Finally, we’re underway

We finally set sail on our holiday adventure on Saturday, we could possibly have departed on Friday but as we were right on the edge of a weather warning zone we decided to have one more rest day and put the finishing touches to our passrelle (gangplank to you and me) it now looks awesome.

As it was, the Saturday weather was lovely and we headed out early, excited to get the journey underway. This was only to find that whilst it was beautifully sunny there was a stomach churning swell and really not much wind in the end. We motored out and around cabo tiñoso finally deciding to call it a day and head into Mazarrón after making relatively slow progress. Still, we felt like at least the journey had started and the engine got a good run ! Always look on the bright side and we were so happy to be back out on the water everything was fabulous.

We had a lovely mooring space in Mazarron on a pontoon rather than alongside the bars and restaurants so we were one step removed from the two weddings and a political party rally that took place in the evening. It was very interesting to watch everyone and we felt really relaxed enjoying our evening drinks and meal aboard. Sunday came and we departed our mooring space in quite hazy conditions, after taking Tines out on a sunrise dog walk. We had checked the conditions and decided that although Garrucha was easily achievable in terms of nautical miles distance, the wind direction was going to change in the afternoon (which turned out to be true) so we would be better aiming for Aguilas and enjoying another shorter day.

As we came out of the marina we were happy to find out that the swell had died down after Saturday and it was not as problematic for us. Today’s problem was the wind – or rather the lack of wind! Definitely not enough for sailing so once again we motored along. Interestingly we kind of knew the conditions weren’t great because for two hours we didn’t see another boat!!! It was eerily quiet on this stretch of the med. til a catamaran on spinnaker sail loomed out of the very far distance and took two hours to catch us up just as we approached Aguilas. For those of you who know the story of the autohelm (the automatic boat steering system) I am pleased to report that we used it today – and it works brilliantly. Only one emergency deactivate required thanks to a huge floating plastic bag disguised as a sun fish which we really wanted to avoid. It works really well both on sail and off and hopefully now all our problems on this front are finally behind us (but this being the boating world, watch this space)

Tonight we find ourselves in a wonderfully under populated marina just outside the town of Aguilas. In all the time we’ve been sailing we’ve been here twice and both times it has had the least boats moored. It is strange mooring without the need to go between two boats or alongside one, in fact it requires a whole different level of skill, even in just a small amount of wind. Skipper Nigel got us onto berth very professionally and even after a couple of hours we remain alone on the pontoon, no neighbours to chat to or discuss the weather with.