Investigating the interior....

At the risk of receiving hate mail, I’m starting with information which may not be popular...... It’s now the middle of November and the daytime temperature here has been consistently in the mid 20s for the last few weeks - with blue skies and glorious sunshine.  We were expecting that there would be some rain as we are now officially in the Mediterraean winter, but perhaps it will come later.  The big difference though is in the evenings. We have now stopped eating dinner on deck because it begins to get quite chilly as soon as the sun starts setting and it is now dark about 6.30pm. We have started turning the heating on in the evenings and we actually watched a movie a couple of nights ago, snuggled up in our fleeces. We know it’s been much colder at home and so are very grateful for the climate we are experiencing.

It's a bit cloudy for our departure from Almerimar 

More usual weather!

We have been in Almerimar for about a week.  It is even quieter than when we were here in August and in a bid to get customers, the free tapas with a drink have become even more ridiculous.  Greg is working his way down the extensive free tapas list (nothing to do with the beer he tells me).

Some free tapas to accompany Greg's beer....

Another free tapas with my Coke....

As an aside the mooring costs in the marina are very reasonable.  It costs €16 per night (including water and electricity!) which is helping us to balance out some of the ‘ouches’ we experienced in the High Season. In addition we have been fixing our water filter without outside assistance!!!! This is a first for us; mechanical or electrical engineering not being either Greg or my strong points.  After many hours of sealing and re-sealing joints (and it was still leaking) we discovered it wasn’t the pipework or joints at all……in fact the filter cartridge had a hairline crack in it at the back which we couldn’t see. We only found out by blasting water through it on deck instead of trying to fix it in situ under the sink! To think we could have had two days lazing around instead just by buying a new filter cartridge! 

It hasn’t all been repairs though.....  We had a lovely day when our friend Alan Malarkey cycled on his proper racing bike from Almeria to Almerimar to meet us on Viridian and then treat us to lunch.  It was great to catch up and we were very impressed with Alan’s fluent Spanish.  We have decided we should make more effort than just knowing how to order beer and wine! 

It was great to meet up with Alan

We also went to Granada on the coach for the day, taking our Bromptons with us.  It was brilliant. However, we failed to do some important research before we went.  We assumed that it would be another glorious sunny day and in fact it was…not a cloud to be seen.  The difference is that Granada is high up in the Sierra Nevada and as we climbed the winding roads, the temperature display at the front of the coach showed the temperature dropping rapidly. I had been reading a book totally oblivious but when it got to 11C Greg pointed it out to me and we both started to get worried.  Then we saw a sign saying ‘This way to the pistes’ in Spanish and we also spotted snow!

Snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance

When we got off the coach everyone was wearing puffajackets and scarves.  Greg was in his open toed sandals and I was wearing three quarter length trousers. Luckily, we had a sweat top with us because we had to cycle in the dark at 6am to get to the bus station before we set off. They weren’t enough though and Greg’s feet were freezing by the time we had cycled and found the Alhambra Palace.  We did make a decision though to stop off in February on our way back to Valencia and to try to ski in the Sierra Nevada for a few days.  We brought our ski kit with us so let’s hope the snow is good by then.

Granada is a beautiful city.  You can’t really explore it properly in one day so that’s another reason for us to go back.  We went to the Alhambra which we should have booked in advance because it was packed out and there were no tickets left unless you booked on-line….so we stood in the queue and booked on-line and lo and behold we got in.  Seems mad to me…if there are tickets left on their online web site why can’t they just sell them to you?  Anyway it was well worth going - as you can see from the photos the palace was amazing!  

People living on their boats are much less transient in the winter and it is easier to meet up with people and get to know them better. Last night we were invited for drinks and tonight we are hosting dinner on board Viridian.  It’s great to get to know other people because everyone has tips and different experiences to pass on.  We are currently trying to find people with recent experience of sailing in Morocco.  Our North African pilot book is now 10 years out of date and we are planning to go there after Christmas, so it would be good to get a bit more information beforehand.

Tomorrow we are setting sail further south, hoping to visit the caves at Nerja and stop off at some of the places we missed on the way up this coast.