South once again

26th-29th June

So here we were again, heading south, aiming to be in Almerimar in time to give Charlie and Hannah a few days in port before flying home.

From Moraira we retraced our path to Puerto San Juán (Alicante) where we once again dropped anchor and prepared to pass the night. We took Charlie and Hannah ashore and showed them the 'sights' of San Juán, such as they are. I don't think they were impressed!

Did I tell you that there is a modern church in the town that has to be one of the ugliest churches we have ever seen? A mixture of concrete, glass and a metal gantry that reminds one of Meccano. The final detail was some pretty gory stained glass. It wouldn't have looked so bad if it was well-kept but the windows are high and so almost impossible to keep clean in the salty atmosphere and the same applied to the Meccano structure which needed, as a minimum a fresh coat of paint. The gate to the church was open as we passed by and we decided to look inside. Here, all was fresh a clean and light was pouring in from the windows. Not so bad really.

After dinner on board Charlie and Hannah went ashore for a walk along the beach. Then it was time for bed and an early(ish) start the next morning. Our next planned destination was Torrevieja but we were making such good time on a perfect wind that we decided we could detour to the island of Tabarca. It was Sunday so the anchorages were both very busy but we easily found a spot and were soon headed ashore for an explore and a sandwich lunch. The town was busy, throbbing with tourists visiting from nearby Torrevieja and Santo Palo, out to enjoy the simple delights on offer.

From there to Torrevieja and a berth in the Club Nautica. It is so nice to be able to wander ashore at will and we all took advantage of the freedom it offered. Charlie and Hannah visited the fair, as we had anticipated they would. We oldies settled for a walk and a coffee. Then next morning the two youngsters took advantage of the 'new' shops there were to look at in the town while Tony and I stocked up with provisions. Then it was time to leave, Cartagena was beckoning. By now it was lunchtime.

Somehow, the coastline seemed less crammed with huge apartment blocks. Obviously the initial shock was over and I was able to take in the stretches of countryside that lay between the major conurbations. Even La Manga didn't seem so overbuilt.

It was a good afternoon's sail and we were approaching Cartagena around four o'clock. It seemed such a pity to detour and stop for the night... so we didn't! Of course, once the decision was made the wind dropped and we wallowed along the coast for a couple of hours before admitting defeat, turning on the engine and bringing in the sails.

What a difference it makes having just one more person to take a watch. It hardly seems a chore to stay awake for one stretch of three hours, instead of having to do two watches. This was sheer luxury. Charlie, please come back and live with us...

By late morning we were heading into the marina at Almerimar. On the shore the land was covered in poly-tunnels, not the most attractive of views. But our main interest was in getting into the marina, getting settled and preparing to spend a few days exploring and relaxing before it was time to take Charlie and Hannah to Malaga to fly home.

Back to Torrevieja

4th-11th July

We were busy in Cartagena. Ganymede was is need of a good wash and we spent a day cleaning the decks and the blue topsides. She was gleaming at the end of it. Of course, it doesn't last... I am always surprised how dirty and dusty boat living can be. Even, or especially, on a long sea passage Ganymede gets very dusty inside and there is always the salt water that splashes on the decks and the windows and then dries, leaving a residue of salt behind. But for a few days in Cartagena, Ganymede was clean.

It wasn't all work, of course, and we had made several sorties into the town, enjoyed several dinners out and made a big supermarket shop, Carrefour being nearby and taxis easy to find. There was even a Bargain Books in town. Very welcome!

But we had to leave, start making our way slowly back to Moraira to await Charlie's arrival. No submarines surprised us on the way out but the wind wasn't being good to us. As usual, it was on the nose. We had plenty of time so we decided to make a long tack out to sea and then, joy of joys, the wind slowly changed, came round to suit our direction and we had a perfect sail all the way to Torrevieja, arriving in the harbour just before sunset.

Our plan was to stay one or two nights there but it didn't quite work out like that. A cooling fan for the engine had given up and we needed to replace it. At the chandlery they confirmed they could order one for us and it would take maybe a couple of days. This was on Monday, so no problem, we could easily stay until Wednesday. Which we did, exploring new parts of the town each day. We walked along the esplanade one evening: busy with people walking, sitting at pavements cafés eating and drinking, people on the beach still. There was a lady standing looking out to sea, another of those bronze statues. One strange thing we noticed was the number of policemen on the beat. The town seemed quiet and peaceful and there was no apparent need for quite such a display of strength. Tony thought that maybe they have a problem with pickpockets.

By Wednesday we had covered much of the town, found another source of cut-price books, and established a few regular coffee stops and lunch stops. The fan still hadn't arrived. On Thursday we visited the salt museum and bumped into Henry Macaulay. Henry is from Dunoon on the west coast of Scotland but has lived in the Torrevieja area for the last twelve years. His passions are the museum, naval history and making scale models of famous navy ships. He proudly showed us round the museum pointing out special models and items of particular interest. We discovered that the town employs someone to make models of buildings, the salt works, boats, anything of historical interest. A new museum is being made ready but work had to stop when archeological remains were found. That was three years ago. Henry thought the new museum might now be ready by the end of the year.

The fan didn't arrive on Thursday either but we were assured that it would be there Friday afternoon. Our next expedition was to try to find the little train that would take us to the lagoon and the salt works. We found the railway museum... but that was all. However, that took us to the edge of town and we realised how we missed being in a more rural environment. We would have walked to the lagoon but it really was very hot. And perhaps the flamingoes that we were promised to see would have been as elusive as the little train. So we had lunch instead. Italian. Delicious.

The fan arrived on Friday. We had collected it and were planning our departure for the following morning when the port police arrived in a large inflatable. Did we know we were not allowed to anchor here? Well no, we didn't. I would add that every day a flotilla of small boats came out of the various marinas and spent the day at anchor so I suppose what they meant was that we were not allowed to anchor OVERNIGHT. We should pay to go into a marina for that. Oh well, we had a good run. If only that fan had arrived a day earlier we would still be able to anchor in the bay!

We explained that we were leaving the next day, we had been waiting for a part to arrive and it had arrived now so off they went, leaving us to anchor overnight one more time.