Yes….we know the way ….

On Monday we had a nice sail & motor sail from Aguilas to Garrucha, the coastline as you leave Aguilas is beautful and whilst the wind was light again we were lucky in that it picked up later in the morning. We even needed our coats to protect against the cold wind!!

Not quite what were expecting mid-may to be honest. However, we were very happy to get to sail motor free for an hour and in decent winds too.

Garrucha is maybe not the most stunning marina we’ll ever visit (OK, definitely not!) but the approach is really interesting as it involves going past a massive tanker which on this occasion was actually being loaded. The coastline in this part of Spain is geologically rich and Garrucha is the place where the gypsum is loaded ready for transport all over the world. It is odd being dwarfed by such a large ship and at such close quarters but fascinating too. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the lorries going to-and-fro from the ship taking their loads in quick succession.

The marina itself is a little bit bleak if I’m honest, it’s very new and there is really nothing of note here (well not that we found anyway) although the beach at Vera is beautiful. The view out of the “kitchen” window as I prepared our meal was lovely though.

We had found ourselves berthed alongside and the next boat to arrive was our neighbours from Cartagena unbelievably – it was quite funny chatting to them about the coincidence (especially since we’d left before them and they had just sailed/motored over that day) The next morning we waved them goodbye as they dpearted. As we left, winds were once again very light so we motored away – Skipper Nigel even got his fishing rod out (sadly once again we didn’t catch anything) We were caught up and overtaken by the yacht that had been moored next to us in Garrucha.

On this part of the coast we pass an interesting building – Hotel Ilegal – I don’t know the story of it suffice to say it is looking exactly the same as it was two and a half years ago when we passed this spot. Around this time the wind picked up and once again we were sailing 🙂

We arrived in San Jose and it is just as beautiful as we remembered. It’s just a small, fairly shallow marina, often overlooked because it has the reputation of always being full but we were lucky there was space for us! We could watch all the comings and goings for the afternoon, including the sailing Alsatian and the ridiculously expensive charter motor yacht.

Today we decided we could not resist the charms of San Jose so we asked to stay another day. There was an element of confusion – it seemed that I was mistaken for the crew of the said motor yacht and they were telling me we had to move our mooring space. Thanks to the intervention of the marinero it became clear that there was a mistake and we didn’t need to move. However, amusing to think that I was mistaken for super-yacht crew (well it made me smile afterwards anyway).