Monthly Archives: June 2015

All or Nothing

Posted on by
2

We have spent the past few days sailing up the coast of the Costa del Sol. The few hundred metre strip that lies between the sea and the steep craggy hills inland, is shockingly built up. Apartment block, after apartment block after apartment block, interspersed with huge holiday home complexes and stark fronted hotels follow the coastline for miles and miles. Rick and I sit wondering where all the people come from to fill such an abundance of accommodation. There did look to be an incredible coast road to bring all the crowds, we have glimpsed it frequently for almost the whole of the three days sailing, winding its way through the hills and across the valleys on a string of high bridges.

Huge bridges spanned the valleys all the way up the coast, such as here just west of Herradura.

The back drop may have been unchanging but the weather and sailing conditions have not, as everybody has told us the wind here appears to be all or nothing. 

We left Duquesa on Tuesday having said goodbye to Phil and Julia and thanked Kieth and Dianne for a fantastic evening in there beautiful villa, grateful that we seemed to have a bit of wind at last. As soon as we left the marina we realized that we had in fact more than just a bit of wind, it was almost directly behind us, so we flew just the Genoa and the boat sailed along happily at about seven knots. The swell was however right on the beam (side of the boat) so we were  rocking and rolling quite vigorously from side to side, preparation of lunch was a bit harder than normal, luckily Diane had given us the left overs from the BBQ the night before and so I could just pop a sausage in a roll with some HP sauce, job done.

As the afternoon progressed the winds built until we were well reefed in F6-7 we spotted one gust of 60kts, the swell increased as well with one wave actually crashing over the rear quarter into the cockpit. Needless to say we were happy to arrive and tie up at Puerto Feungirola.The wind continued to howl through the night and the forecast for the next day was for much of the same so we holed up and spent the day catching up on the myriad jobs that have built up over the last couple of weeks including giving the dingy some much needed love and attention.

What a difference a day makes, we left early on Wednesday morning heading to an anchorage in the bay at Herradura. There was absolutely no wind and a thick mist came down, hanging heavily in the air, it was quite surreal motoring through a completely still and silent sea, surrounded by nothingness. We were both struggling to keep watch, our eyes straining to find something in the whiteness, grateful again for the AIS system and with our main sail up, not in the hope of it driving us forward, but to make us more visible. We were compensated by the arrival of a huge pod of dolphins, our path took us right through the middle of them, there were dolphins everywhere. 

   

Dolphin swimming beside the boat.

 
  
As we arrived at Herradura the mist cleared and we dropped our anchor at the quiet end of the bay about 300m off the beach. Unfortunately in the time it took for me to swim into the beach and back, we seemed to have put a sign up saying “anchor here”, two boats full of noisy day trippers had anchored within a few metres of us. Rather annoying when they had a square mile of bay to find a space in, finally they left around eight and we had a tranquil night .

We woke to another day of zero winds but thankfully the mist didn’t reappear and we had quite a magical sail, well motor. The sea was dead flat and appeared almost like oil as it reflected the sun, we hardly spotted another vessel for the whole of the six hours, it was as if we had the coast to ourselves, with just the dolphins for company. Again we saw dozens of them, including a mother and calf that swam in our bow wave for a few minutes just under my feet! The landscape had become even more hilly and quite dramatic in places. The buildings had thinned out but been replaced with equally ugly acres of plastic, forming giant polytunnels that meet the demand for fruit and vegetables by the supermarkets of Northern Europe.

 

Acres of polytunnels


We are now moored up in Almerimar a rather strange place, a huge but friendly marina that looks like it was built with a whole new town around it. The building looks complete but only half the accommodation is filled, I guess that it may be one of the casualties of the Spanish recession.

Matt, Robyn and Rachael have just arrived (unfortunately Hugo has just started a new job and was unable to join us) and we are planning to head towards Ibiza over the next couple of days.

The Rock

Posted on by
6

As we approached Gibralta we had radioed ahead to Marina Bay, they had no space for us and so we diverted to Queensway Quay. What luck, it was extremely nice, the staff were friendly and helpful, the showers were good and although it was surrounded by the ubiquitous blocks of apartments the environment was pleasant, and all for only £26 a night!! On the quay were five or six good restaurants some serving full English breakfasts, steaks, ribs and chicken a welcome change from the fish, fish, or fish we have had for the past few weeks.

After a day or two of chores, chandlery, provisions, hair cuts etc… Friday we put on our tourist hats and took the cable car to the top of the rock. Here we enjoyed the view and watched the macaques, while a cloud, that would eventually veil the peaks of the rock, formed in front of our eyes. It was fascinating, a fast stream of mist rose from the Mediterranean side of the cliff, much like someone was boiling a giant kettle just the other side of the ridge and gathered into a cloud above us.

First stop was the St Micheals cave complex, they were incredible. Unfortunately, the powers that be had decided that they would be enhanced by playing a continuous light show, flooding our soroundings with a fluorescent rainbow of colors. They were wrong, the grandeur of the cathedral sized cavern with thousands of stalactites hanging like giant organ pipes needed nothing to  enhance them but a bit of white light.  

 
Emerging back into the sunlight, we set out to walk the couple of kilometers to the other end of the rock to find the war tunnels that riddle its heart. When Rick, Mathew and I were here about eight years ago, we equally eagerly set off downwards to explore, but got completely lost and ended near the bottom at a very tall locked gate, there was no way we could even contemplate walking back upwards, so had no choice but to climb over. I clearly remember being perched fifteen foot up, Matt who’d hopped over like one of the monkeys egging me on from one side and Rick encouraging me on from the other and I thinking to myself – I’m too old for all this. So it was with some trepidation, now even older, that I started off on the badly signed paths again. Luckily this time around we did make it to the tunnels, if with slightly sore feet and knees from our steep decent. The tunnels are certainly a great feat of engineering that have protected Gibraltar for over three hundred years, but left me, in my rather weary state, uninspired.

Saturday morning we motored out of Queensway Quay and around the corner to the fuel docks to top up our tanks with duty free diesel. We had been beaten to it by two very large boats who were just starting to fill up, now it takes us about an hour to fill our tanks, so these guys were going to take ages. Keeping a boat still, untied up, is extremely difficult, so forming an orderly queue  with another two boats that were waiting, was not a attractive prospect. We weren’t desperate for fuel, just wishing to take advantage of the cheaper prices, so we abandoned the idea and with Julia at the helm we rounded the Rock into the Med.

Not a breath of wind greeted us and the sea was glassy smooth with just a gentle swell. 

 

As we said goodbye to Gibralta, in the distance, we passed four or five pods of Dolphins swimming towards the straights and before we knew it we had covered the 12 nm to our anchorage just north of Sotogrande.

Here the gentle swell became a bit more noticeable but determined to enjoy ourselves we braved the cool water to have a swim and took the dingy out for a whizz around the bay. We had a lovely evening, we cooked, drank wine and relaxed to the melodious sounds of Katy Meula and Simon and Garfunkel. 

We are now moored in Puerto de La Duquesa, tonight we are visiting some friends with a villa nearby and tomorrow Phil and Julia say goodbye. Hopefully they have had a good time, just a shame we only managed a couple of hours of actual sailing with them. I have just watched as they confidently stepped up to take the lines for a boat coming in opposite us, something they definitely wouldn’t have even thought to do a week ago.

Whales in the Straits

Posted on by
11

Wednesday 17th June

What a fantastic day we had yesterday.

The story really started on Monday evening, we’d spent the day sightseeing in Cadiz and were planning to spend a final day in El Peurto de Santa Maria to enjoy the beach and sample the sherry made in the town. My first job, however, was to create a passage plan and I started by downloading the weather forecasts for places en route – Barbarte, Tarifa and Gibraltar. As I swiped through the pages my heart dropped, the predominant colors as the week went on were changing from greens and yellows – F2-3’s to oranges and reds -F5-7’s. Now we have done plenty of sailing in such winds and the boat is more than up to it but for this trip there were two differences, firstly the wind direction and swell were both from the east which meant we would be sailing right into both, which translates into a hard and wet sail. And secondly, and most importantly, we have Phil and Julia onboard neither of whom have ever sailed before and we were keen not to put them off from the first day.

We decided if we sailed Tuesday and Wednesday we could make it to Gibraltar in two hops and beat the weather. So it was all hands on deck as we prepared the boat and new crew. We went through the safety checks and the procedure with the fenders and lines when we leave and arrive in port, Phil and I created the passage plan and we tidied and stowed everything downstairs. By 10.30pm we and the boat were ready. With our alarms set for 5.30am, timimgs dictated by the tides as always, we went to our beds.

As we set off for our first stop, Barbarte, it was still dark. A surprising fact is that Gibraltar, at 6 degrees W, is further west than Plymouth at 4 degrees W, with the clocks being I hr ahead this makes for dark mornings and long light evenings.

As we motored out of The Bay of Cadiz a fantastic sunrise accompanied us. Phil and Julia apprehensive about the day ahead, Rick and I a little downhearted about the lack of wind and the prospect of another day motoring something we have had to do a little too much of recently.

Well we did end up motoring most of the way but that was the only downside of the day. We started off in fleeces and ended the day in t-shirts always warm enough and never too hot. We had clear blue skies and apart from a small swell the sea was calm, almost glassy at points. It was even calm enough for Julia and I to sit and enjoy the view on the forward deck.

  

We were having a great time enjoying the sunshine and the back drop of the Spanish hills and beaches, we were much closer to land than we have often been because the coastline is deep here and with the motor on (absolutely no wind!) our route was not dictated by the sails. Everything was going so well and we were making such good progress that we decided not to stop at Barbarte and push on straight to Gib. For a couple of hours we managed to get the sails up, we had perfect conditions, I’m afraid Phil and Julia may have got the wrong idea about this sailing lark.

But the real excitement was yet to come, as we approached Tarifa, Rick spotted a large dolphin off the starboard bow, it was odd for a dolphins to be swimming alone and not to approach the boat and we quickly realized it was in fact much further away and actually a whale. Then the whole pod revealed itself, about ten members we think, including a mother and calf that swam and dived in unison. They gave us an incredible show for about half an hour, at one point one was only 50m from the boat, we couldn’t believe our luck. A quick look at our Sea Mammals of the World identification book revealed them as a pod of killer whales and in fact the Straits of Gibralar is a hot spot for sightings. Almost impossible to get a good photo, below is our best attempt.

  

On our right we spotted land – Africa, the first land we have had out at sea to starboard since we left Plymouth, the huge cliffs and mountains of Morroco. And then the Straights of Gibraltar came into view an impossibly small gap from afar. We negotiated a stream of fishing boats returning to Tarifa and entered Gibaltar bay.

The dreaded stern to mooring was achieved without drama by Captain Ricky and the well earned cold beer drunk. Quietly we congratulated ourselves, stage one completed. We always, when explaining our route, would say glibly “we will hop down the south coast to Plymouth, across the Bay of Bicay, down the coast of Portugal and around the corner to Gibraltar before entering the Med”. Never could we have imagined what an adventure it would be and this is, very much, just the beginning.

Flying flags, storks and laundry

Posted on by
5

We are currently moored in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Real Club Nautica (Royal Yacht club). As members ourselves of the Royal Southampton Yacht Club we can fly a Blue Ensign instead of the normal red one. We are not really into the minefield that is flag etiquette but with our red flag fraying badly and in need of repair we have been discussing using it. As we now find ourselves tied up, on show, right outside the restaurant and bar of the Real Club Nautico, where by the amount of flags around they obviously are into such things, we decided to put it up and as it turns out it does looks rather good, dare I note – that it really goes well with the blue color scheme. 

We wandered into town and again flags were on display everywhere. Below is the cathedral where flags were not the only thing flying. If you look very carefully at the turrets you will see numerous storks that have built their nests precariously on the spires and statues.

Back at the boat we discovered one disadvantage of our mooring here. Something that at home I hardly even thought about, turns out to be a real mission on the boat, the laundry. Despite Ricks kind efforts to wear just one T shirt for as long as humanly possible, it still builds up. So every couple of marinas we visit we have the delight of spending hours and Euros in the laundry facilities. We do have a small washing machine onboard but not a tumble dryer and Rick takes some persuading to let me hang it out over the boat. Here in our prominent position in the marina even I agree that we couldn’t really cover the decks and rigging with our freshly washed bedding – luxury yacht or Chinese laundry?

At Anchor

Posted on by
8

Hooray, we finally have Internet!

Saturday 13th June

We enjoyed Tuesday and Wednesday night at anchor, it was extremely peaceful. Despite being under the flight path for Faro airport, the frequent passing of the local ferry service and all the fishing boats zooming around, it was still somehow quiet. We enjoyed not having to deal with the marina authorities, not having the pressure of parking and really liked being 50m rather than 5ft from the nearest boat. All with the added bonus of being free.

We anchored in a channel, cutting through the wetlands south of Faro and Olhao, off the small island of Culatura. Culatura is little more than a sand bank and there seemed to be more tiny fishing boats in its harbour than houses in the village, I think we can guess the main source of income on the Island. There were a couple of restaurants serving excellent fish, of course, catering for the locals, the few anchored yachtsmen and a dribble of tourists arriving on the ferrys from Faro to enjoy the beaches on its southern shore.

There were no cars, the roads were made of sand and the pavements were wooden board walks. The small store next to us at lunch was been stocked by tractor that carried goods up from the dock and a friendly scavenging dog wandered around the tables. It was all slightly ramshackle, unhurried, authentic.

When we are at anchor our dingy is the equivalent of our car, and we carry it on davits, a crane like construction on the back of the boat. I always love travelling in the dingy it somehow seems adventurous. Of course it is essential for us, without it when ashore we couldn’t get back to our boat and conscience of the fact that it and the 20hp outboard are and look brand new we have a strong cable and padlock to secure it. Having taken lunch and wandered around the island not only did it feel an unnecessary precaution it almost seemed insulting. 

Wednesday evening the wind got up, we anxiously sat on deck keeping an eye on the orientation of our neighbours but we just gently swung left and right  and our anchor held fast. The small French boat behind us began to drag and had to re-anchor but on the whole the muddy bottom gave good holding and the night past without incident.

Next morning we upped anchor, taking a good quantity of the mud with us and set off towards Cadiz, one of the places on our route I’m keen to visit. The channel we were in was quite shallow, so we needed to leave around high tide, which was at 11am. This meant that sailing the eighty nautical miles directly to Cadiz would have us arriving in the middle of the night. So instead we planned to stop halfway at, as it turned out, a rather soulless modern marina in Mazagon. But it did the job, giving us a good nights rest and we arrived at Puerto de Santa Maria yacht club at four pm yesterday. There is a ferry that runs regularly to the old town of Cadiz and the yacht club apparently has lots of facilities including a swimming pool we can use and on Sunday Phil and Julia arrive to join us for ten days.

 And it has reasonable wifi. 

Passing the time in Lagos

Posted on by
4

Where to next?

  

The World may be our Oyster, but our Oyster has a deep draft, so some of the more shallow marinas and anchorages are off limits. Added to that we are trying to work out the best places for our friends and family to join us over the next couple of weeks, carefull planning is required.

We have been kicking our heals in Lagos, waiting for an engineer to look at our freezer. It died on us almost as soon as we left Southampton and typically as soon as he arrived, we switched it on and it began to work perfectly. The problem now is whether, having lost all its contents once, to risk refilling it or not.

To pass the time we have been enjoying the great beaches, swimming and walking. I was surprised to spot all these common plants we attempt to grow in our moist, fertile soil, growing wild in the sand dunes. It certainly makes you wonder why we spend a fortune on compost and fertiliser!?

 

Cascais to Lagos

Posted on by
4

We never really settled in Cascais and never got agreement on quite how to pronounce it. We felt a bit ripped off by the high marina fees, almost double everywhere else we have been so far, for the least appealing spot we have had. Our berth was right under the high marina wall, next to that area of water that all marinas seem to have, where all the rubbish and scum collects. The showers were not great either, I’m rapidly becoming an expert at what features make a marina shower good and having to press a knob to get the water to run, that turns off every 30 seconds, is definitely not one of them. And last but not least the free wifi was so weak it was almost unusable.

The town and bay were very pretty but very much a holiday town full of cheap Kiss Me Quick souvenir shops, restaurants tempting you in with pictures of the food – never a sign of high gourmet standards I find – and at the weekend it was full to bursting with day trippers from Lisbon.

But enough moaning, with a bit of effort we did find some fantastic food, Italian on a secluded roof terrace, bizarrely one of the best Indian meals we have had for a long time and we spent a very pleasant evening in the wonderfully named Douche Bar, discovered and thoroughly researched by Brad and Duncan, where we ate amongst other things fantastic grilled sardines. The hilly streets were paved in mosaic, as is common in Portugal, but many of the lanes were laid in wavy black and white patterns that were fun to look at but slightly disconcerting to walk over, especially after a couple of bottles of Portugal’s finest. There were three very nice beaches to explore, we did have a paddle and ate ice-cream but the water needed to be quite a few degrees warmer to tempt us in for a swim.

After Brad and Duncan left us we considered moving out into the bay and anchoring for a day or two, but those pesky north winds were still plaguing us and often reached F6-7 in the evening. We decided with our first night sail with just the two of us planned for the next day, a night checking our anchor was holding, was probably not the most restful way to prepare.

The crux of our passage plan was to round the headland – Cabo de Sao Vicente in the morning when the winds would be at there lightness, which meant leaving at about 2pm. I cooked a chorizo, potato and pea stew an easy dish to reheat for our supper, Rick filled our water tanks and we cast off. We were surprised by the chill of the north wind and were quickly back wearing three or four layers. The sea quickly built as we travelled further offshore but the wind was slightly lighter than we were use to and it took us a while to set the sails so they were comfortable. We ended up with the main slightly reefed, out wide on a preventer line and the Genoa full on the other side, with wind directly behind us, we goose winged down the Portugueese Coast for about twelve hours. The AIS told us there were plenty of boats about, but only a couple of fishing boats and one tanker came into view. We had a 72ft yacht sailing the same route as us, he was about five nautical miles behind when we first spotted it on the screen and  to ‘this is not a race’ Smith’s delight didn’t manage to catch us, in fact if anything we pulled ahead. We had a bright full moon and during his early morning watch Rick was honoured with a performance from a dolphin somersaulting out of the water, framed perfectly in the shimmering moonlight.

We didn’t do a very good job at getting much sleep. With someone always needing to be awake we opted for a three hour watch system. When I was on watch Rick tried to get some sleep in the salon so he was within easy reach if I needed him and I conscious of the fact that he wasn’t getting much sleep felt I needed to cut short my off watch periods to support him, I think we only managed about two hours each. Room for improvement but everything we do at present is such a steep learning curve and everything needs time to be worked out.

I have read many a time how turning the corner at San Vicente is a a real milestone and that everything becomes easier but we weren’t quite prepared for the dramaticness of this change. One minute we are fully reefed with 3m swells and white horses, just half an hour later we had calm blue sea and as the dawn turned into the morning the temperature rose steadily. Of course we paid for this by a drop in the wind and eventually had to put the engine on but to be honest we were more than ready for a bit of easy motor sailing.

On the chart the entrance to the river that runs up to Lagos marina is marked at 2m, the navigation app on my iPad tells me low tide is at 9.37am with just an extra 0.7m, a bit close for our 2.4m draft. We had estimated our arrival at about noon when the higher tide would gives us plenty of depth, but our fast progress down the Portugueese Atlantic Coast meant we were arriving at 10.30, we squeaked in with just a metre to spare under our keel.

We tied up as instructed at the welcome pontoon, only to discover a familiar face smiling at us, our friends Chris and Barry have been holidaying in Lagos for the past week and following us on Boat Beacon saw us approach, Barry cycled down to meet us. A lovely surprise and after the arrival beer and a catch up snooze we joined them for an enjoyable dinner at the Carribean beach bar a ten minutes walk away, (we must really try to fine some Portugueese food somewhere!).

The marina, it turned out, had no visitor berths large enough for us available and so we remain on the welcome pontoon. To be honest it’s rather pleasant, watching the comings and goings of the river and the people walking along the busy street on its opposite bank. The breeze is blowing into the cockpit helping with the temperatures that are in the high twenties and we are spending the day catching our breath.

Cleaning the Hull

Posted on by
11

It has been brought to my attention that in the last post rather than ‘we’ washed the last of the Southampton grime from the hull it should read ‘Duncan despite the heat, unstable platform and meagre support from other members of the crew, boldly scrubbed the hull for hours to remove’ the last of the Southampton grime from the hull. I take sole responsibility for the contents of this blog and sincerely apologise for any inconvenience or distress my mistake may have caused. 
  

Dolphins, moonlight and miles

Posted on by
8

Saturday 30th May

We had a fabulous berth in Baiona. it was protected from the wind and the wake from passing traffic but had great views over the town. On the marina side of the headland the water was calm and blue, but on the beach just a few hundred meters away, the other side of the headland, the waves were crashing on to the rocks. The best of both worlds.

   

  

Duncan and Brad arrived on Tuesday to sail with us on the overnight passage from Baiona to Cascais in Portugal. We took Wednesday to familiarise them with the boat and do last minute preparations. This included erecting the Bimini (a canvas roof over the cockpit) as with the improved weather we needed some shade. We washed the last of the Southampton grime from the hull and enjoyed the excellent local wine. The crew proved their worth early on. Brad helped a scooter rider who’d fallen off his bike while we were enroute to the supermarket and Duncan who had taken our dingy for a fun ride around the bay ended up rescuing a fisherman stranded with no engine and needing a tow back to the dock. He was rewarded with a bundle of razor clams, we didn’t really know quite what to do with them, so decided to cook them as we would muscles. We steamed them in butter, garlic, lemon juice and white wine. Unfortunately the result wasn’t as good as expected and being conscious of the state of our stomachs for the journey ahead most of them ended up over the side.

We set off early, struggling with just a small breeze that was directly behind us. The boat is not brilliant in light airs, so we turned west on a track that took us a bit further offshore, in search of wind. And we found plenty, as the day came to an end we had around 30 – 35kts of it. The sea got quite big too with a large swell coming in from the Atlantic. Raya as before took it all in her stride and with a stricter pill regime I didn’t get seasick, a huge relief. We again came across plenty of traffic, cargo and fishing, demanding our concentration and ensuring we stayed wide awake. In the early hours we clocked up our first one thousand miles, just another thirty odd thousand to go.

  

As we got further offshore we passed over a ridge in the ocean floor where our chart told us the depth went from 200 to an amazing 4000m deep in just 5nm. That’s quite a steep cliff by any standards and probably contributed to the rough conditions. However it was a beautiful clear night with a bright 3/4 moon, for a while it was directly in front of us and its light created a silvery path for us to follow. As it set at about 3.30am the stars came into there own, millions of them filling the sky. Unfortunately it was hard to easily appreciate them in their full splendour as we have a ‘no leaving the cockpit’ rule at night and now with the Bimini up it blocks our view, a conundrum yet to be solved.

To our delight, another highlight of the passage, was the arrival of Dolphins, during the 36hr sail we were joined by three pods. I don’t know if there is an official explanation as to why Dolphins swim with boats but from the deck of Raya it seemed obvious they had come to play, they swam fast next to our hull, surfed in the waves and dived under our bows. 

As we approached Cascais we had to sail through a minefield of fishing pots, which for reasons best known to the fishermen are marked with sticks bearing blue, green or black flags, ie the colours of the sea and almost impossible to spot. The crew were put on lookout duty and we managed to get through without hitting any although it was very close with a couple of them.

  

Despite our offshore detour, we arrived in Cascais an hour ahead of schedule tying up to the waiting dock at 5pm. All feeling a bit weary we were rather dismayed to be directed to a berth in the corner of the marina with limited room to manoeuvre. We have been dreading the stern to parking that is common in the Med but knew we would have to do it at some point and this was that moment. Rick a little stressed, did a great job, with restricted depth and a huge concrete marina wall looming over us, he reversed into our berth without incident.

Next came what’s becoming the customary cold beer, then a shower, food and a night without lea cloths.