I can not believe that we have been back in Blighty for over a month and I have left you dear readers in Ibiza. How time flies. So with no further ado, I need to catch you up on the last few weeks of our summer sailing 2023.

Tuesday 15th August
We left the bay, the fish, the baby octopus and the ray on a mission. Daryl had suggested we check out the famous Ibiza Café Mambo. He said we could anchor off the beach and listen to the ambient music at sunset. Heading West along the craggy, rocky shore we had hoped to call in at Cala Benirras first to listen to Bongos at sundown and visit the Hippy Market, but sadly it was too crowded - there's always next year. So we continued along the coast. We ended up in the marina in the bay of San Antonio, which turned out to be just a short walk from Cafe Mambo. Ambient is not a word I would use to describe the music Brother-mine. It definitely had the Ibiza vibe, along with the Ibiza partygoers, wearing the tiniest bikinis I had ever seen. Gosh did I feel old - cheers Bro! The sunset was pretty spectacular though, I'll give him that.

One last stop off anchorage in Ibiza before we head across to the Spanish mainland at Denia. We found what we thought was the perfect spot, but on diving down to check the anchor the seabed look like it belonged in the film set of 'Cacoon.'There was very little sand and loads of cocoon shaped, alien sized boulders, one of which we had managed to get the anchor stuck under. Not the perfect spot after all, despite the potential for eternal youth, so we jostled the anchor free to continue on our way. Sadly our next choice wasn't much better. After a couple of hours , one by one the other boats left . Local knowledge is a great thing. They knew that as soon as the wind wind stopped the tide would swirl around the bay and they would be in for a very rocky night. We were going to have to leave too, but as we had run out of places to anchor our only choice was to head out to sea and sail overnight to Denia. Although leaving as the light was fading and lots of brightly lit fishing boats blinding us once we got nearer the coast , the trip was ok. Ricky bless him took watch most of the night so when we arrived at 8 am, he crashed and I went for a little walk around the port. Although we've been here before I didn't recognise anything, but the marina was very smart and the town friendly. Tomorrow we set off for the last leg of our journey to Valencia where we will be leaving the boat until Christmas.

It would appear that fate put us in the right place at the right time as we were sailing up the coast from Denia to Valencia. We spotted a group of birds hovering over what looked like a lobster pot floating with the aid of some plastic bottles. There was something not quite right as the birds were hovering around and squabbling amongst them selves. I thought I saw a turtle shell amongst the bedlam. As we headed nearer towards the commotion, Ricky's fishing line whizzed to let us know he had caught a fish , then seconds later the bell attached to his hand line also rang. A fish on each line and an odd group of birds who had no intention of moving away - a dilemma indeed.

Ricky decided both of the fish needed to be unhooked and returned to the sea before we could investigate the frenzied birds. Very quickly Ricky landed, admired, kissed (it's an angler thing) and returned both fish to the sea, then he asked if I wanted to go back. He warned me that we didn't know what we would find, if it was a turtle caught up in the net, chances are it would not be alive. I said I still wanted to see if we could help so we turned the boat around and headed back. When we got there, it was a turtle. Amazingly he was still alive, albeit completely and utterly mangled in netting, fishing line and lumps of plastic. Ricky managed to steer the boat close enough for me to gently hook part of the nylon net and drag the mess and turtle to the back of the boat so that Ricky could try his best to untangle the poor creature. I'd love to say that the turtle knew he was being saved and behaved himself, but actually, that wasn't the case. He wriggled and snapped the entire time, petrified I'm sure, as Ricky tried to cut away the rubbish. It was no mean feat as Ricky was balanced on the back of the boat trying not to hurt the turtle with his knife or be hurt himself by that beak. Eventually he managed to cut the last of rubbish away from the turtle before losing his own balance and falling head first into the water. As the turtle swam away and dived down under the surface and a bedraggled and knackered Ricky climbed back on the boat I felt so proud of my man. Attached to the poor creature had been 3 plastic bottles, a large plastic crate and yards of plastic rope. No wonder he couldn't move poor thing x We won't forget that experience ever - in the huge ocean that covers our planet we were definitely "right, place, right time."

So dear readers, I'm up to date-Hoorah!
As I write, Patience is tucked up in Marina Juan Carlos València, who some of you may recognise as the place we stayed during The Winter of 2015/16 on route to Greece - all those years ago.

Thanks for reading, especially those of you who have been following our sailing adventures from the beginning.
Catch you later,
Donna and Ricky AKA 2 Clueless Day Skippers with Patience xx