Setting Sail for another adventure

We left Gib on Tuesday 13^th March after over 4 months in Queensway Marina.  We wrapped up in our oilles, wellies and woolly hats, we hoisted the mainsail in the inner harbour and were already hit by gusts of over 25knots with full sail which was a bit of a shock after 4 months of no sailing!

The motor sail out to Europa Point was gusty but we knew it would be and were just waiting to see what would hit us when we round the point.  We were met with 18-20 knots of easterlies and some disturbed seas.  We knew we needed to head out to the shipping lanes before we could tack and make our way back into the shore.  After dodging a fishing boat we headed into the waves both glad we were able to keep our breakfast down! After an hour of slow progress we were close to the shipping lane with seas only increasing so we tacked.

An hour later were sailing along in moderate seas with 10-12knots of breeze and knew the worst bit was over.  We were then lucky to be joined by 2 bottlenose dolphins who played around the boat for around 30 minutes and just as they swam off 2 common dolphins appeared and had a play in the bow wave, we couldn’t have asked for more. Although it was still taking some time to lose Gibraltar and the Levante cloud which still seemed very close behind us – you can see from the photo below Gibraltar has cloud sitting on top of the Rock, this is common when the wind is blowing from the east, the surrounding area can be bathed in sunshine!

Gibraltar and the Levante cloud

The slow progress meant we did not get as far as we had hoped but headed into Fuengirola marina for the night – cheap and secure. The sun was shining when we left in the morning; we motored out of the marina with the wind forecasted to build.

Fuengirola

Unfortunately the wind did not appear, it was baking hot as we motored along the pretty coastline, and we could even see the snow topped mountains of the Sierra Nevada in the distance.

Sierra Nevada in distance

After seeing no boats all day we suddenly looked up to see a Spanish customs boat looming very  close and noticed that they were loading into the Rib, within minutes they were alongside and we had the joy of them coming aboard.  They requested all the normal boat papers, passports, details of previous port etc but they also requested a sample of our engine diesel, not very easy to achieve.  When they agreed to take a sample from a spare container they tested to ensure it was no “Red” (industrial) diesel, which is illegal outside of the UK, all slightly inconvenient at the end of a long day but luckily we were only a few miles from our anchorage for the night.

We anchored in Ensenada de La Herradura which was a sheltered bay surrounded by the mountains, holding was good and the rolling was not too bad which was just perfect for our first night at anchor since October.

Ensenada De La Herradura

The next day we held out little hope when we set off with no wind, as the hours drifted on we managed to get the sails up on a couple of occasions but the winds were so light we still had to motor L which is always frustrating but the sun was shinning, the views were spectacular and we seemed to have the sea to ourselves – oh apart from the same customs boat we had seen the day before! One particularly odd sight along this coast is miles and miles of plastic sheeting which is used for growing veggies.

Not the clearest photo but all the white patches are the plastic sheeting

We were pleased to arrive at Almerimar and the very helpful marina  moored us up all ready to be lifted out of the water the following morning.