There were no red arrows when we left Ibiza and for the first couple of hours we had a lovely sail on a broad reach SW to Formentera, a little island just off Ibiza. We would have liked to have anchored there for one night, but once again time is pushing on and we need to get to Gibraltar. I love doing proper sailing. Where the wind is on the back of the boat and the swell is going in the same direction. Pegasus literally feels like she is flying and I've got a big grin on my face. Mark has warned me once about saying "this is nice." In the past, it has been followed by a change of sea condition or wind or direction (which consequently means change of sea condition and wind.) Once we turned the corner, the wind was on our nose. For those who don't know anything about sailing, you can't sail directly into the direction from which the wind is blowing. You just have to haul the sails in and sail 'close to the wind' - as close as you can. It turns out, that on a catamaran, close isn't very close, but at least we aren't heeling madly over like we would if we were on one of those boats that only have one bit in the water. We can still leave our cups of tea on the table - astonishing!
A little while back, I had said to Mark "you know, we have to accept that we can't always point in the direction we want to go and stick the engine on. We have to accept it will take a bit longer and tack (zig zag) our way to our destination." So, we dug our heels in, accepted the nauseating swell coming from in front of us, and tacked for 6 hours. When we saw that, on the chart, we had hardly moved in 6 hours, we put the engines on and pointed in the direction we wanted to go. This tacking could wait for another day.
Since we had now lost time and wouldn't be in our destination port in daylight, we decided to push on through as Mark and I were finding the night watches fine. Actually, if the truth be known, I LOVE night watches - we had an amazing bright red full moon rising over the horizon, shooting stars, phosphorescence. Kids snoring loudly in the saloon, audio books on the Ipod.
One of the days we were sailing, we were visited by a helicopter who did a full circle around our boat and got close enough for the kids to see the passenger in the back seat waving to them. "Smile and wave boys. Smile and wave." We think they might have been military or coastguards who were seeing whether we looked like drugs smugglers or not. We've been told that there is a lot of smuggling in this area, so we may be visited by coastguards. Make mental note, keep boat more tidy!
We were also visited by whales and a sunfish - the weirdest looking circular fish that flops along the surface with one fin and an eye looking up at you. If someone in Greece hadn't told us about them we wouldn't have had a CLUE what it was.
We arrive in Motril, on the Costa del Sol, in a little marina, at first light. It feels great to have put some miles in, even if it was very uncomfortable and by motor. And it felt even better to have a hot shower as we haven't been in a marina since Palma, so have had to make do with bucket washes. Motril has a strange little marina, with lovely facilities but hardly any boats - we are the biggest boat here. There seems to be a grain depot here so large cargo ships come in to load and unload. The wind looks good for Gibraltar tomorrow - Easterly for one day (good) then Westerly again the day after (not so good) so we only stay long enough to pick up some food and plan our passage ahead.