We finally left the island of Ibiza on Tuesday afternoon, after a short session with a plumber from the marina who fixed a hot water pipe that had broken the previous day. Thank goodness this happened now, rather than while Phil and crew are on the Atlantic.

We made the 135 trip to Cartegena in an overnight stretch, leaving Ibiza around 4:30 in the afternoon and arriving around 11 am in Cartegena. Conditions were good only for power sailing, with winds from around 18 to 26 kts, and some swells for the first half of the trip.

Cartegena is an ancient city, significant for its naval history and as a naval port. The city turned out to be lovely -- gorgeous architecture on some signficant buildings, well preserved Roman ruins here and there, and very wide, smooth stone paved pedestrian streets leading throughout the historic part of town to all shops, restaurants, museums and the like.

Today we begin the final push - since seas are very calm for the next few days, we decided to do the 230 mile passage to Gibraltar in one last overnight trip. We just left port at 11:00, it's sunny, warm, and not much wind but enough that we'll start with the mainsail and see what happens. Life lines are already out for the evenng and Marco and Phil will work out the watch schedule shortly.
Next greetings - from Gibraltar!!