Our first insurance claim!....

If we were to assess this month in terms of the Ups and Downs, it would probably be fair to say the Downs have it.  But everything’s relative and if you are reading this at work on a gloomy, cold rainy day you are probably scoffing.

Since we got back from Ceuta to La Linea the weather has been very variable, requiring some duvet days and hunkering down as well as venturing out when sunny to visit other local attractions. We also took the opportunity to build up some stores of bits and pieces we hadn’t even realised we had missed from the Eroski (Waitrose stockists) in Gib.  Spanish cider tends to be very sweet so we now have a cupboard full of decent cider which should last us - until at least the end of this week.  The quality tea bags will last a bit longer and hopefully we won’t need the porridge and hot chocolate for too much longer.

Duvet day...

On a sunny day, we cycled from La Linea to San Roque but had a bit of a nightmare when we found ourselves accidentally on a motorway on our bicycles! I really struggled after all that Christmas pud and chocolate to get up an extremely steep hill; wobbling and panting away with lorries hurtling past.  Greg chivalrously cycled well ahead of me and got off the motorway more quickly in case the police saw us there.  He was probably thinking one fine would be better than two…….

San Roque turned out to be a very picturesque mountain village.  The tourist information office personnel welcomed us with open arms and adopted us for the afternoon; it had clearly been a slow month.  We were getting a bit restless as the lunch time restaurant opening hours were fading fast but our British politeness prevailed and sadly the restaurant we had planned to go to for lunch was already closed when we finally got there.  

However, the head of tourist information drew a new route for our return avoiding the motorway and it turned out to be very interesting if not a typical tourist trail.

The route took us round the back of the oil refinery in Algeciras, past some very deserted beaches and a very impressive graffiti wall.

Some cool graffiti

I wonder why the beach is so quiet?

We also passed through a section of deserted mansions, built on sea-front land purchased in the 1950s by a rich woman hoping to create a Sotogrande resort, only to be thwarted by the building of the oil refinery next door in the 1960s.

It would have been lovely without the refinery next door....

We decided to head north when a good weather window opened and managed a fabulous day sailing to Fuengirola. 

Another trip to UK had to be scheduled for a follow up medical appointment and the flights from Malaga were even better than from Gibraltar. It's easy to see why Malaga airport is so busy. There's very easy access to the surrounding areas - the metro goes every 20 minutes from Fuengirola to the airport for 7 euros return.  Compared to the cost of the Gatwick Express or even a normal train ticket in UK it’s a dream.  I think that's the difference between a state owned transport system and one that needs to make a profit! 

It was a glorious day in Fuengirola when we arrived and we made the most of it by getting out our shorts.  It felt as though winter was over, but how wrong could we be!!!

Now for the disaster………………………

We knew the forecast was for high winds whilst we were back in UK so we made sure we were well fendered up and pulled away from the pontoon.  Unfortunately last Sunday the winds were upwards of 50mph; "unexpected and unprecedented" said the Marineros!  During this gale, our staysail became unfurled and the clew flapped about creating lots of damage to the sail and the forestay.

When we returned Greg rang Pantaenius, our insurance company to make a claim for the damage, only to discover that they don’t cover sails (or anything to do with sails for that matter). Why are we not surprised?? So today it has taken four hours to get the sail down and taken away for repair.  We will know the estimated cost on Monday ☹. Looks like the planned few days skiing in the Sierra Nevada might be on hold. 

It's nice to be back.....

Sorry that I haven't been in touch for a while, but Jan and I have been back in the UK for a few weeks seeing our friends and family over Christmas. We arrived back on the boat last week and whilst it was nice visiting the UK I must say it was great to be back in what we now think of as our home. 

Just before my departure to the UK there were some ferocious winds here. The highest gust I registered was more than 50 knots and even though we were moored in the marina the boat was heeled so much that things were falling out of the cupboards and bottles were falling over. Some of the yachts here were damaged by banging into the pontoon and several had torn sails. We were therefore very relieved to find that all was good on the boat and nothing had been damaged whilst we were away.

It felt a bit strange to be in England after so long away and the weather was a bit grim after the mild temperatures we have been enjoying here in Spain for the past months, but it was lovely to see everyone and we had a very pleasant Christmas with Jan's family in Yorkshire. I must take this opportunity to give Laura our special thanks for putting us up at her farm in Henley for 10 days, it was greatly appreciated! 

The sun was shining and it was very warm when we got back here so the first thing I did was use one of my Christmas presents. Our daughter Miranda gave me a Gin Pennant and this is a special flag which when flown indicates you are open for drinks. Fortunately no-one else in the marina recognised the flag so we weren't inundated by mobs of thirsty sailors, but it gave us a good excuse to sample the gin collection we have built up whilst we have been close to the duty-free shopping in Gibraltar.

We had originally planned to set off for Morocco, but yet again we have maintenance issues. Our on-deck chart plotter has a touchscreen and this has been giving us intermittent problems. The screen seems to fail at the most inconvenient and inappropriate moments - for example when we are approaching ports; rocks; or other things we would rather not hit. It's a Raymarine plotter and still under warranty so when we first arrived here in La Linea we contacted the Raymarine dealer who had to send it back to the UK for repair/replacement. The repair was supposed to have been completed by now but inevitably it has been delayed so we had to postpone our departure. Hopefully it should be back in a couple of weeks.

We have now spent quite a long time in La Linea so we decided that whilst we were waiting for the plotter to be repaired we should go across the Straits of Gibraltar to explore Ceuta for a couple of days. Ceuta is a bit of an oddity,.....it is a Spanish enclave in Morocco and I must say I think that the Spanish are a bit cheeky with their demands for Gibraltar to be given back whilst they maintain their foothold in Africa!

It is only 15 miles across the Straits of Gibraltar and the weather forecast was for light winds so we expected the trip to be fairly benign - WRONG! The Straits seem to experience a micro-climate which defies prediction. As we motored out of Gibraltar Bay the wind increased steadily....When the wind reached 10 knots we unfurled the sails and revelled in the opportunity for a decent sail. When the wind reached 20 knots we reefed the Main and enjoyed the speed and exhilaration. When the wind reached 25 knots we decided to put on our lifejackets and also put on oilskins to protect ourselves from the spray that was hitting us constantly. When it peaked at 30 knots we were more than half way across, so it was easier to carry on than go back - but had this been the forecast we wouldn't have left Gib! We were very wet and very relieved to arrive safely and without breakages when we finally reached Ceuta.

Hercules Statue at the entrance to Ceuta Harbour

Ceuta was very pleasant and perhaps it was our imagination fuelled by the knowledge that we were in North Africa, but it seemed much warmer than Gibraltar.

We stayed for a couple of nights but then noticed that the forecast for the next week was for strong winds so after our experience on the way over we decided to curtail our exploration and return whilst we still could. Again our journey across the Straits wasn't easy, because in addition to the brisk winds there was a 6 knot current running and we had a couple of quite close calls with the ships in transit.

We are now safely back in La Linea and the weather is grim with lots of wind and rain! Roll on Summer.......

Morocco is a very interesting, but very foreign country!....

Our last update was a couple of weeks ago when we were in Almerimar. From there we moved on to Marina d'Este near Almunecar. We stopped at Marina d'Este because it was a convenient place from which to travel to Nerja where we had been told there were some fabulous caves. It can sometimes be a bit underwhelming when you make the effort to visit sights that have been recommended - but not in this case.....the caves were amazing!! I have posted some photos below, but they don't really do the caves justice, you can't really get any idea of their scale. They were huge and the stalactites and stalagmites were astounding. Well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. 

Our next stop was Puerto de Velez and to be fair, it didn't have a great write up in our Pilot Book. In spite of this it still managed to disappoint us. It was a fishing port and definitely one of the grimmest marinas we have visited so far. It was plagued with seagulls, presumably because of the fish offal that was regularly being deposited in the water there. We left early the next morning for Benalmadena with quite a few seagull souvenirs on our previously pristine decks.

Seagulls flocking round in Puerto de Velez as the offal is ejected.....

Don't get a dark cover on your boat!

Benalmadena is quite a pretty spot, much nicer than Puerto de Velez. In fact it claims to be the Trip Advisor Marina of the Year - I presume this is because of the votes from the trippers who visit the bars and tourist shops around the marina because I don't think it can be based on the votes of the yacht owners who use the marina. 

Benalmadena was a pretty spot, but........

It certainly didn't get my vote. I had several criticisms of the place:
1. They had a non-standard plug socket for their shore power, but instead of providing an adaptor as other marinas with unusual connections do, it was necessary to take off our plug and wire in theirs. Not a huge issue perhaps, but irritating and unnecessary.
2. Their Wi-Fi was useless! A few places get it right but the wi-fi in most marinas is pretty poor, I can't understand why it is so difficult. Anyway in Benalmadena it was appalling.
3. The security was non-existent and this was my biggest issue. Generally there is a gate preventing access to the pontoons unless you have a keycard or the access code. Not here!! At 01:00 we were woken by the sound of people climbing onto Viridian. I presume they were trying to steal our bikes, which were stored on the aft deck. Fortunately they ran off without taking anything after we disturbed them but it tainted the marina for me. We left the next morning.

From there we went to Fuengirola which was a good place to visit the hilltop town of Mijas. Strangely, there were some interesting pieces of Salvador Dali artwork in the Picasso museum here.

Dali's iconic work, Swans reflecting Elephants

We next stopped in Estepona. 

I liked this mural in Estepona

I liked the old town in Estepona, which was splendidly decorated with flowers.

The highlight of this passage was that we were visited by some dolphins who came to play with the boat. This was a nice surprise because we hadn't seen any dolphins for a long time, I guess they may be a bit more common nearer to the Atlantic. 

We are now back in La Linea next to Gibraltar, which is where we are leaving Viridian whilst we return to the UK for Christmas. Since we are staying here for a while we decided to take a trip to Tangier, which is only a short distance across the Straits of Gibraltar. Well, it was a fascinating trip because although it is only a short distance geographically it is a huge distance culturally.

We booked a very reasonably priced hotel, the Dar Jameel, in the Medina. However actually finding it was slightly more complicated than we had expected - the old town was a maze of narrow streets filled with houses and little shops selling all the goods imaginable. 

Whilst we were searching for the hotel it was a bit of a hassle because we were continually accosted by locals who wanted to guide us; sell to us; or just wanted money, but when we eventually found the hotel we loved it.

We went exploring and found it was a very pretty city. 

The market was fascinating, the plethora of exotic fish, meats and vegetables was stunning. 

That evening we went out for a wander and discovered that crossing the road is a very different experience from Spain, where the drivers are very considerate to pedestrians. In Morocco zebra crossings were merely road decoration and you play a game of chicken with the car drivers, taking your life in your hands every time you tried to cross.

Alcohol is difficult, but not impossible to find. Since we had OD'd on mint tea during the day we searched for a bar serving alcohol and spent an enjoyable evening being fed an unending stream of free tapas whilst we drank.

I like free food with my beer.....

The strangest thing we found was the separation of men and women. The bars were full of groups of men, chatting; drinking mint tea, watching the football - whatever, but there were no women there at all! It seemed very peculiar......

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.