10/05/2009

For the next couple of weeks I will be crewing aboard Frank Grinnall's boat 'Goldrush', on a voyage towards the UK via La Corunna. Ju is staying in Lagos and looking after Little Else. I'll get back before the end of the month, more traveller's tales then!

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09/29/2009, Gibraltar

Well, we left Mar Menor at 12 noon at the noon opening of the bridge on the canal. Ours was the only boat going out, as the wind, forecast to be 4 to 5 turned out to be force 7, sometimes gusting even more. We motored out, buffeted by the wind, and got the sails up in the lee of the small island nearby. There followed a difficult passage of sailing towards the east to get clear of a marine reserve and the cape south of Mar Menor, and that was a struggle in the teeth of the wind and a growing swell of over 1 and a half metres. Around nine miles of this ensued, during which some of us were seriously considering heading into Cartagena, but then we turned downwind, on genoa alone, and suddenly all was much calmer. The boat was surfing along at a great rate, around 9 knots, directly in the direction we wanted to go.

So we settled into a watch pattern of 3 hours on, 6 off, and enjoyed a really good sail for the first half of the journey, despite pouring rain from astern which kept getting into the saloon!

The wind died off Cabo de Gata, and the rest of the trip was motoring, and we arrived in a relatively quiet Gibraltar around 5am today. We saw dolphins en route, and a lovely tall ship called the Artemis.

Out to dinner tonight to celebrate the end of a great three weeks fun with Keith and Mon, Andy and Dave, then off back to Lagos tomorrow.

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09/27/2009, Spain

We are in Tomas Maestre Marina at the entrance to Spain's Mar Menor, a curious inland lake/sea 12 miles long by about six miles wide, entered from the Med through a short canal and a lifting bridge. We arrived on Friday, and on Saturday we went for a fun sail round the lake. It is really lovely to sail in, with depths of 5 to 6 metres everywhere, and no swell. The sun shone and we had a lovely day.

Sunday morning dawned in the throes of a huge thunderstorm, right over the boat, with accompanying crashes and bangs from on deck. When we eventually got up, our passerelle (the gangplank) had disappeared down into the water, and was on the bottom! Dave and Ju got it back up again, but it must have been a fearsome gust of wind from astern that stretched all four of our mooring ropes so much that the end perched on the dock simply rolled over about nine inches into the water.

We are now making preparations for a 48-hour sail down the coast from here to Gibraltar, hoping to arrive sometime on Tuesday. It looks from the weather prediction sites that most of our journey will be in full wet-weather gear, just like Scottish sailing, only warmer!

More when we get there.

Photo is of the crew in Ibiza.

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