hover around the 25kt mark, occasionally gusting 30kts and more. At 11am it was still blowing hard and I went to the marina office to look at their weather print out - no change. Barry (our current UK neighbour) went to Marbella to meet his business partner yesterday and whilst driving back to Cadiz, stopped near the Straits of Gibraltar to look at the sea. He reckoned that the waves were breaking around a big container ship and were about 1/7th the size of the boat, making them the size of double-decker buses. Ho-hum.

Went into town late, to avoid the worst of the mid-day heat, finally found an internet cafe where I could update the site and had a couple of beers in San Fransisco Square. A funny thing happened on the way back to the boat, down a narrow side street I saw a familiar face and soon recognised Simon, an old friend from Brighton! He had been in Madrid and had come to Cadiz to see about taking a course to learn Spanish. He knew that we might be somewhere near and managed to find Iris at the marina and had left a note onboard. Ha, what a small world. We had a meal together and arranged that he would come and stay on the boat for a few days and maybe come with us to Gibraltar for a sail. 

June 15th Tuesday
Cadiz
The wind howled in the wee hours and Liz saw speeds of around 40knts, Coffee, tidied the boat, got extra fuel, spoke to a few boat owners and learnt that they'd closed the Straits of Gibraltar to ALL traffic (including cruise liners and supertankers) last night because of strong winds and high seas. effing hell. Simon turned up in the afternoon and got settled on the boat. We stayed on board and ate, drank some wine and played board games, maybe the wind is dropping slightly.

June 16th Wednesday
Cadiz
Simon and I went to the marina cafe and had some toast and coffee, I paid up for our berth for the past 7 days and we went back to the boat. The wind has almost dropped to nothing and the plan is to have a go at getting to Gibraltar leaving in the small hours of Thursday morning, arriving sometime in the afternoon. Ate on-board Iris and got ready for an early(ish) start. We've met a French guy called Marc who has just bought a Jeanneau 42 and is taking her back to Montpelier with a fiend. And there is a pleasant nutter who is also French and has sailed in solo from Antigua who are both in the marina waiting to go. Another English couple Tim and Jo arrived recently and we have agreed that the four (boats) would sail in convoy down to Barbate. We settled it over a few drinks on Marcs boat.

June 17th Thursday
Cadiz > Barbate 39nm
The Frenchmen got up and left at 8am as planned. Us English had a cooked breakfast, a shower etc and just about managed to get off by 8:40. Tim's boat is a Nicholson 35, "Rose Rambler" and he and Jo have just bought it (in Portugal) and spent 8 weeks and a fair bit of cash getting her ready for Med/World cruising. So far they have only sailed from Lagos to Cadiz but they already have plenty of tales to tell. So we set off from Barbate, the three of us and sailed for about 5 miles when the wind died and we ended up motor sailing for most of the rest of the trip. That was probably a good thing for Simon who was gradually finding his sea legs, hampered by the heat of the sun and a slight hang-over from the night before (as was I). Quite a few boats were heading on the same course but it only took a couple of hours before they were specks in the distance. Iris sails well in stronger winds but in light airs and against most other boats with their larger engines she lags a bit! We made it after 9 hours though, not to bad, and quickly found a small bar to wet our whistles. Barbate is quite a modern marina but a bit unfinished in places. The lonely Planet says "nothing of interest here" but the town has a nice beach (Tim and Jo moored off it) and doesn't pretend to be anything special. In the evening we ate at the Marina cafe and watched England win against Switzerland, phew..

June 18th Friday
Barbate > Gibraltar 37nm
Had breakfast and made ready to continue to Gibraltar, we refuelled and went to tell Tim and Jo that we wouldn't be anchoring nearby for a swim and some coffee. The predictions were for stronger winds at Gibraltar the next day and I really didn't want to be held up any longer. So we sailed out of Barbate, around the long stretches of Tuna nets and did a mixture of sailing/motoring and motor-sailing down to Cadiz. Simon was getting into the swing of being on a boat and dealing with the long periods of just "sitting around" and even though it was a choppier day at sea we heard no complaints from him. At Tarifa, THE most southerly point in Europe, the headland and the tides joined to make for a disturbed bit of sea but it only lasted an hour and once past it we could all see the rock of Gibraltar clearly ahead of us. By the bay, the wind had picked up to a 6 and 15 minutes before reaching the harbour entrance we were joined by Gibraltars resident dolhins who swam alongside for a little while, always nice to see them. Simon had helmed for the last two hours or so, I thought it fitting that Gibb should take Iris into Gib', On a boat, after 8 weeks at sea, small things amuse me.

We finally arrived in the early evening - a couple of hours ahead of Tim and Jo, having had no luck finding a berth in Sheppards Marina we tried and succeeded at Marina Bay, next door. Both are fairly run down affairs with knackered concrete pontoons and the old fashioned stern line mooring system. Apart from some of the smart new appartments available on 'the rock' this is my general impression of Gibraltar as a whole. Slightly worn out, dated and planned in a piecemeal way, if at all. Good for duty free shopping, a few sight seeing attractions and then get out and visit somewhere nice. In the evening Simon treated Liz and I to a curry in a newly opened restaurant down Main Street. Over an hour after ordering we finally were served with one of the best curries I've had in a long time. Maybe it's because after so many salads and easy to prepare sea meals that something so spicey tastes so good, who knows. Tim and Jo found us towards the end of our feast and after they had a quick bite we all went back to our boats

In the evening we all went to "Charlies bar" next to the marina and watched Portugal beat Spain and retired to Iris for a few nightcaps.

June 21st Monday
Gibraltar
Last day in Gibraltar, went to the chandlers and bought some gear, did some washing and then went into town to stock up on ultra cheap spirits and cigarettes, I also invested in a "Dummies guide to Spanish" as I feel that I really ought to make more of an effort while I'm here. We went to Safeways as well (Little England on the rock don't you know) and bought smokey bacon and other English treats. Tidied the boat in the afternoon as we will be setting off in the morning. Booked a table at Charlie's to eat and watch England play their final match in the first round. Watched it at Charlie's. Great atmosphere. Went back to the boat and exchanged details with Tim and Jo. They are going to set off tomorrow but need to be in Majorca by the 7th of July to meet a friend. I think that they will try to make up a couple of hundred miles and race ahead of us, but I'm sure that we'll meet up again in the Ballaerics.

June 22nd Tuesday
Gibraltar > Fuengirola 53nm
Set off at 8am intending to go much further, ie Almeria (169nm) and had thick fog for 10 hours, a bit unnerving with so many big ships around (we saw a lot of them before the fog rolled in), lots of radio checks advising anyone in range of our position and heading. We got a bit of help from other boats who had radar including a gas tanker anchored outside Gibraltar (callsign A8NJ) who heard our messages and watched us on their radar for nearly two hours, giving advice on which course to steer and when to make turns, Thank you A8NJ! Arrived at 7:30pm at Fuengirola after a 'safety detour' for one night. As a package holiday/timeshare resort town Fuengirola is everything you'd expect, and more. good for the 18-30 crowd and maybe the retired brigade looking for a bit of sun. High rise blocks, an abundance of "English bars", "Irish bars", fish and chips, Spanish restaurants with A boards displaying their menus in English etc etc etc.

June 23rd Wednesday
Fuengirola > Caleta de Velez 32nm
Slow progress. We came up against another large bank of fog en-route to Almerimar and after yesterday our nerves weren't up to another 8 or more hours making radio calls and peering into nothing, waiting for some monster of a ship to suddenly loom out of the mist. So a short sail to C.D.V. mainly against the wind, a small port, stern line mooring, efficiently run, clean facilities.

June 24th Thursday
Caleta de Velez > Motril 28nm
Visited supermarket and stocked up ready for an overnight sail. The wind is against us again. No fog near the coast but after 7 hours the engine warning alarm went off. Two of the warning lights don't work on the dash panel so it took a while to work out that it wasn't an alternator problem or an oil pressure problem - seemed to be the coolant. Cause? Either a blocked intake (we'd just sailed past a plastic bag), faulty thermostat or damaged impeller (the little rubber paddle that drives water round the engine). We stopped the engine and looked for obvious leakages but found none and after 1/4 of an hour it had cooled enough to start again. Slightly concerned we went into Motril to take a better look. Another working port but the marina is a 'rose amongst thorns'. Surrounded by palm trees, finger pontoons for visitors, chalet style restaurant and separate bar with veranda, swimming pool, good security and not too expensive (17 euros per night for a <10mtr boat).

June 25th Friday
Motril > Almerimar 37nm
Replaced the impeller first thing, had a shower, large coffee and set off for Almerimar. Uneventful apart from visits from dolphins, wind on our nose all day and the fact that the engine seems to be behaving itself. maybe we had run it too hard, too long yesterday, maybe that plastic bag temporarily blocked the water intake, maybe the impeller was worn. Got a text message from Tim and Jo, they are in Cartagena - 239 miles in two and a half days - good to have RADAR on board!. We skirted Adra thinking about stopping there but decided to press on and take advantage of the cooler evening sailing (motoring). A few miles away from Almerimar we saw a V shaped formation of birds approaching from the south, as they got closer we realised that they were flamingos - strange creatures that look like flying pink sticks, on their way north to Portugal or France I suppose. We arrived at Almerimar at 10pm, just as it was getting dark. This is a big marina and popular as both a stopping point and long term winter storage facility. 1000 berths, 200 reserved for visitors! Signed in and after a lot of paperwork went to our berth in one of many "courtyard" style docks, opposite "Kenny's Irish Bar". 12.30€ per night for a 10mtr boat.

June 26th Saturday
Almerimar
Here for a couple of days before rounding 'Cabo de Gata' in SE Spain and heading to Puerto San Jose. Almerimar is a bit of a weird place, thousands of apartments built around a marina complex, it was only in 1993 or so that it became 'self-contained' with it's own bank and supermarket. Since then it has grown apace and we were told that while previously it was a very expensive marina to stay at, a change of management has seen prices halve and the number of berths increase fivefold. Pile'em high sell'em cheap. Thinking about the possibility (vague) of trading up to a larger boat we went to see a Halberg Rassy 352 and a Dehler 36. The HR oozed quality but was tired and needed a good bit of attention. The Dehler was void of any character and had a "caravanny" interior with lots of white plastic but was in excellent condition and solidly constructed. The search continues but I think we can't afford what we would really like! We stopped at one of the nearby chandlers to ask about getting some 'Med style' mooring lines made up out of three strand rope with steel eyelets, a shackle and some chain (to stop our current lines from being buggered by all the concrete edges that we keep mooring by). To have the eyelets spliced in would cost 15€ each so we decided to buy some test rope and have a go ourselves. It turns out that Liz had a dormant talent for rope-work and her first effort was as neat and secure as the professionally made ones on many of the other boats here and she only charges 14€ per splice.

June 27th Sunday
Almerimar
What's the weather like? It's hot again! Liz and I spent the day quietly, she doing some work and I, exploring more of the complex. I found a shop where they sold very cheap beach umbrellas and got one for 9 euros to use in the cockpit, It's quite effective in harbour but needs a sea trial. In the evening we ate out at a fairly poor Pizza restaurant and cheered ourselves up afterwards with a couple of very large Baileys at "Kenny's Irish bar" (run by a Welshman).

Iris in Almerimar, complete with new cockpit sunshade and a "windscoop"
bought in Gibraltar, al helping us stay cool.

June 28th Monday
Almerimar > San Jose
Preparations before we go, Liz went to buy the bits we need to make up two mooring lines, I checked the weather on the internet and then we contacted Yes Yachting brokers to come and have a look at Iris and give an opinion on price, and to ask for a second look at the Dehler 36, We sort of like it but with a few reservations, maybe a bit too plasticky inside, maybe needs a bit of attention, maybe a little overpriced for what it is. 

Set off at 1pm for San Jose with the wind on our nose and by the time we'd got there, the wind had changed enough to consider doing an 'overnighter' to Cartagena, an hour or two later and the wind had changed direction and we were motoring again.

Move on to page 2, "The Costa Blanca"