Well that was a longer jaunt than expected. That's the beauty of having sails and an engine -if the weather suits you can keep going.We passed 2 ships of any significance ( most were tankers and fishing boats) They were a navy ship 'Tofino' and our very own 'Queen Elizabeth' heading to Gibraltar.

Sorry let's start at the very beginning as Maria would say- We left Estepona on Thursday about 11.30 heading to Fuengirola about 30 miles up the coast , but the sun shone and 3 dolphins played on our bow wave so we thought, what the heck let's do an overnighter and changed course to Aguadulce across the next bay.

Just before the sun went down the sky turned orange and 2 flying fish landed on the deck. They looked harmless so Ricky carefully popped them back over the side. They are hilarious to watch, especially at dusk they catapult out of the water and appear to fly haphazardly , landing with a splash.It's as if they don't actually know they can fly until they are in the air, and therefore have no idea how or where they are going to land. I'm sure this is not the case , but it made us chuckle to think it was.There was no moon on show so during our night watches the stars appeared even brighter than usual.One really bright star appeared to be leading us the way to go as it was directly ahead of us the entire night. That along with the pods of dolphins who joined us in the darkness periodically throughout the night. We were eventually graced by a slither of moon and very soon I saw the beautiful sunrise in the picture, that hopefully I will be able to upload from new camera , so that you can see it !! Another magical moment.

Before we reached Aduadulce we had another change of heart and decided upon San Jose as this looked so much nicer in our pilot book.Instead of the new concrete marinas we have experienced this was a small harbour sat amongst the cliffs with limited visitors births.The book said it has a small village, caves and sandy beaches - sounds perfect. The trouble was we should have taken more notice of the limited visitors births bit -we got there and yes you're ahead of me ...it was full. They did say they could maybe squeeze us in if we hung on a bit but it would have been a squeeze so , surprise surprise we changed plans again and opted for another night sail across the next bay to Cartagena, which although much larger, a commercial port as well as a fishing port, boasted 2 marinas and an ancient Amphitheater, dating back to the middle of the 1 century AC. Which dear readers is where we are now.47 hours and 45minutes - our longest passage so far !!

We had an explore yesterday and bumped into Chris Cook from HFRS and his wife , who live over here now. (Small world) They are both fine and enjoying the Spanish way of life.

This port is a popular place to winter your boat in, especially for Cat owners(no landlubbers- not the tiddles kind, although we did actually see a cat on a Cat , a beautiful tabby) as they pay the same price as single hull boats. Needless to say we are very much the littlest visitor here! Not that our neighbours are unfriendly or anything, just richer with larger boats.

Too many jellyfish around for our liking , although we did swim off the back of the boat sailing here as it was hot hot hot. Glad you guys are getting some nice weather now at home.

Take it easy and don't forget your sunscreen,
Love Donna and Ricky xx