Rocking and rolling …..

We had our first enforced rest days of the trip thanks to a weather warning for high winds and waves.

After arriving in Motril in increasing conditions we flaked out. We had a relaxing afternoon after our delicious lunch.

We thought we’d catch up on some sleep after late nights at the weekend and see what the weather brought the next day.

The weather had other ideas – at 1am Skipper Nigel and I were up on deck (one of us was starkers and it wasn’t me 😉 ) We were resetting our lines and fenders and fighting with gale force winds. The boat was really getting thrown around because the wind had changed direction and we weren’t so protected by the harbour breakwater. Roll on a sleepless night – quite literally !

Luckily/unluckily for us (depending on your viewpoint) we could not set sail the next day. There was a coastal weather warning from midday and wow! the wind really picked up.

We spent the day cleaning and cat napping, and watching the activity in port.

This really is a nice little place to spend a day, we had another delicious lunch at the club náutico.

We were constantly reviewing the weather and it became obvious that we would need to spend Wednesday in Motril too. Cue a day of re-supplying and an oil change for the boat.

This “half an hour or so” job took more like 2 hours with lots of lively language and half a used kitchen roll before the job was done. We also refuelled so we were ready to go the next day.

We awoke with trepidation about the conditions but it was calm. Over breakfast we watched the marineros at work using a crane to put yachts back in the water after having work done, then getting them back to berth.

We carefully took off all our lines ready to depart – not an easy job since we found the wild weather had tightened them around the cleats significantly. We departed the port, happy to be in our way. We went past the Clara Campoamor which is a rescue ship usually moored in Cartagena. It followed us out of port and quickly overtook us.

Perhaps it was on its way to look for more inflatable boats that were crossing from Morocco, once again we spent the day listening to alerts for “migrant boats underway or adrift”.

We found calm seas and we headed for Almerimar – motor sailing all the way.

We were happy to arrive after quite a long day and we celebrated Skipper Nigel’s (non)birthday with a steak aboard in the evening.