Category: Spain

Ben and Nicole left us in Ibiza where we did some errands, explored a bit further and headed off to find an anchorage.

When we arrived in Ibiza, there were 2 friendly faces waiting for us! Unbeknownst to us, Castella, had been tracking us for weeks and were moored in the marina opposite. We last saw them in Scotland!

After some brilliant time catching up over a delicious BBQ, the next morning we said our goodbyes and both headed north. Castella found a tight anchorage on the east of the island, however we were looking for more relaxed climes and headed further north to find more remote anchorages.

After a few recon missions, we found a cliff lined bay – quite deep but okay. We were the only boat there for the evening. But the next day…

After a couple of days enjoying the tranquillity, we realised that Bernie needed more than a quick swim and paddle board. We couldn’t get off the boat in this anchorage as it was sharp rocky cliffs everywhere. Beautiful, but not great for doggos. We decided it was time to look to the north.

We had an anchorage in mind for Mallorca. It was supposed to be absolutely beautiful and it was. It was just, really swelly. So we left, and found this place.

But, on the second day a nice man in a dinghy informed us the mooring field was closed and we had to leave due to 80-90km winds that were due! Some research revealed that Spanish weather had released a thunderstorm warning with possible high winds. All the charter boats were called in and filled up the marinas. Our forecasts didn’t have anything that bad, so we figured we’d need to get other data for the med. Lesson learned.

After a rush replan, we found a marina that would take us on their visitors dock for the night. And the next day we went to Palma for a proper berth and rest.

We headed towards the north side of the island stopping off at a few anchorages on the way. On the East side of the island we managed to enter a harbour for the evening, only to be told we had arrived at the wrong harbour and were booked at the next harbour along the coast. Oops…we wondered if our navigation skills would be up to finding France?

After the blow in this marina, we headed the 30 minutes across the bay for another mooring. This time we enjoyed swimming and paddleboarding around the beautiful rock formations.

The sail to Menorca was straightforward. Again we had an anchorage in mind, and when we got there, we saw how popular it was, even in October. It was full of swimmers and boats. There was no way we could sleep in such a crowded place, edged by sharp cliffs, so we headed back west and found this essentially empty spacious bay.

After the storm and our traverse along the coast in the rain with the lighting just a kilometre away, we settled into a berth in one of the main towns on Menorca called Ciutadella. We figured it was time to stock up on supplies, and start seriously watching the weather for a good window to cross to France.

After 4 days in the marina, the storms abated, and we decided, given it was the end of the season, why not just go somewhere we were comfortable and knew, and wait for our weather window for France. So we went back to that beautiful anchorage.

We took our last swim, this time, sans bathers in the sunset, and prepared the boat for a 2 day crossing to Toulon, France, our winter berth for this season.

Meals prepared, sails to the ready – we were off.

The sail to Toulon started off lovely. Flat seas, light winds with big red pushing us along fast. Wait – too fast. We were going to arrive at a new port, a new marina and a new country in the middle of the night. Not ideal. Big red was put away, and the main and the headsails were reefed.

We saw squalls, 4 metre waves, lightning. If you want to see a video let me know and I’ll post it.

It seemed a lifetime ago that we had left Falmouth, crossed the channel once again and headed south. We had crossed Biscay, avoided the orcas and discovered Portugal. Lingered in Gibraltar, and entered the Mediterranean. Followed the Spanish holiday coasts and finally found warm water in the Balearics. And now, all of sudden, our 2025 cruise had come to end…

By Fi

Yes, we’ve made it warm water. Wait. What? Its still not that warm.

We dock in Estepona. Back in Spain after our little British jolly in Gibraltar.

I try out the water as usual, and to be honest, its still chilly. I’m beginning to lose hope that I will swim this year. I am resigned.

Estepona was cute, a little touristy. We found a bar, and my magnet. And a nice restaurant with lovely limoncello. And a statue.

It wasn’t filling us with super Med vibes, so we thought we’d go and anchor off a white beach with crystal clear blue water.

And then this happened.

Mojito man! Mojito delivery to the boat. We very much enjoyed the watermelon-y goodness of the mojito and to be honest, I kinda hoped he would come back. He also delivers paella if you want. Pretty awesome service. Reminds me of the fellow in Bantry Bay in Sydney who in the mornings delivers freshly ground proper coffee to the boat.

Moving along… Another beautiful beach, but no. The water is still too cold for this Aussie cold fish.

We decide to push in further. Our experience is that we can usually turn up at a marina and they will find a place to put us. We found a marina that we figured would have space, and we had a whole aeroplane display to welcome us in!

We docked at the waiting dock, and after some time, and a phone call, were promptly told that they don’t have space and we had to move along. Oh… Quick replan.

Another anchorage. A stunning wild anchorage with dry cliffs, some swimming, crystal clear blue water and some nice walks.

The Parque Natural del Cabo de Gata-Níjar.

At this point we decided lets get going. We had guests visiting us soon, so a quick trip up to Aguilas was in order to pick up our friends for some sailing adventures.

It was definitely at this point, mid September, that we made the decision that this winter, we will put in airconditioning. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot, and I’m from Sydney. Its not so bad on anchor with a nice breeze, but in a marina, no. No, no, no.

And so it was, with an ice pack on my neck, desperately trying to cool down, that we found our lovely friends, just arrived from rainy cold London.

After a little boat intro, and an unpack, we head out for a lovely meal and a catchup, ready to get sailing the next day.

We’ve chosen a day with a bit of light up wind sailing and a little bit of tacking, not too bad for a first trip on Away. Ben and Nicole quickly get their sea legs and we make it to a beautiful anchorage at La Chapineta, where I promply set up my SunChill, because the water, the water is WARM!!!!!!!!

With this new found warm water, I just want to anchor, and anchor, and anchor and swim and swim and swim. It still blows my mind that really, nothing is going to sting me and kill me, or bite me and kill me, or stab me and kill me.

We move along the next day to a beautiful island, anchoring pretty far out as there are a few too many boats close in. We spend a bit of a rolly night here, and yes manage to get some swimming in again.

Next was travelling to Cartegena.

We’d been joking about seeing submarines the last couple of days as there were some exercises near us involving a ship and a submarine that we never saw. Well… On approach to Cartegena…

Ben and Nicole were our tour guides as they had travelled through Cartegena to get to us. Another lovely meal, another lovely Spanish town.

We are aiming to drop off Nicole and Ben in Palma on Mallorca in the Baeleric Islands, so we keep moving.

I had seen on the charts this inland sea looking thing. On closer inspection, this inland sea was really shallow, full of jelly fish, but you can anchor pretty much anywhere and there might be flamingos! There is a lifting bridge to get in, so we make our way north, timing it for the last bridge opening of the day (after a lot of internet sleuthing and also calling the bridge when we arrived to make sure it was definitely going to open).

Anchoring up, another quick swim was had, until yes, we confirmed the inland sea is indeed full of jellyfish. They aren’t really the stinging kind, but its not that nice.

What we do find however, is the mud.

Swimming is still on my mind, so after 2 nights in the jellyfish, we again begin the trip to the islands. We were hoping to do a big trip, but the wind didn’t want to play, so coastal hopping was the go.

Anchoring up in San Gabriel for our launch off to Ibiza the next day.

The wind was pretty friendly across to Ibiza. We make decent time, and we are scoping out some anchorages that may work for us. We were tracking an English boat along the way who seemed to pull into an anchorage on the island south of Ibiza called Formanterra. Hmmm, a quick replan and a 90 degree turn as we neared Ibiza, and all of a sudden we were sailing at 8 knots towards a totally differnet anchorage than we thought.

We managed to book a mooring ball in this bay super quick, and attempted to pick up the buoy in 25 knots of wind. After several attempts, a lovely man in a dinghy came over to help us out. I have no idea who he was, and we never spoke to him again, but he was an angel. It was really tricky to pick up the ball and tie on, but with teamwork we did it. And when we woke up the next day, all the stress and bruises just faded away as we saw the turquoise calm waters of Ses Illetes. And bonus the beach is dog friendly!

Two nights were had in this paradise, before we figured we should get to Ibiza. The wind was just not cooperating, and this would be where we would need to leave Ben and Nicole to make their way home. The wind was coming from Palma and with tacking, it would be an extremely long upwind day to get there, so they replanned their trip back. Thanks Ben and Nicole, we had such a great time with you!

Finding ourselves alone again, we quickly found friends! More on some buddy boat fun next time.

After our rolly anchorage welcome to the Algarve, we decided to leave that morning and motor our way along the coast (there is still no wind) to see if any of the other anchorages were less rolly. We had a marina booking ready for the following night at Lagos, and a call to them confirmed that we could not come in earlier. Please please please let there be a less rolly anchorage. After looking in a few bays along the coast, and getting closer to Lagos, we reasoned that we’d either have to put up with another rolly night, or go past Lagos to a harbour, then the following day go back to Lagos.

Finally, about 10 nautical miles before Lagos, we found what appeared to be the least rolly place on this part of the coast. We gently went up and down the waves, and thought, good, we will get some sleep.

Then this happened.

So, we put up with another rolly night, and leave early to get into Lagos, to wait at their waiting pontoon until our berth became available.

Heading east into to Lagos, we experience the strong easterly winds that are causing all these waves. Finally in the approach channel for the marina, we experience the immense tourist traffic in the tight channel! A number of boats were hovering before the marina, due to the pedestrian bridge that needs to open to let them in, which means a lot of traffic, a tight channel, and a bow thruster that isn’t really working as well as it should, plus a cross wind wanting to push the bow around. Making a bold move around a tourist boat who we had no idea what they were doing, we just docked in the last available spot on the waiting pontoon. Phew. We were in. No one died.

We waited for about 5 hours while the motor boat in our berth had a long leisurely lunch and sank a few beers (Adrian went to see where our berth was). Finally, it was time to visit Lagos.

Lagos is a cool town, there is the old town area, plus the built up area around the marina with all sorts of restaurants and a constant stream of tourist boats promising the best day out at the local caves and grottos.

And we find a restaurant..

We’d seen some of the famous caves and grottos from our trip in, and also from our walks, and it was particularly hot and windless. A trip to the pool was in order, leaving Bernie at home in the relative cool of our well insulated home.

After a few days of this, the wind finally was filled in enough for us to sail further down the coast and back to Spain.

We were looking forward to anchoring again, and had found some much more protected spots east along the coast from Lagos.

We had a nice sail into an anchorage near Faro, in a lagoon. We had been warned by the guide books that the tide can run quite fast in this lagoon. It was still very windy there, but flat calm water, and so we anchored next to another yacht, but still with plenty of space between us. Making some plans for the next day, sunset dinners were had, and then we heard a bit of a shout.

“Is there something wrong with your anchor???” shouted the boat next to us. Ummmm… no. But they did seem to suddenly be very close. Maybe there was something wrong with our anchor. More shouting conversations, before we agreed to chat on the radio.

Our neighbours were concerned because they thought their anchor was acting strangely and wanted to know if ours was. We were concerned because they seemed to be getting closer and closer to us, and as we were the last to anchor, it is up to us to move. Turns out they just wanted some moral support. Their boat was brand new, and they hadn’t had a lot of time anchored in super tidal areas, where the wind and tide make your anchor chain do weird things.

We stayed up for a while to make sure we didn’t hit them, or vice versa, then decided in fact this anchorage, whilst not rolly, was a bit annoying with the massive current and the wind still pumping.

We left.

We’re getting closer to the med, but also very very close now to “Orca Alley”, the place where most Orca “attacks” happen, so its still very much close to the coast travelling.

We skip along the coast to Mazagon for a couple of nights and some beach time, then on to Cadiz.

Cadiz had a wonderful old town, but to be honest, to get there was like walking through the movie set for 28 days later or other similar end of the world zombie movie. No people, rotting buildings, the occasional stray cat, stuff everywhere, flying rubbish and sunny and dry.

But the old town was worth it.

Keen to get past the orcas and to water that had more swimming potential we travelled to Barbate, and I almost adopted a new friend.

Finally, after saying good bye to my little friend, we were on the home stretch of orcas, and coming into Gibraltar.

More on that next time.

On a grey afternoon, we gingerly turned to port and entered the quaint town of Ribadesella, past the unexpected smells of eucalypt, and into a tight channel at mid tide.

We’d left Santander early that morning and enjoyed a largely downwind sail along the coast to Ribadesella a small town hidden behind hills and famed for its caves. There is an active kayak club here providing a regular procession of racing kayaks training on the river. So much so, they have built a statue to honour the fame that the kayakers have given the town. The town was was more vibrant and less faded than some of the Basque towns we had visited.

A long hop along the coast took us to Ribadeo. Drama increased in the last few miles with a sudden sharp increase in wind, pot buoys spotted just under the water with no markers, a rolly river entry and arriving in the marina just on dark.

After a day or so, we decided we were keen to start the Spanish Ria’s, rivers with huge bays, white sand beaches and clear blue water. The air temperature began to creep up, with temperatures in the high 20s. That water looks so tempting. A quick check with some toes after anchoring confirmed that we would need full wetsuits to even attempt it.

A Coruna was a short hop away and we had arranged for a number of deliveries to arrive at the marina.

We visited the vet for a checkup and to update our meds for the local nasties. They told us that tonight was the mid-year festival and everyone would be on the beach celebrating most of the night. We thought we had better see for ourselves:

After getting most of our packages, and getting the familiar feeling we were staying too long, we decided that for the other packages for which Fi was fighting with Spanish customs, we would just travel up later by land once the war was won.

The quaint town of Corme, and its protected anchorage was our next stop. The weather was grey again, and we felt a little more like we were back north, with cold water and grey skies. The cold water in this area means fog is a common occurrence.

So with swimming on hold still until we turn the corner into the Mediterranean, we head south to round Cape Finisterre. The cape used to be the end of the known world. We saw many Camino’s staring at us from the lighthouse. The Camino trail, also known as “The Way” is a series of walks across Spain, originally for religious pilgrims. A lot of people stop at the Cathedral in Santiago, however many also continue to what the Spanish at the time believed was the end of the world, or this headland.

In our next blog, we turn red to port.