GHOST

So the real reason for heading the Spanish mainland, or Denia more specifically, instead of heading south ASAP to escape the weather was we had finally taken the plunge and decided a watermaker was worth the 8.5k euros for our coming Atlantic crossing and south Pacific cruising. So on the recommendation of mates Ross and Jo from Soujorn, we booked up the installation of a Dessalator water maker!! So in it went over Thursday and Friday. We raised all the floorboards to those less than convenient places that we hardly ever see and Martin (the main man at Dessalator) did an amazing job of fitting it perfectly into the most obscure of locations. Net result we now have the ability to take sea water and turn it into the purest water you're likely to find at a rate of 60l an hour. The machine is so very simple and bomb proof, so we couldn't be happier with it.

So once it was tested we literally hightailed out of Denia at 4pm, as while it was a nice town (not that I saw it as I was either helping Martin and learning or feeling poorly with a chest infection we all seem to have suffered now) the marina suffered a terrible surge almost all the time so we turned south to crew off a good 250 miles over 2 nights and 2 days at sea.

It was a fairly straight forward passage. On leaving Denia the sea state was up from a couple of days of wind which made for a less comfortable ride but some good speed and sailing. The weather abated and we sailed, motored, and sailed our way around Capo de Gata and on towards Motril. At dusk, or 30 mins before it, on the second night disaster nearly struck. We heard a terrible thumping noise as the prop changed pinch, so bolting to the controls it was straight into neutral when we discovered a fishing net on the prop. AAARHHHH! Only half an hour to sunset we are floating in several hundred metres of water. So it was a quick rationalisation that indeed there was nothing to fear, it is only deep water and I was over the side, knife between teeth to cut the culprit free. Was surprisingly easy as I think the fact our prop folds when stopped which kind of helped the net off. So 5 mins later we were thanking our lucky stars it was nothing more serious and we were on our way again.

We are now only miles from a marina south of Malaga where we intend to spend a couple of nights to make a day trip to Grenada with its famous Alhambra, before heading into Gibraltar early as there is some rubbish weather forecast from Wednesday onwards.