Heading west to marina of the east

This morning the weather was duller and more swelly than forecast, and with more wind – usually great news, although not really today since we were heading straight into it! We were aiming to do a straightforward hop between Adra and Motril along the coast westwards. We battled a bit with the conditions but they calmed down and we motor sailed all the way to Motril. Once again it was really quiet at sea, we passed only 4 other boats all the way, we listed to a repeated “pan pan” call out for a small migrant boat with 21 people aboard in our vacinity but we didn’t see anything.

Once again this area of coastline is peppered with plastic sheeting growing more of those precious vegetables for the less sunny climes. The lighthouse as we approached Motril was a welcome sight.

This marina is quite large and the club nautico is right at the far end of it so it is quite a long motor in to the mooring quays. We radioed ahead (as we had been advised to do) – no answer, we tried again, still no answer, we tried on our other radio, still no answer …. we kept calm, we sorted ourselves out and moored up on the clearly marked waiting quay. I spotted a bouncy castle in the grounds of the club house before I heard the noise, as I approached I saw lots (and lots) of fancily dressed children …. when I was inside I realised what had happened, amongst the noise of 3 communion celebrations we hadn’t been heard! The marineros were lovely and we were welcomed, they even did a radio check for us (funnily enough it worked!) We decided against joining the melee of the celebrations and ate aboard, watching all the comings and goings of the port, including a small sail training boat with 10 trainees aboard and a giant ferry from Morroco. Tines and I went off exploring, the club náutico here is actually in a kind of closed off secure location, part of the ferry port I suppose you’d say – there are some lovely old buildings here which must have been an amazing sight before they were hidden behind concrete walls.

There is also an interesting boat park here, hidden behind some stunning trees and plants

We left fairly early on Sunday morning to do a short hop to the beautiful marina del Este, the conditions were mill-pond like and we saw only 1 other boat on our journey. We did get some sail out but if we’re honest with ourselves there wasn’t that much point, but it did look good ;-)We arrived in plenty of time to have a lovely lunch and rest afternoon in this stunning location, the photos definitely don’t do it justice.