21 September 1993 Almerimar
I put on the final coat of antifoul today. I decided not to put any Micron antifoul on so that I can see if hard antifoul is OK. I tidied up and told the yard that I want to go back into the water on the 23rd.
I rang Glenys and she should be back by midday on the 23rd, so hopefully I will have everything straight. I’m feeling lonely now – I don’t think that I would make a good single handed sailor. I talked to an American single hander on “Mistral” who race-trims gliders for a living! He is presently setting up a factory to make kits for home built aircraft in Texas. The computer screen has gone funny again – I’m going to have to send it back.
22 September 1993 Almerimar
I did nothing today except tidy up. I’m going soft in my old age – I’ve run out of dog biscuits and I made a special trip to buy the dog a tin of dog food. If we lived in a house I’d adopt him!
23 September 1993 Almerimar
It was too windy to launch the boat this morning. In fact it was 30-35 knots during the night and I got up at four o’clock after I was rudely woken by the aft heads hatch crashing shut – I had to get up to check the shoring wedges!
I sat around waiting for Glenys and the boys to turn up. They should have arrived at about eleven o’clock this morning, but were delayed by 3 hours. They were shattered, so we went out for a meal and then lounged about.
24 September 1993 Almerimar
The wind died down during the night, so we launched the boat this morning. We went and filled up with fuel and then we spent most of the day tidying up, washing the decks and reassembling the rigging. I put two new inner tubes on Brett’s bike. It’s great to be back in the water.
25 September 1993 Almerimar
I put tell-tales on the genoa and put it back onto the forestay. I then did admin, sorted out the mail from UK, paid the marina bill, packed my computer ready for sending to UK and generally tidied up for sea. We’ve been here for 18 days, met a lot of people, carried out the main jobs but will be glad to be on our way. I’ve started to sort out the new charts for the Caribbean and I’m looking forward to getting to Gibraltar, so that we can escape from the Mediterranean and start our real journey.
26 September 1993 Almerimar to Motril
It was very foggy when we woke up, so we went back to bed for an hour. We left at about nine o’clock with two other British boats. One of them is Jill and Dave “The Don” on “ETU”.
We ran into very dense fog for a few hours. I had great fun using the radar to sneak up on Dave who hasn’t got a radar. We loomed out of the gloom about 50 metres from him and offered to sell him a radar. We then slipped quietly back into the fog leaving him alone.
We anchored off the Club Nautico in Motril. I checked out the engine on the passage and could only get 2000 rpm max – before I adjusted the pitch of the propeller I could get 2500 rpm – I wonder if this is a problem? I’ve also released the bearings on the log impellor and it’s over-reading now, so I’m trailing the other log to calibrate it. I reset the calibration – I think it’s OK. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Brett and I wandered around the village next to the Port of Motril – very squalid and not many shops. I think that we will go early tomorrow.
27 September 1993 Motril to Marina del Esta, Mona
It was really foggy again when we woke up. We waited a while until it looked as though it was clearing and then decided to go. By the time we had hauled up the anchor, the visibility was back down to 200 metres, but we decided to give it a whirl to go to Marina Del Este. We motored in visibility as bad as 50 metres with Glenys on visual watch (the cold one) and me down below watching the radar, GPS and the chart. I found it to be a bit like a video game (a bit exciting) whereas Glenys had the reality of staring into a fog bank.
We passed about 5 other boats, thank God for radar! The fog dramatically cleared when we were about 400 metres from the harbour entrance – smack on the nose, of course!
28 September 1993 Marina del Esta to Benalmadena
What a horrible trip. As soon as we left the marina, we encountered a 2 metre swell from the SW. There was no wind and the sea was very short and confused. We just motored into it, pitching madly - Chunder Factor 7. We arrived in company with “Roanne” who left Almerimar with us. Dave and Jill from “ETU” had arrived earlier in the day and came for a drink in the evening. Dave says that the Viceroy of India in Cornwallis Walk, Gibraltar does a good curry.
29 September 1993 Benamaldena
A shopping, washing and tidying-up sort of day. Benalmadena Marina is a very pleasant place with good facilities. I rode the bike to Torremolinos and found that the sea front is very nice with a narrow street full of shops and restaurants running parallel to the beach. After listening to Monty Python, I expected it to be a very rough place. There is an Oyster 39 for sale for £85K which is rougher than ours with a lot less gear (he’s got no chance!)
30 September 1993 Benamaldena to Duquesa
We motored out into a flat, oily sea. By half past ten, the wind had picked up enough for us to sail. We managed to hold a pretty good course until midday, when the wind veered and headed us. It took us 3½ hours to go the last 10 miles with 30 knot gusts on the nose. I really enjoyed it, but it was very tiring.
When I went to check in to the marina, the guy carefully typed all our details into his computer, which then lost the lot! I’ve noticed that it takes twice as long to check in at marinas which have computers (even if they don’t lose the data). The marina is exactly like the rest on the Costa Del Sol – boring.
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