We arrived back in Cartagena on Monday 14th March courtesy of Easyjet (just 30mins late for the early 6.40 flight out of Gatwick). We had hired a car from Murcia Airport and the pick-up and drive to the marina went smoothly. Splice had weathered the winter months pretty well, as expected the external areas were very dirty but internally no sign of damp and things as we left her. Thanks to George from Silver Discus and the marina staff for their attention to her welfare. We have spent the past 5 days starting to work through the ‘to do list’ which seems to gain items at approximately twice the speed we can cross them off as done! The main issue has been small orange blotches all over the external hull like a weird case of measles, really difficult to get off as well, each area needs to be individually rubbed with bicarbonate of soda (great cleaning agent) so it has taken a good few hours to work around the decks. Mostly done now and the grit and dirt has also mostly been removed. We have also got the two fore sails back on and done multiple other tasks including two failed attempts to fix the dinghy leak. Chris has re-glued the dodgy seam twice only to have the same seam split further up when pressure is restored. The third attempt this morning includes a large patch over the offending area to support the seam – we shall see! We are still trying to find someone to fix/make us a new bimini-top as the guy we organized last season has let us down and we are awaiting the return of our gas alarm and sensor which have been taken away for testing as they insisted on screaming at us as soon as turned on – suspicious as the gas bottles were still turned off! (we also have an independent hand held tester and that’s quite happy).
Our liferaft was due for servicing as required every three years for SOLAS and insurance purposes. This was arranged with a local SOLAS agent who came to collect it on Thursday and invited us to go to their premises the following day to watch it being unpacked, checked for the expiry of the contents ie batteries, seasickness tablets etc and test inflated. We took them up on their invitation and observed them unpacking the liferaft and to our horror were told that our painter (the mooring rope) had not been attached to the liferaft so, had we needed to deploy it, the raft would have just drifted away! Thankfully they assured us that the painter was securely attached before repacking and bringing it back to the boat. We have of course written a strongly worded email to ADEC Marine where we brought it, giving them our thoughts.
We have also been preparing for the ‘Invasion of the Mothers’- both our mothers are flying out on Monday to spend 10 days with us on board. Both in their 80’s it will be a chance to experience the ‘boaty lifestyle’ in the safety of the marina and to see the Easter celebrations in Cartagena. The main issue has been clearing enough space as our third cabin is normally the storage area but the marina have kindly stored our bikes in their workshop for the period so ‘Mothers’ will have somewhere to sleep.
Easter starts early in Cartagena and there are already celebrations around the town, the churches are dressed with huge floral displays and there are processions each day with large religious effigies carried by teams of men or women on long poles through the base. We had drinks on board Splice with the crews of three other boats on Friday night and then wandered into town around 2100 hrs to see the end of the processions as the effigies arrived in the final square for prayers and fireworks (it’s Spain - read this as loud bangers /no pretty lights).
We joined in a Tapas Night on Wednesday with the other marina live-aboards which was good fun and spent Saturday evening wandering the streets and tapas bars ourselves to enjoy the ambiance of the town. Its Sunday afternoon now and we have spent a couple of hours at the regular Sunday lunchtime BBQ with the marina crowd, cook your own meat and chat with the other sailors in the sunshine, its over 24 degrees in the sun today.

The photo is by Iphone in the darkness of the procession but gives an idea of the spectacle