ALREADY!

Dearest Friends and Family,

Yes, it’s only mid-August, but we have stopped cruising for the season. No, nothing’s wrong with us nor with the boat. When we arrived in Cartagena, Spain in late July, we were told by the immigration police that we had to leave — our 90 days in the EU/Schengen territory was UP!!! (First time that’s ever happened in 9 years!!!) We were planning to go to Morocco ANYway for customs/tax reasons before settling in for the winter, but hadn’t really planned on going this early! Oh well. We stayed a week until we had a good weather window for our overnight passage to Morocco, and during that week, we totally fell in love with Cartagena. It’s even better than we had remembered it (from our April 2006 visit.) Okay, well, off we went to Marina-Saidia, in Eastern Morocco. (Morocco in August…. are you KIDDING me???) Although this new marina was just opened in 2009, the infrastructure is already deteriorating. It was kind of depressing, and the bathrooms were unusable (missing parts and cockroaches. uhhhhhh, no thanks!) However, it was cheap, there was a good WIFI, a decent grocery store, lots of restaurants and we met some lovely Aussies there, AND…. we have our own shower on board. So, it coulda been worse, I guess, and it DID solve 2 problems for us, after all. We stayed a week, and then decided to return to Cartagena. I regret to say that I forgot to take any photos. I was totally uninspired, and it was all rather bleak, so no great loss. The best part about the passage back was the extraordinary moon rise on August 11th: HUGE and ORANGE. Nothing like being on the water for spectacular sun and moon rises and sets. The worst part were the unexpected choppy waves (poor Zoey blew lunch within an hour of our setting out!) and of course Collision Avoidance tactics in the very busy sea lanes separating Spain from North Africa. Upon our return to Yacht Port Cartagena, we were assigned our long term berth (which we had selected 10 days before), and we are now settled in! Our new Aussie friends Lee and Don also came here from Morocco, so we had a nice couple of days of socializing. Just as I suggested in my last ChaliGram, we are now in our “pied à mer” until we want to leave or the Frontier Police kick us out. We’re here just…..LIVING. Since we’ll be returning to the States in November anyway, we won’t even have the possibility of a passport problem until next June or so, since we’ll probably return to Spain in Feb/March. And who knows WHAT we’ll want to do then!

Now…. to backtrack. My last ChaliGram was written from beautiful Valencia where we were enjoying weekly fireworks and discovering the treasures in the neighborhood right next to the marina. Gosh, it’s hard to realize that that was only 3 stops ago! We had some fairly long daysails, from Valencia to Denia, then to Alicante, then Cartagena. Denia was a nice surprise because the new marina there only charged us 50% of an already comparatively low rate. (the other Marina and the Yacht Club there are much more expensive, like $100+/night or so.) Denia is the closest mainland harbour to the Balearic Islands (Ibiza is only 50 miles away), so the ferry traffic was rather heavy. It had a holiday resort feel to it, versus “real town.” The electronic-y, “trance-like” dancing sounds (i can’t really call it music!) playing at the club very close to our mooring place lasted til about 4:30am. Ugh. We left after 5 days. Next stop, Alicante which lived up to its reputation. It’s a GREAT town, and with its palm-tree lined, marble-tiled “Esplanade” along the harbour, it’s quite beautiful. It has everything…. including a fresh food market as large as the famous Boquería Market on Las Ramblas in Barcelona! The marina was enormous and had good facilities, but there was a waiting list for long term contracts through the marina office. I did an online search for privately-owned berths to see if there were any available for a 1 year contract; and…...there were! We almost signed on the dotted line, but felt we HAD to go to Cartagena first. Glad we did! When we departed Alicante at 6:45am on a Sunday, the Club behind the marina facilities was still packed with people dancing away. Apparently they stay open til 8am on the weekends. :-( …. and not just in the summer. So, 2 downsides to Alicante: 1-the marina is so big that it’s almost a kilometer just to get to the town, and 2/ the boom boom of music playing all night long. Call us old fuddy-duddy’s, but we like to sleep between midnight and 8am!! These 2 downsides are precisely 2 UPSIDES to Cartagena…, at least to our marina. We understand from an American couple who are just starting their Mediterranean Odyssey and who were moored on the town wall that the music was keeping them awake til 4:30 every morning! Ahhhh Spain! Our berth is close to town, and it’s quiet after midnight! And…. I feel a little like Goldilocks here, but Cartagena is just the right size town, too. I think we’ve each been just about everywhere on our bike. The scenery is wonderful. There’s a mix of gorgeous art nouveau buildings along the lovely major pedestrian street, baroque and neo classical military and church buildings and splendid archeological excavations of Roman and Carthaginian buildings. In 223, Hasdrubal (brother of the much more famous Hannibal) marched his army into the Iberian town of Mastia and renamed it Carthago Nova. He led his army against the Romans during the 2nd Punic War while his brother was busy invading Italy with his elephants! Eventually the Romans ruled here, then the Visigoths and the Moors, so…. there are lots of great — some, recently discovered! — archeological goodies…. and museums too! We are surrounded by mountains, with castles or forts topping many of the peaks. It features a huge natural harbour, making it the Mediterranean base of the Spanish Navy, and there are plenty of museums featuring maritime and underwater relics, as well. Next month is the annual Carthaginian-Roman Festival, where, among other things, there are re-enactments of battles that took place 2200 years ago! Those 2 weeks should offer opportunities for some good photos! There is a fresh food market plus about 4 major grocery stores all an easy bike ride away… and restaurants and ice cream places actually close enough for all 3 of us to go out without stressing our 4 legged crew member too much. All in all, it's a GREAT place to live! Chuck and I take turns going on the bike for “exploratory” rides. In fact he just came back from the Artillery Museum enthusiastically describing the pristine condition of the German 88 guns there, as well as the history and very effective upgrading of ALL the fortifications around here! Perhaps it’s just as well we do SOME things separately! ;-) And Zoey and I have already visited the vet (she rode in her vented dogbag, tied onto the back bike rack). In spite of some cruisers warning us that it was a little “bouncy” in this marina from all the fishing and commercial traffic near here, we are in a very good and secure spot, and haven’t experienced any discomfort! It’s not Barcelona, but it’s a close second. And…. it should be more temperate here during the winter than Barcelona was. There’s a pretty good article in wiki about it.

So, there won’t actually be any more sailing adventures to report on, although we may do some land travel. Chuck has never been to Granada, so that’s definitely on the agenda either this Fall or next Spring. The Semana Santa festivities during Easter week are supposed to rival anything that Andalucia has to offer… so plenty to look forward to here in beautiful Cartagena.

Now I need to go out and take some new photos of Cartagena, so you can see what I’m talking about! LATER: And, I might add, they don’t begin to scratch the surface. I haven’t even been to any museums yet. Chuck and I have to take turns seeing the sights because of our little old lady who just prefers staying in and sleeping … and not ALONE, either!

https://picasaweb.google.com/chaliventures/ChaliGram143ValenciaToCartagena?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ631uW0i8HqhQE&feat=directlink

Love,
Alison, Chuck and Zoey


Alison Spinney
Onboard ChaliVentures III in…. Spain