I (sarah) joined as an "incompetent crew" member of Yacht Muirgen for a 10 day break, encouraged by hubby, as I'd not had a holiday in 18 months, thanks to Covid; not that I needed any persuasion to see good friends, Donna and Pete. Apart from cycling the odd pedalo and a cruise from Hartlepool to Runswick Bay, in the calmest weather ever, I've not been involved with sailing. However, Tim (hubby) has recently got the sailing bug and was keen to practice his new found skills, having sailed with Pete from La Rochelle to Porto last year and completed a day skipper theory. He therefore wanted more sail time, so he is sailing from Jerez (well the nearest port to) to Mar Menor to help store the boat for the Winter.

We arrived at Jerez airport and caught a taxi to Puerto Rota, which is well worth a stop. I'd happily go there for short break. It has a nice harbour, loads of locals and wide sandy beaches and warm, shallow sea. The town has tourism (where doesn't in Spain) but it is traditional, mainly low rise and it's certainly not the hideous meccas to English tourism that the more well-known parts of the Costa del Sol have become. I'm sure Donna has detailed the stops so I won't go over them again but more focus on how I found sailing! Well, it's a bit like horse-riding (my main passion), with lots of constant prep and hard work for a bit of fun, but worth it. We got up to 7.5 knots of speed one day, which was great. The peace and quiet out on the ocean, away from everyone, soothes the soul and I've become much more aware of the weather and how quickly it changes. I also found, as we anchored or pulled into harbour, the simple acts of tidying up, provisioning the boat, prepping meals, just about allowed for some relaxation, although Tim and I haven't done too much cooking as Pete and Donna are mine host and much the better cooks!
I ended up staying a bit longer than anticipated, having to have an emergency passport created when mine went missing, so as Donna went home I stayed with the boys to sail from Benalmadena to Almeria. Once you get out of the main drag of the Costa del Sol, you return much more to the Spain we'd all like. We followed the coastline for miles and miles of covered vegetable market gardening - apparently this part of Spain provides vegetables for a lot of Europe - next time you're shopping your "from Spain" avocado or whatever may well come from this area. There was quite a lot of beach resorts but mainly inhabited by Spanish. We did try to anchor one night in a cove but the sea bed was shingle and Pete wasn't happy but it did give us a good view of the nudist beach and its inhabitants whilst we tried!
Another purpose-built Marina was Almerimar, which had a beautiful marina and lovely seafront bars and restaurants right onto the beach and a lovely evening promenade. The beach was weirdly like ballast but the shallow sea bay was pure sand. Again for a lovely low key stop and would make just a nice holiday sans boat even.

Well, I fly back tomorrow, probably much to the boys' relief, and they are sitting in harbour likely to sail out on Friday round the notorious Cabo de Gata where we were advised to wait for a westerly wind and the tides in the right direction. From there they are on the home run to winter mooring, in the Mar Menor.

We met the lovely Robin, a RYA instructor, in Gibraltar and Tim will likely go and do his day skipper practical there and likely I will try and convert from incompetent crew to the competent variety.

Must go, have a few more knots to practice tying!

Thanks for reading.