We awoke early to the patter of feet on the deck….we had found our imposter…..
Not the best photo but it was before sunrise ! One of the beautiful kitties from the cat colony had climbed aboard for a little explore. He might have been looking for food but there is plenty of food and water provided for the cats all along the breakwater at special feeding stations. We made sure he wasn’t aboard when we pulled up the gangplank 😉 As we departed we saw that people were aboard the Ocean Explorer boat which was moored opposite us. It had a submersible vehicle on board for exploring maybe next time we can get to see it.
Onwards for us towards the port of Adra, very calm waters and just about enough wind to sail but in all honesty not really. We did sail the first few miles along the coastline past Roquetas de Mar but very slowly and we eventually put the motor on.
The marina at Adra is interesting to say the least. We arrived at around 4pm and berthed ourselves alongside, being careful to pick a space between the anti-seagull tape that is fluttering between the majority of the electricity stations along the pontoon. There are hardly any boats here in the marina and we waited for the marinero to arrive to explain that since we had booked online I needed to go to the port office to check in because there is no computer in the portacabin that serves as an office on the marina dockside. To be fair there are big signs explaining that there is a future development for the “puerto deportivo” but watch this space, there is no building work at the moment. When I got to the port office the boss was most excited because apparently we were the first boat to use the online booking system! I was made to feel like quite the novelty. We had a brilliant evening watching the sunset and the various activities of people wandering about the port.
We also watched a galleon from the year 1905 which we had assumed was simply berthed there – but later in the evening it filled up with people going off for a sunset boat trip. It was fun to watch them both on the way out and the return, the children aboard were having a great time.
The next day we awoke to stronger weather as we had anticipated, it was quite cloudy and we expected a swell too. We had a plan A, B and C in case the weather got too much and indeed it was quite choppy as we departed the marina. We decided to see how we felt and once we were underway and with some sail up the boat smoothed out and we started to make progress.
An hour or so later the sea and wind really picked up and it was fabulous sailing conditions, although as it started to pick up a little more (2 metre waves and 20 knot winds) we had to work hard to sail the boat and we were ready to stop as we reached Motril (plan B – we had already exhausted plan C by not turning back) unfortunately the marina was completely full. We had no choice but to press on towards marina del este and go for our plan A. I won’t lie, it was really hard going but good fun at the same time – we really had to concentrate on the helm and there was certainly no going down below decks.
As we sailed past Motril we had seen a fishing boat, a little later we saw a suspicious blue container in the water – quite a difficult spot as it completely blended in. As we got closer we realised there were two, they did have smaller yellow buoys attached but were still very difficult to spot. We had to do a very swift tack to avoid them.
Very soon afterwards the conditions completely changed and we had to bring in the sails, we motored in to marina del este in almost flat calm conditions, exhausted but happy. We were moored in a more central location in the marina than in previous years and we had a great view of the rock that keeps the boats sheltered.
The Adventures of Gemini J 