This time I am heading for my winter berth in Lagos, PT and I will be re-visiting many of the ports at which I stopped on the way into the Med.  So there will be very little sight-seeing and pictures on this page as I am moving as quickly as possible to get to Lagos by mid-September.  I have a lot of projects on Sarah to get her ready to re-cross the Atlantic next year and the sooner I get started the better.

Once more my route is shown by the thin black line on the chart.  It is best viewed by double-clicking on the chart and down loading the full resolution image.  Other than the week I spent in Almerimar waiting out a gale and a near-gale, I pushed it pretty hard to get back to Gib.  While heading into the Med I limited most of my days to less than 45 nm.  On the voyage out of the med I did 3 days in excess of 65 nm.

I had planned to stop early in Torrevieja and anchor for the night.  I had spent two nights there on the way to the Balearics and found if a pleasant anchorage.  While in the Balearics, I had also heard from other cruisers that the harbormaster had kicked all of the anchored boats out of the harbor since I was there.  Apparently this has been an ongoing battle between the harbormaster and cruisers supported by the local sailors.  The harbormaster seems to view his job (rightly, most likely) as insuring the salt dock operates safely and efficiently and that boats have unfettered access to the local marinas.  Although the anchored boats do not appear to have caused any real problems for those two goals, I'm sure the harbormaster's job would be a lot easier if there were no anchored boats in the harbor.

Up until recently the fact that the anchored boats caused no real problems has kept the harbor open for cruisers.  This is a great benefit as there are few protected harbors between Alicante and Cartagena, other than the Mar Menor, and no anchorages protected from an easterly swell.

So on this day I was also checking out the situation in the harbor to verify that it was indeed closed to anchored boats.  When I entered the harbor it was clear, the anchorage is closed.  Although there was nothing posted, there were no boats anchored in the harbor.  Rather than drop my hook and wait to be told to leave, I opted to find another destination.  I did not want to spend another night in a marina, so I looked for another anchorage.  There was a light easterly wind and swell running that day, so none of the anchorages along the coast above Cabo de Palos would be very comfortable.  There is a possible anchorage in the outer harbor at Tomas Maestre on the Mar Menor, but I felt that was very iffy as that area was being developed.  So I looked past Palos and decided to head to the Ensenada de Mazarron, just west of Cartagena.  I had anchored there on the way up the coast and knew it was protected from the east and had decent holding ground.  Of course it was another 45 nm past Torrevieja.  As it was then noon, I would be arriving in Mazarron around sunset.  So I motored down to Palos and motor-sailed to Mazarron.  I got the hook down just before dark, cooked dinner, then crashed after a 13 hour trip.  My anchor position is shown on the SOB screen capture on the right.

Subsequently I have been told by other cruisers that the harbormaster will allow you to anchor for one night in Torrevieja.  That is probably the reason no one was anchored in the harbor when I arrived.  It was late morning.  The boats anchored the previous night had left, and the boats for the current night had not arrived as yet.

The habor at Aguilas and Sarah's anchor position are shown on the SOB screen capture on the left.

While swimming the water seemed very clean, then I noticed many of the fishing boats stopped just off the anchorage and washed down their decks before proceeding to the fishing dock.  Maybe swimming in this harbor is not such a good idea after all.

The coast between Aguilas and Cabo de Gata is probably the least developed of Mediterranean Spain.  There are no real marinas and few calas that provide protection from any direction except the west.  So it is necessary to cover the 45 nm distance in one jump and anchor at one of the calas in the vicinity of Gata.

After one night in Aguilas I planned to depart on a light NE wind and anchor either off the town of San Jose or in the Puerto de Genoves (where I stopped back in June).  I got the anchor up shortly after dawn and motored south.  About 15 nm out of Aguilas I hit southerly winds that increased to about force 4.  Not only was this un-forecast wind slowly my progress to less than 5 knots it eliminated all of my planned anchorages except Puerto de Genoves.  However when I anchored in that harbor last June with similar winds I experienced 40 kts Katabatic winds in the anchorage.  I decided to return to Aguilas, recheck the weather forecasts and try it again the next day.

Still I departed just before sunrise the next morning.  The forecasts again predicted a NE wind all the way to Gata.  Hopefully it would be true today.

The Marineros on duty put me into a berth and the next day I checked in with the office.  I planned to stay 5 nights to let the gale blow itself out, then head out again for Gibraltar.

The SOB screen capture of Sarah's position in the Almerimar marina demonstrates that the GPS position plotted by electronic charts can be off by a bit.  Sarah is actually berthed on the longer pier about 200M SE of the position shown.  This turned out to be a problem with the C-Map chart.  Most charts are based on WGS84 datum and the chart plotting software uses that standard to plot a GPS position.  The paper chart on which C-MAP based this harbor chart was based on another datum set, hence the plotted position was off by about 200M.  Remember when we throught we were doing really good if we could plot our position within 1 nm of the real position?  I relayed this discrepancy to C-MAP via DigiBoat and hopefully today berthed yachts are more accurately plotted on this chart.

The next afternoon I was happy with my decision to press on around Gata rather than stopping for the night.  Around 1:00 PM the winds started to pick up out of the west.  Still light (< 12 kts), but enough to have forced me to motor into head winds and seas making for a slower, longer trip.

On the voyage in June from Almerimar to the Balearics my main physical complaint was my sore back.  This condition started in Marina del Este with the installation of the new autopilot course computer and continued until I stopped and rested for 5 days in Altea before sailing to Ibiza.  The source of the back pain was the contortions required to perform electrical wiring and plumbing installations on a small boat, and the healing really couldn't begin until I had performed all of the equipment repairs that became necessary after leaving Cascais in April.

On the return voyage from the Balearics my physical problems are concentrated in my feet, particularly my little toes.  When I am onboard Sarah I am normally barefoot.  I feel a lot more secure on deck and moving around below bare foot.  Unfortunately there are a lot of things on Sarah that make good toe-stubbers, and I have found them all, repeatedly.  I seem to lead with my little toes so they have taken the brunt of the punishment, and since I stub them at least once each day, the sores and cuts never get a chance to heal.  Hopefully the extended stay in Almerimar will allow a little bit of healing, otherwise I guess it will have to wait until the fall in Lagos.

Almerimar has a reputation for surge in strong SW winds, but that did not appear to be the case with these winds.  As you can see there is a small chop in the harbor, but that appears to be only the result of the fetch over the large basin between the docks and the outer breakwater (to the left, out of the picture). 

I was also put in a 18M berth rather than the 15M berth that Sarah would normally occupy.  This larger berth made it difficult to get sufficient tension on the mooring lines to keep Sarah straight in the berth.  Consequently the stern was blown off to port and close to the large powerboat in the next berth.  With the help of one of the Marineros I was able to put more tension on the mooring lines before the gale struck, but still Sarah's aft quarter hung very close to the powerboat.  The mooring lines did have sufficient tension to prevent any real pressure on the fenders concentrated in this area.  That was a good thing as the very high bow of the powerboat and Sarah's aft quarter do not line up.  If the boats had come together the fenders could not have prevented the powerboat's bow from crushing the stern rail on Sarah.

The gale force winds came and went for the next 24 hours.  We were still experiencing Force 5 - 6 winds (25 - 30 kts) periodically  on Thursday, Aug 17.  That night the winds finally died to under 20 kts., and except for a few gusts, stayed under 15 knots the next day.  I had planned to depart on the 18th, but the winds were still fresh out of the west (the direction I was headed) and the seas were still up.  I elected to stay put until Sunday morning to allow the seas to die down.

As it turned out there was a very light wind out of the west on Tuesday.  So I motored from Almerimar to the anchorage at La Herradura.  La Herradura is just west of the Punta de la Mona and the Marina del Este.  I spent a very expensive 9 days in the Marina del Este back in May sorting out my autopilot problems.  This time I avoided the €50 marina fee and anchored in La Herradura.  On the right is a picture of the Punta de la Mona and the Marina del Este as I passed on my way to La Herrradura.

I had planned to depart for Estepona around 6:00 AM, but I was wide awake at 3:30, so I got up, made coffee then got underway around 4:30.

This looked like it would be a really good marina experience, until I started to secure Sarah in the assigned berth.  When I pulled the lazy mooring line (AKA the Slime Line) to its extent I found no mooring line attached.  Probably the last boat to use this berth cut the lazy line with its prop on departing and didn't report the problem to the marina.  So I went back to the reception dock while the Marineros tried to recover the mooring line.   After over an hour they gave up and assigned me to another berth.

In spite of this screw up my impression of the Puerto de Estepona is very positive.  It's just that I was very tired from no sleep the night before and a 14 hour motor trip from La Herradura.  Having to cool my heels at the reception dock for over an hour was not something I wanted to do.

When I woke a very thick fog had settled into the harbor.  By the time I cleared my bill and checked out of the marina the fog had lifted in the harbor so I left, confident that the fog would lift at sea within an hour or two.

At sea the fog was pea soup.  When did the Med start looking like New England?

The fog persisted for several more hours.  I was beginning to think I would have to navigate all the way into Algeciras Bay in the fog.  Still with the combination of radar and AIS I did not feel this was a major problem.

I'm not sure I would been able accomplish all of that before plowing into the net if the fog had not lifted.

As Sarah rolled and plunged in the now 1.5M seas I kept thinking of 30 years of sludge in the bottom of the fuel tank that was now being "shaken, not stirred" with the fuel heading for the engine.  I knew the Racor filter would stop that sludge from getting to the injectors, but I didn't know how long it would be before the filter became clogged and the fuel flow shut down.

Fortunately I didn't find out, the engine continued to run at high RPMs, I cleared Europa Pt. and entered Algeciras Bay.  By 15:00 I was in a berth at Marina Bay.

The first order of business the next day was to clean the fuel filter bowl and replace the filter element.  Maybe a thank you note to the Racor Company as well.

Fortunately there are not that many flights in and out of Gib, and I don't remember any after dark.