17 October 2009, Cala Honda, southern Spain
It's getting a bit nippy now in the mornings and evenings getting down around 17 degrees, which isn't really cold but we've all pulled out the jumpers. During the days it's beautiful and still warm. We spent all day at the marina really. Sam did school. Ray did the washing while I cleaned and hung out the washing. We did a bit of a shop and generally pottered around. Ray's quite sick today but wants to head out anyway because he's worried we won't reach Gib before the south-westerly sets in. So at around 4pm we headed off again and we plan to anchor about 11pm at an anchorage down the way.
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We're on a mission to get to Gibraltar before a big blow that's coming from the south-west next Wednesday so we are pressing on. We lifted the anchor around 7am and headed off again. Sam did school while I pottered with meals and tidying the boat and catching up on some emails. Around lunch time the alarm on the VHF radio sounded. This is a function on most VHF's that allows you to press a 'Distress' button on the radio and, if it's linked into your GPS, it sends your position out on the airways. Cabo de Gata radio responded immediately with a message to all ships to look out for a boat in distress. The position was a good 60 nautical miles away toward Gibraltar so it wasn't one we could do anything with but throughout the day the distress call sounded several more times. Cabo de Gata radio was on it and in touch with other boats somewhere in the vicinity but we didn't get any details of what was going on except that the vessel had 'problems on board' but they did have a vessel only 10 nautical miles away that was on standby to respond. Not sure what the outcome was which is a little frustrating. Anyway, around 4pm we pulled in to Almerimar Marina, a fairly new, huge and great looking marina. Our jaws nearly dropped when they said our price for the night would be only 18.51 euros including power and water. We tied up stern to the dock, got ourselves settled and then headed out for Peking Duck (yes...very Spanish).
PS. Now we're all sick with this sinus cold...Ray's been the last to succumb.
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15 October 2009, Garrucha, southern Spain
We were very pleased with ourselves for finding a spot out of the swell for the night, just outside the Garrucha marina. The marina's basically a fishing harbour and there was no room for us anyway. It's also a commercial harbour where they load what we think was limestone. Anyway, with the huge breakwater that comes out around the harbour we were able to tuck into a good little spot just at the mouth of the marina but in towards the beach. Had a fantastic night's sleep and all was well til 6.30am. Well, we've been in fishing harbours before when a few fishing boats head out....no...there were 15 of these boats, all leaving the harbour at speed. We had wake coming at us from all angles...cupboard doors and drawers were flying open and things were falling off benches. It didn't last too long and now we were wide awake fortunately because when Ray stuck his head out the door soon after he nearly had a coronary. A huge cargo vessel was being toed in by a couple of tugs and we'd swung right into the centre of the channel. So, we started our motors and Ray moved us stern to the beach out of the way while this huge thing docked on the commercial dock opposite us. By 8am it was all quiet again but Ray had dragged the anchor a bit too close to the beach now so we pulled it up and headed off....felt like I'd been awake for hours. At about 10.30 we stopped in at Puerto Pescaro de Carbonares (fishing port) to pick up some fuel and bread and walk Milo and then headed off again. 7.30pm tonight we dropped the anchor just around the point at Cabo de Gata out the front of a little beach and a settlement of about 5 houses...all modern designs. We all went ashore to give Milo a last run for the night and even in the fading light you could still see the bottom the water was so clear.
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