A small spanner in the works... The marina we planned to go to and the one that said it had space turned out not to have any berths. This was a bit upsetting because a) it was cheap and b) it was the only marina out of over 10 along the Barcelona coastline we called that had any space for the winter.

Gutted we left the office and tried our last resort, a new marina that was not yet in the almanac or pilot book and we had just heard had recently opened. Luckily they had space and after another 4 hours sailing to cover the 20 miles along the coast this is where we find ourselves now.

We're in Badelona marina, just a few miles north of the city, and despite not being 100 percent finished and being devoid of a few facilities has good toilets, is quiet, seems secure and is reasonably priced at €1900 for 6 months, which is about £200 per month. Not too bad, considering.

Barcelona is about 10 minutes away by train and the airport about 30 mins.

One bit of bad news. I've been nursing a bad back for the past couple of weeks since straining it helping lift the fridge at the spanish house. Although it was finally getting slightly better, pulling the docking lines today to catch the boat in a difficult windy stern-too docking manoever pulled it again and it is now very painful and difficult to move around without whincing.

Anyway, we are safely docked, have the boat sorted for the next 6 months and have a few days to do some end of season cleaning, some
jobs and maybe even have a quick look around the city before catching a quick flight back to Malaga on Monday to catch our flight home on Tuesday.

Well, we've made it safely to Barcelona after an 'exciting' journey.

The gale did stay where predicted (which was good) but the seas were rougher than we had expected and the winds were quite constant at between 15 and 25 knots.



During daylight we had a good sail, picking our way through confused 3 to 4 metre swell. Even with 2 reefs in and a reefed genoa we were still hitting 7 knots, but the boat was quite stable and although helming required a lot of concentration, it was good sailing (despite getting bashed around and a bit soaked).

At dusk, the waves still kept coming, and altough the swell reduced as we made westerly progress, the winds kept constant. It was a dark night with a short lived moon, so for many hours we took it one or two hour shifts to plug on in total darkness riding the boat through whatever surprises the sea threw at it. In the pitch dark we sailed, occasionally glimpsing the foaming crest of a wave before it hit and swept under us.

Sleep was in fitful one hour bursts, collapsing into a stern bunk to curl up and sleep on the wall (due to the boat heeling over) fully clothed. Although we've caught up a bit now that daylight has come and the wind has finally reduced, we're both still pretty tired.

Dinner last night was gourmet baked beans and suasages with fried potatoes slices from a packet. It tasted wonderful, and was very welcome in the rough seas.

The last few hours were made motoring as the wind finally died to 2 knots. Although boring, it did give us chance to relax a bit and sort ourselves out.

Barcelona at last.

Well, its a good job we delayed our start until the afternoon as we rescued 2 young lads who were being washed out to sea in a pedalo. They set off from the beach past us at anchor and after messing about a bit in the bay, decided to head out, whereupon they were immediately caught in the current and wind and pushed out to sea.

After watching them drifting backwards for about 3/4 mile they eventually started signalling for help. As the only boat in view we weighed anchor and motored off to collect them and tow them back to safety.

When back in the bay we set them off back to the beach. They were a bit shaken, but not too bothered.

Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary, but unfortunately it is being dominated by planning for the trip back to the mainland. Whilst not being too long, the trip to Barcelona will take about 24 hours.

The problem we have is that there are gale warnings in the sea areas to the north east of us and we are watching to see if they show any signs of moving to the north west, which would put them in our track.

The wind is also due to die down a bit later into the evening, so we are going to hang about for a few hours and set off around 4ish. Our planning has to cover our intended route, the position and routing of the weather systems and contingency plans should it all our planning go tits up.

Before heading back to the Spanish mainland we've sailed around the corner and found a place to stay on Menorca's west coast. The bays aren't as nice as the south side and we've had all the usual business of finding somewhere with sufficient shelter from the wind and swelll.

After touring around a number of possibilities we finally anchored in a small bay tight up against a rockface to get some shelter. We had to take a stern line ashore to remove the possiblity of swinging into the rocks overnight. This involves a quite tricky manoever of reversing in on the bow anchor, followed by me jumping intop the dingy and rowing ashore to fix a long line around a secure rock, boulder or if lucky, metal hoop in the rock. The anchor then stops us from moving backwards, whilst the shore line stops us swinging in the current and wind.

Once moored up, we jumped into the tender and zoomed off the the end of the inlet to land the dingy on the beach and nip off to a nearby supermarket to get a few fresh supplies. On the way back to the boat we stopped off at a cliffside bar, tied the dingy up on a ladder and climbed up into the bar and had a couple of drinks and a bite to eat.



Unfortunately for us, this particular anchorge proved to be quite choppy and we had an uncomfortable night bouncing up and down in the cross swell. Coupled with being wary and checking the boat's position every hour or two to ensure we hadn't dragged, this meant we didn't have a great night's sleep.

At last, some sun and sitting around not doing much. We've been anchored off a small bay called Cala Macarella for the past couple of days and have experienced the simple life of med cruising - simple once you have the boat and have sailed it 2000 miles to get there!



Being August the bays get quite full with motor cruisers and other yachts during the day, but we're found if we hang around 'till just after lunch and then use the afternoon to sail off and find the next hangout, we miss the very buisiest times.

Last sunday we found ourselves on a deserted beach having a BBQ and a couple of drinks whilst the sun went down. When dark we loaded up everything into the tender and motored back to the boat. Very idyllic.

For the past few days we've been cruising along the south Menorcan coast, staying at anchorages each night. Most of the pretty 'calas' are steep sided coves which require a bit of manouvering and clever anchor work to get settled into.



Two nights ago we anchored off Binabeca, which is a little town we came to a few years ago for a holiday. It was quite weird revisiting it by sea. Unfortunately we didn't get time to look around as the wind got up and changed direction in the early hours and we were awoken by the boat bouncing around and had to leave the anchorage pretty smartly as it was getting unsafe.

The weather has been blazingly hot most of the time - requiring frequent dips into the water when at anchor to cool off, but in the last couple of days its turned a bit cloudy and we even had rain yesterday. We're currently in Mahon, the capital city, where we came yesterday to refill the water tanks and buy a few supplies. The mooring here is a bit strange - we are on a 25m square floating island in the middle of the estuary along with about 16 other boats arranged around the perimeter sticking out.

 A breakfast ensaimada with marmalade, honey  and pastry.

Thoughts are now turning to working our way back slowly to the west of the island so we can head back across to the mainland later this week to find a place in a marina near Barcelona to leave the boat over the winter. Our flights home on the 5th are from Malaga, so we've just booked a couple of cheap flights from Barcelona to there the day before.

When we get home its back to 'normality' whatever that is. I've a few bits of work lined up and hope to do more freelance work over the winter months. Who knows what will come next - we'll undoubtably spend time at the Spanish house painting and finishing that off and it'd be nice to do a bit of sailing over the winter from Barcelona if the weather is fine. Hopefully next year we can set off to Sardinia, France, Sicily and Italy to continue our westerly cruise.

At last, the land of small coves, (reasonably) quiet anchorages and day sailing. We're working our way up the west Mallorcan coast ready to cross to Menorca.

Its busy season here so settling into a decent anchorage spot is sometimes a bit tricky as the world and his wife seem to be cruising Mallorca. Anyway, we've found nice places so far and are starting to relax a bit into cruising rather than travelling.

Last night we set off from Almerimar, where we had spent a pleasant day in a surprisingly good marina. The harbour is right in the middle of the town and quite different from what we've been used to. We set out at 1500 preparing for a night sail along the southern spanish coast and around the corner to head north.

Our ETA was around midday today, so we settled down to a long night and a 2 hour watch pattern between us. The forecasts were variable and we expected to see some wind, but nothing too strong.

As it happened the wind was right on our nose for the first 30 miles leaving us no choice but to motor as we had to stay on a direct course around a headland.



Just before nightfall we turned north hoping to finally be able to sail, but as seems common in these parts at night, the wind died completely to a force 2.



Undaunted, we plugged on, not enjoying the pleasant night sailing we'd hoped, but making good progress all the same.

Night sailing with two is quite difficult as you only get to sleep for a maximum of 2-3 hours at a time, so you tend to end up feeling quite tired and bedraggled in the morning after a disturbed night's sleep.

Throughout each watch, you are constantly alert, watching for and working out what other vessels are doing. Occasionally you may have to take avoiding action, which can be a bit scary sometimes with big ferries or container vessels bearing down on you at 25+ knots.

The radar helps, as it lets you track vessels from a long way off (24 miles) and it displays their course and CPA (closest point of approach) from which you have to decide any action as appropriate.

Typically, last night we encountered the usual bunch of yachts sailing with incorrect lights (which made one yacht seem from the distance to be a large container ship) and fast moving commercial vessels determined to play chicken!

Anyway, after a long night the sun eventually came up and due to our motoring we approached Cartagena earlier than expected at around 10am.

We refuelled and then settled in to our berth for the day. We both collapsed for an early siesta in the heat of the day, but found time to clean the boat, go for a run and explore the city briefly (which was surprisingly interesting given the huge amount of history around the place).





Tomorrow we head off for another 20+ hour sail (hopefully) to Ibiza, the first of the 3 Balearic islands, which are our ultimate destination for this summer's cruise.

We've finally set off east again from Estapona after a week's break. The time has been usefully spent sorting out a few things on the house and making sure the last few building jobs are getting finished off.

Yesterday we bought a fridge and washing machine for the house and after a few difficulties getting the fridge through the doors installed it proudly in the kitchen. Now we can have cold drinks and keep food there! Progress!

We've also had internet installed via a rural wireless system. The house is miles and miles in the country surrounded by huge hills, and internet is fantastic, since there are no phone lines and pretty poor mobile coverage. It also means I can hopefully work there and be contactable.

Ironically the spanish house has better internet connectivity than at home where we still have to get broadband by satellite. It was also a bit of a shame having to leave the house now we've moved one step up the comfort level with a fridge and a few steps up the technology ladder with internet.

We are currently on the way east to Caletta de Valez en route to hopefully Majorca. We had hoped to be further along by now, but we've done a few jobs and organised a few things with the house, so have made good use of the time. We've even replaced the stolen outboard with a new one (which itself was quite an epic task in Spain).

It is still with perfectly smooth seas now as we're motoring along at 5.5 knots with the sprawing connurbation or Marbella to our left - surprisingly it doesn't look that bad from the sea, but it is!

Earlier we were treated to a fantastic dolphin show around the boat in clear blue waters, where we took a couple of great photos (see sailing/summer 2006 photos to the right).



Only 50 more mile to go today. We're planning to anchor tonight and set off again tomorrow for Almerimar. At this rate we should arrive about 2000. The wind is slowly creeping up as the afternoon sea breeze kicks in, so fingers crossed and we should be able to do some sailing later...

Yesterday our neighbours in Spain, Jane and Mark, came to visit us on the boat. Despite the sailmaker not having our mainsail ready until 12 (we had the holes for a third reef put in - something we've been meaning to have done since Plymouth) we caught some wind and had a good sail for a few hours.

Lunch was spent hove to, and was a fantastic Spanish omelette accompanied by olive and herb bread, cold meats and cheese prepared by Jax.

In the afternoon we did a few man overboard drills for practice and a few tacking drills to get everyone involved. At around 6 we anchored up for an hour off a small beach and went for a refreshing swim around the boat. Our peaceful position was only disrupted by a dredger a few hundred meters away and an annoying Spanish stink ship (motor cruiser) that came and anchored too close to us before proceeding to bomb around with their small and noisy inflatable speedboat!

To conclude a warm and tiring day we went to a marina restaurant in Estepona and had an exceedingly large and quite nice thai meal before collapsing into bed.

Jax has been in Barcelona this weekend on a friend's hen do so I've been up to the spanish house to stay. Despite not yet having furniture or a fridge it is quite comfortable and has been a great place to relax and chill out for the past 2 days.

I've spent the time reading the Da Vinci code - picked it up friday night and couldn't put it down until I finished it this morning - first time I've read a novel like that for ages, its usually been sailing books...

Its very hot here in the mountains, but luckily theres some wind to cool you down. Unfortunately the pool doesn't have water in yet. Been for a run each morning, nice but the brutal hills are very tiring and even at 8am it is still quite warm.

I'm back to the boat tomorrow briefly to see a man about a couple of sail repairs and then its off around the large marinas looking for an outboard motor. Jax gets in to Malaga at 8pm, so we'll both come back here then.

Estepona's been our home for the past couple of days, and we've managed to get permission to berth the boat until next week after Jax returns from her hen weekend and we have a few days at the house in Spain.

Its a nice little marina bordered by restaurants and little shops. We had a shock yesterday though, when we set off to the beach (at 6pm since it was too hot before then) only yo find it hugely crowded with English and Spanish holidaymakers - thats why we bought a boat!

We've taken the time to do a few maintenance jobs on the boat and have a bit of a relax. Mark and Sarah (our neighbours from Alora) are coming later today to have a look around and hopefully a bit of a sail, whilst Mark and Jane are coming next week.

Still haven't found anyone selling Honda outboards yet - they seem a bit scarce in Spain, but I'll have a look around the marinas next week whilst Jax is away in. Barcelona.

Busy day today, up early for a run, which was nice as we haven't been able to go for a few days due to the whole anchoring thing.

Since we didn't get time to get to the top of the rock yesterday, we caught a cable car up and saw the apes and fantastic views from the top of Gib's Europa mountain. The apes were great, and very tame, but quite unpredictable and likely to run at you or try to snatch shiney things from you (which we'd been warned about!)

     

   

After a quick visit to the chandlers (they didn't have a replacement outboard) we said our goodbyes and set off for a quick sail around the Gibraltar rock to our next port 25 miles around the corner along the Spanish coast - Puerto de Estapona.

We managed to pre-book for a few days (which was very unusual for Spanish marinas) and hope to stretch it for about a week whilst Jax goes to a hen weekend in Barcelona at the end of the week and Adrian goes to the Spanish house to start a few jobs.