After a successful day's sailing, well motoring, yesterday we reached Marina de Bajadilla, Marbella, at about 10pm and tied up on the Waiting Pontoon. With no-one to be found anywhere, this became our berth for the night, not a problem as we were only stopping overnight here so that we could replenish our two British 6kg propane gas cylinders that we use for cooking. As butane is most common in the Med, finding propane refills for British cylinders can be a very tricky business. In this case however, I met a guy in a bar, who had a friend, who had a mate who knew someone in Marbella.....! A couple of quiet beers in the friendly bar next to the marina followed by a relatively early night after a tiring day. This is sailing parlance means before midnight. I checked in with the marina office this morning once it had opened, paid my dues to the friendly and most helpful habourmaster, returned to the boat when Dirk appeared with our replacement gas cylinders as promised at the agreed time. Mark and I transferred an additional 50 litres of diesel from two jerry cans on deck into the main tank as the passage to Cartagena is likely to be under engine most, if not all, of the way looking at the weather forecast. My final job this morning before departure was to repair the (new!) bowthruster which had failed to operate on arrival in Marbella. Some quick diagnostics indicated a faulty control cable, quickly fixed and back in business. Departing at 1030 am, we are now on route to Cartagena directly. This is about 210nm so we should arrive all being well at lunchtime on Friday. So far today there has not been a breath of wind so the engine has now been running for 9 hours making it VERY hot inside the boat. Seen a few dolphins today, fishing rod deployed but no fish yet, so canned dinner tonight courtesy of Mark who is now cooking. Tracey is on watch for the next three hours. I am carrying out various daily boat checks, updating our position report via the HF radio (no internet out here) and of course....typing this blog update! All's well on board and Otto our autopilot is working exceptionally well so none of us have touched the wheel in the last 9 hours!!