Never a dull moment

After a wonderful rest day, during which we had bought a new lure for Skipper Nigel’s fishing rod we set out anticipating good winds and perhaps a slight swell.

Oooops, what we got was a fairly large swell and light winds (not quite as forecast) so Tines and I were pretty uncomfortable. We couldn’t sail but pulling the sail out did even out the boat a bit and we headed across the bay of Malaga.

Skipper Nigel got out the fishing line (bearing in mind we’ve had the fishing line out across the Balearics and back and all around Cartagena with no luck to date). In less than half an hour we had “fish on” – “oh crikey” (well that’s not exactly what was said but it’s close), what to do next, it was a dilemma, and a situation that we weren’t fully prepared for. The line we had been sold had a number of hooks on it and as we pulled it up there were 4 fish hanging there! We were both completely shocked, we rushed to grab a towel and proceeded to try to get them aboard. Two, luckily for us and them, escaped. We had two left to deal with, we got them aboard, smothered them in a towel and thought they were dead – we put them in a bowl then the flapping about started. We did reach for a hammer to try to put them out of their misery but neither of us could do the deed, we quickly threw them back in the water hoping they survived the ordeal. Skipper Nigel vowed never to fish again, I vowed to look up how to catch fish so that we would be more prepared next time. Honestly, I wonder about us sometimes, we went into a shop to buy a lure to help catch fish – it did exactly what the shopkeeper said it would – and we were so surprised it worked we didn’t know what to do!!!!! Suffice to say that we ended up having chicken curry for tea !!!

After fish-gate (which actually upset us both a bit more than we cared to let on) the swell took a bit of a turn for the worst, Tines and I were definitely not 100%, we headed for the nearest port, which is a new port for us, Benalmadena. Skipper Nigel took the helm but not before he photographed us asleep ……

On arrival in this massive marina complex we were offered two options – noisy or quiet, this is a strange dilemma, did we want to be near the bars and restaurants or on the outer part of the harbour complex. I headed back to the boat to consult with Skipper Nigel who opted for noisy (which surprised me at the time). We headed right into this massive marina complex and found ourselves docked in the very inner part right below the SeaLife centre. It proved to be an excellent choice, we would have described it as “lively” rather than “noisy” but then again we are used to the sounds of Spanish weddings til half past five in the morning in Cartagena!

The next morning we woke up and were having our coffee aboard when we noticed a photo shoot taking place – cutting a long story short, the photo shoot ended up using our boat for the model to pose on. It was really interesting and funny at the same time. It turned out they were all Russian, including the beautiful model herself who spoke really good English. There were 3 “support” people carrying shoe boxes and outfits, a male and female model and the photographer. They spent about half an hour photographing various poses on Gemini J. Sadly we don’t know when or where the photos will be published but keep a lookout on a billboard near you …..

We had decided to have a rest day as there was still a swell at sea and we explored the marina by dinghy, trying out our fabulous new electric motor at the same time. It was great fun and a brilliant way to see the whole marina without walking miles!

This is a great marina complex and one that I hope we’ll come back to. Perhaps next time we’ll try the outer harbour now that we have experienced everything the inner harbour has to offer, including a lovely restaurant just overlooking our boat – fabulous.