Another month has passed by and we are settling in nicely to the cruising world, community and day-to-day life of living aboard. The only thing that we haven’t mastered yet is a plan. Our loose plan to sail the Med and slowly bring Let’s Dance home seems to be getting looser – we can’t even make up our minds on where to winter, which turns out to be quite a big decision. More on that later.
Chillaxing - Cala Lleo, Ibiza
We are loving this life. When at sea travelling at 6 knots you would think it might be monotonous but we haven’t found that at all. Every day there’s something different – lots of dolphins, recently schools of flying fish, an occasional tuna catch, a new body board which was floating in the middle of nowhere, ongoing boat maintenance and nowadays constant views of coastal cities and landscapes.
After heading south from France and along Northern Spain and Portugal for several weeks, we finally made a turn to port (that’s hang a left for our non-boatie friends) and eastward into the Gibraltar Strait - a milestone for us and an experience not to be missed. Europe to the left of us … Africa to the right and here we are… stuck in the middle with you – make that a lot of traffic; ships that is, and big ones. The Strait itself is fine to navigate but coming into Gibraltar you have to be on your game. Massive ships coming and going at break neck speeds and I can assure you they are not going to get out of your way – that’s your job. We were humming along with a great tailwind but there was no way we were going to dodge that throng of traffic under sail, so down came the mainsail and gennaker and on with the motors. Time to marvel at all the tankers, cruise ships and ferries swamping us. Things are clearly going to be different in the Mediterranean than along the Atlantic coast where the only thing you needed to dodge was hundreds of crab pots.
On the fishing front, we managed to bring in another tuna off the coast of Barbate (much easier with a gaff) and also had a good solid fish strike in the Gibraltar Strait but no capture. That’s ok, we have enough to feed us for a while.
We cruised into Gibraltar with no accommodation (berth) booked, which has worked for us so far and when you’re on a good thing you know how it goes. So we thought we would just arrive, grab a berth and visit the famous Rock. On arrival we called up the first marina by radio on channel 71, Queens Quay – no answer, so we cruised on by and tried the next one, Ocean Village. Still no response, which is no real surprise to us because of all the places we have been, very rarely do they respond to our radio calls. Never mind, we will just cruise on in and help ourselves; we are getting pretty good at that. We picked a vacant berth right next to the airport runway, which runs alongside the marina, parked and tied up. The boat looked nice and secure, off to the marina office to check in. Only to be told…sorry no room, you will have to move on. Well, now we have a problem as there are no nearby anchorages and we specifically want to stay in Gibraltar because, while it is part of the EU, it sits outside of the Schengen area and as Aussies we are only allowed 90 days inside the Schengen in any 180 day period. We were looking forward to spending some time off the Schengen radar, giving us more to time to play later in the Mediterranean. The only other marina in the area is in neighbouring La Linea but it’s over the border in Spain (back inside the Schengen). A mere one or two nautical miles away.
Luckily for us Mini behind the desk took a liking to us, or maybe Marita, and made a quick phone call to Queens Quay marina. After a bit of discussion, bingo we are in. So back to the boat, untie from the action-packed runway berth in Ocean Village and back to Queens Quay marina. And what a stroke of luck; this place is amazing.
We are fairly casual when it comes to where to next and what marina/anchorage are we going to stay in – something always works out. Check out our berth in Gibraltar.
Rockstar Position In Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a great destination; interesting, small, but with a really nice feel to it – so nice we consider coming back to winter here, but again more on that later. We climbed the Rock, which is as impressive as it reads and has a fascinating military history. Some 48km of tunnels have been dug throughout by armies of soldiers over many hundreds of years, linking cannon batteries that seem to cover every angle of the three and half square kilometres of Gibraltar territory. Gibraltar has been overthrown several times in history - it is, or was, a sought-after piece of real estate. We took a gazillion photos of the Barbary apes up on the Rock and on another day we circumnavigated the entire territory in about two hours on our bikes. And that was with a one hour stop at a colourful little beach for a swim and a sunbake.
The one and only airport runway runs right through the middle of everything and cars, buses, trucks, pedestrians and cyclists have to stop at a set of boom gates which close the street off whenever planes take off and land. A quirky arrangement and a great spectacle.
We hadn’t anticipated ten days in Gib but when you have no deadlines, no time schedule, no Schengan restrictions and no plan, why not.
We Journey On
Farewell to Gibraltar as we head further into the Med. It’s time to slow down even more and enjoy the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca and then move on to the Balearic Islands of Ibiza, Formentera, Mallorca, and Menorca.
We are really looking forward to this leg as we have heard such good things about cruising in this area, particularly the Balearic Islands. We also have our first guest from Australia coming on board for a few days to enjoy the Let’s Dance experience. He is meeting us in Ibiza.
Cruising the Costas del Sol and Blanca we make stops in Marbella, La Herradura, Almerimar, Garrucha, Terreros, El Portus, Torrevieja, Moraira, and Sardinero before we leave mainland Spain and head across to the Balearics. So many anchorages and so many great (and some not-so-great) locations that it would take days to write about them all. The Costa Blanca section isn’t all that interesting in general, although there are always a few hidden gems to be discovered. Also the western end of the Costa Del Sol was definitely more attractive than the east where the land is literally covered in plastic – vast hydroponic vegetable farms supplying veggies to many parts of Europe.
We celebrated Marita’s birthday sailing along the Costa Del Sol towards Almerimar. The weather was glorious and the sea had been dead flat for the last two days; so flat that we were able to whip up a birthday cake en route. Ingredients were challenging – we ended up with a vanilla sponge cake with quince caramel topping and coconut. A weird combo but surprisingly yummy.
Cooking On The Move
The night of Marita’s birthday turned out to be a fairly eventful one. We anchored off the beach at Almerimar and dinghy'd to shore for a restaurant dinner. Discovered that the kill switch for our dinghy had been stolen so Michael improvised to get it running. The birthday girl fell out of the dinghy on arrival at the beach, right at the feet of a group people, and ended up wallowing around in 20cm of water in a dress. Nice one! We selected a lovely restaurant with white table linen and had the worst meal we've had for a long time. Oh well, that's life sometimes. The next amazing experience is just around the corner.
A great thing about cruising this part of the world is the number of playas and calas (beaches and coves) where you can just drop your pick and stay as long as you like for free. When planning this trip we thought we would have an anchorage to marina ratio of about 50:50 but up until just recently we have not been hitting that mark, which has a significant impact on the hip pocket. Marinas are comfortable but they come at a cost, some much more than others. We have had some unexpected lay ups of a week or more in marina’s like Cadiz (due to a massive wind and dust storm - ridiculously foul weather) and then Gibraltar due to maintenance and minor repairs on Let’s Dance. Cruising in the area we are now in has improved our anchorage tally – we like that.
Whilst on the subject of anchoring I should note that we are learning a lot – the importance of having a secure pick cannot be underestimated and, as we have found, getting it right is crucial to a good night’s sleep. The right location, sheltered and with a sandy seabed is best but you can’t always find this. So far no casualties, however we have had one or two heart-in-mouth instances – like the night we anchored just off the beach in Garrucha. We got there quite late so we quickly set our anchor, had a glass of wine, watched huge tankers coming in and out of the harbour loaded with gypsum, ate dinner, made sure the anchor was stable and went to bed… Woke up in the morning and everything looked good so we jumped in the tender for a trip into town, had a look around Garrucha and restocked on supplies. We returned about 3 hours later with the tender fully loaded with groceries, a full gas bottle and liquid refreshments (of course). As we rounded the marina wall we could immediately see that Let’s Dance had dragged towards the beach and decided to play with the locals inside the buoyed-off swimming zone. Our boat was about 50m from shore and dangerously close to shallow rocks. We pulled up alongside in a big hurry avoiding the entourage of swimmers around us. All we could hear and see were lifeguards and swimmers screaming at us in Spanish and gesturing firmly to get the hell out of their beach. All hands on deck, supplies thrown into the cockpit, motors on, anchor up and off we went. We managed to get away without damage or penalty, but slightly embarrassed – so we moved along to another playa in a new town.
Ibiza Here We Come
It’s Monday 5 September and we left mainland Spain yesterday for Ibiza. Today we made the short hop from Cala Tarida into Marina Ibiza to pick up Adam, our first international visitor. He’s here for just a few days but we hope to party in Ibiza, sail down to Formentera where apparently the locals have the longest life expectancy in Spain and naked is the way to go, and then go back to Ibiza in time for Adam’s flight home via London.
Naked Neighbours Again
It was nice to have a friend from back home on board and we ticked the above boxes in the short period we had, particularly the partying bit. We fluked a pub with a fantastic live band and a drummer who just didn’t know how to stop - some of the best live music we’ve heard. Thanks for dropping by Adam, it was a pleasure having you as crew on Let’s Dance. Thanks for giving us a hand to give the boat a good solid wash. The spreaders are still dirty; we’ll send the next guest up the mast.
Stowaway Adam
We cruised the east coast of Ibiza, intending to do the west coast on our return journey, before crossing to Mallorca. It doesn’t take long to see Ibiza. It’s not a very big Island but wow, is it beautiful. We had the pleasure of catching up with Soni and Martin from Reflexion in recent days and were there to help celebrate Soni’s birthday, which we did in style in Ibiza with Moet and cake.
Ibiza Tick, Mallorca - You're Next
Mallorca; a day sail of about 50 nautical miles from Ibiza and what a ripper. We got underway anticipating good winds for the whole journey – and we got them. Within the first half hour our main sail was reefed at two and we were flying barely half of the genoa. Again our professional sailing lessons way back in La Rochelle paid for themselves; thanks Alain and to Multihull Solutions for the contact.
We had planned to stay in a little cala we saw in the pilot book, but when we sailed in it was apparent that we hadn’t done our homework well enough and there was no decent shelter from the moderately strong wind and swell. So Plan B; find somewhere else secure for the night. Cala Blanca, what a little gem, and wow these Mallorcans love their big boats, big homes and just being on the water. We haven’t seen this many super yachts, cruisers and day trippers anywhere else.
We stayed only one night in Cala Blanca because we want to get closer to the action – Palma that is - and this time we have spent considerable time looking for somewhere sheltered that can be our home for several nights. The sun is setting at our anchorage in Las Illetas and a huge full moon is rising as we close this blog. We are in a cracka of a spot and we plan to spend the next few days in and around Palma.
Our ‘Nauti Facts’ as at 18/9/16:
Nautical Miles: 1639
Maximum Speed: 16.6 knots (doubt we’ll surpass this, must have been riding a wave)
Country Tally: 4
Fish Caught: 2
Nights in marina: 28
Nights at anchor: 33
Monthly spend: July - €17,124.61 Ouch! Set up costs
August - €3,183.61
September - Significantly less we expect!
Stay safe, cheers
M&M
Let’s Dance
PS: Almost forgot – we have now decided that we will winter back in Gibraltar rather than whizzing past Sardinia, Sicily, the Greek isles etc to get to Turkey or Croatia by November. It is a back track for us but we are spending so much time enjoying the Balearic Islands we realised we would have to really get our skates on to get further east and outside the Schengen zone before summer's end. Gibraltar, tiny Britain in the sun, will be our home for six months - a prospect we are very much looking forward to.