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.
