Saturday came and with it our early alarm call. Of course it was still dark as we aimed to leave at sunrise – as soon as there was enough light. Since the crossing should take around 11 hours the early start suits us best – hoping to arrive in daylight. We departed as soon as it was light enough, the sunrise was, as always, beautiful.
You can see from these photos there were clouds in the sky, as we set off the sea conditions were with us and we were flying along at 5 and a half knots. Around us there was mixed weather in the sky but the forecast was for decreasing seas and winds. Unfortunately we found the opposite, as we headed out past Isla conejera the wind started to pick up along with the waves. We did not fancy bashing into 1-2m waves for 11hours. The swell direction also turned to become against us – Skipper Nigel quickly made the call to turn back. The wind picked up to 25 knots and almost immediately we were flying along back to port.
We called Ports IB on the radio and they told us to go back on the same berth we left from 2 hours and 13 nautical miles earlier – the marinero who came was particularly unhelpful and unfriendly which made the arrival trickier than it needed to be in high winds !! He didn’t really understand how quickly a boat like Gemini J can get blown about when trying to berth. Skipper Nigel on the helm and boathook and me trying to act quickly despite the slow and grumpy marinero and we got secured. Half an hour later however, all was well, we were relaxing aboard with our Australian Coffee ☕.
That afternoon the sun did come out and I went for a walk ….. up a hill ! I had had my eye on the tiny “ermita” (small church) all week and finally decided to attempt to walk to it. It was well worth the effort. The views were stunning from the top.
We had a relaxing evening aboard and spent some time studying and re-studying the weather forecasts. They all looked reasonable for the next morning so we decided to set the alarms and give it another go.
When we woke up once again the sky was cloudy and it really seemed that Ibiza was still hanging under a storm – but looking out to sea it seemed clearer. We had a debate over breakfast but decided to go for it with a plan B of returning and going into the Club Nautic for a change of scene if necessary. The weather forecast was favourable with 8-10 knot winds and half a meter swells all decreasing during the day.
We left cloudy Sant Antoni and once again hit rougher waters almost as soon as we got to Isla Conejera ….. we started to doubt that forecast as the winds picked up to 20 knots. They were in our favour albeit close reached. We decided to push on past Islas Bledas where we were still in very choppy waters ….. Skipper Nigel was seriously thinking we should turn back but we pulled out a reef on our Genoa sail and could make reasonable progress. It was already 10am and we decided we could handle the choppy waters and we would continue on. Very quickly we could see land which really gave us something to aim for.
We had to concentrate all day on keeping on course, keeping the wind in the sails and keeping alert for the ferries and container ships in the shipping channel. We were still rocking and rolling and it was fairly hard going, we needed the spray hood up and the decks were soaked from bashing into the swell. Around 4pm the conditions did start to die down and we could relax a little and enjoy the rest of the journey. We even managed a few rounds of “Gemini J Okey Dokey tons of time for Karaoke” singing away at the top of our voices 😉
By the time we reached Moraira the sun was setting which made the last hour lovely. We had enough light to dock alongside between two motor boats which Skipper Nigel did expertly and finally we could relax ……
The Adventures of Gemini J 