THE DAMOCLETIAN VOYAGES 2019
All my life, which has seen many changes, one thing has remained invariant; my love of sailing, mostly racing. But over the past ten years, it has become voyaging (and on-line racing!) that has absorbed my interest; so much so, that my wife Susan and I were mad enough to acquire a cruising boat of our own in early 2018. She's a J-122 and her name is Damacle, and some (many?) would have it, she's a racing boat, but we disagree. At best she is a cruiser-racer. Her glazed hatches and cabin windows are be-curtained, just like any true cruiser. However, they are detachable, when she becomes a racer! But most of all, she is a sailing boat that responds to little wind, which suits us fine as we prefer to voyage when the forecasts are benign.
Last year, I shared Damacle's adventures with some of our friends via the simple medium of email. This year in 2019, I am experimenting with a blog format, which hopefully will prove to be a more accessible and permanent medium than email chains that over time knot-up like pairs of flogging genoa sheets.
I have also attempted to create an index of sorts - little chart-buttons that if you click on them will take you to a particular passage. Try them; they might work.
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Valletta to Cetraro - May 2019
It's been hectic since embarking from Valletta last Thursday morning bright and early, as indeed it was for the three weeks prior, getting Damacle ship-sorted. Ship-shape would be overstating things a little, as per the Fine Fail 2002 election poster there was simply "A Lot Done. More to Do". That gives us six years to make the most of her, before the next crisis!!
A quick escape, half-way through our stay in Malta, to Vienna for a young couple's wonderful wedding and four days of museum marching didn't help us keeping to schedule, so in the end our departure was a week later than planned.
However, the Vienna idyll was not the significant source of our delays, but rather my continuing unrealistic expectations of yachting industry service levels, so that it was only on the last day that the chip with charts for the Western Med for our new Garmin plotter arrived at the chandlers in St Paul's, and that on that same day, the mountain-goat-like rigger Nicky Samut became available to reposition the masthead top plate complete with wind sensor, the steaming lights and the spreader decklights, and to re-rig new lazyjacks which had blown away in last winter's major storm over the island. Nicky, when available, is an amazing operator, and all the above got done by him on his own in four hours flat.
Other work that got done over the three weeks included fitting a new propeller, replacing the saildrive seal, full engine service, fixing the loo properly, replacing the seacocks, hull cleaning, antifouling and zincs, fitting new stereophonic speakers, fitting stainless strakes where the mooring lines rub the hull, servicing the winches, servicing and refitting the backstay hydraulic cylinder, fitting a halyards holding bracket for'd of the mast, and of course fitting the new plotter on a re-designed hoop and binnacle pedestal arrangement. Thanks to Dermot Bremner, Jacques Vassallo and Alfred Caruana for all the support in getting this to-do list completed.
So, here Susan and I are today then; in Cetraro, half-way up the coast of Calabria, after another wet and windy, this time only 9-hour passage, having spent three nights in Tropia, lingering there a day longer than planned, not because it is a truly fabulous place, which it truly is, but because a tummy bug caught me!
These are poignant porto's for me, since these are the last places Pete Hogan and I visited together with my great Portuguese friend João Malafaia, before ending our passage a trois in Milazzo on the north eastern corner of Sicily, where it turned out, we not only saw (or rather experienced) the old propeller for the last time, but also João. Grande abraço, João.
To get to Tropia, we had sailed and motored first to stunning Siricusa, where we arrived late and anchored inside its very sheltered bay, to pick up a berth on Marina Yachting the next morning, where later in the day other Irish voyagers moored up, and a wonderful evening was enjoyed by all, dining and imbibing in The Assassin at the back end of Ortega Island. James and Pat and Noel, for it was they, left early the next morning, while we stayed on for a day more orientation around Ortega.
The next day we left for Giardini Bay at the foot of Mount Etna, and, as was the case on our passage from Valletta to Siricusa, in the afternoon the wind picked up considerably. Close in under the steep slopes down from Taormina at the northern end of the bay, the shelter was however good, from the wind that is, but not from a cross-swell, causing us to have a brief and much sleep-disturbed night.
Having already done 14 hours non-stop to Siricusa, and this time a further 11.5 hours to find a poor anchorage, my proposal at the crack-of-dawn to next head through the Straits of Messina to Tropea, a further 55 miles northward, was met with some incredulity. Nevertheless, my planning prevailed, if at a further cost to my reputation, as, only 10.5 hours later, approaching Tropea, the wind again picked up and thunder and lightning were in wait to greet us. My crew, she truly is a saint, and the weather can only improve!
Cetraro to Procida - May 2019
We have sailed and motored a further 150 nm since leaving Cetraro on Friday; basically, 50nm and 8 to 9 hours a day. We had got to Cetraro a day earlier in a strong following breeze, and perhaps a tad over-canvassed, and had found the place sleepy in the extreme. There by two in the afternoon, we went alongside at the fuel dock, where a solitary angler, who was home from his job in London, helped us moor alongside. The dock was unattended, but after a call to CH10, a man turned up after an hour. After refueling us, he rang the marina to say we were coming in. Moored up half an hour later, the ormeggiatori in charge told me to call in to the office after six, which I did, after which I had to hang around for another half hour with three ormeggiatori in their canteen, until the office team of two turned up. I paid E40 which included electricity. Clearly a socialist marina!
Susan cooked on board and, after reminiscing how we had thundered past the place on the train from Naples to Palermo six years ago saying to each other "not a great spot for a holiday!" we went to bed early and had a good sleep. It was ten o'clock by the time we left the next day for Camerota. Sunny and with wind abaft, we motor-sailed the whole day to arrive just after five and gently run aground on the sandbar across the entrance. It does seem that many of these harbours (Tropea and Cetraro were no different) have a tendency to silt up especially over the winter, but alas no buoyage or instructions had been provided to/for us unwary visitors on this occasion at all. We VHF'd in, were able to reverse off and an ormeggiatori came out in a dinghy to show us the right track across, literally only meters to the right of where we'd grounded.
We had a nice meal ashore in a slightly pretentious restaurant, quite out of tune with the ambling, rustic nature of the town, and left the next morning, with various destinations in mind. Agropoli seemed nice, with ancient Paestum just five miles out of town and perhaps worth a visit, but the pontoon organization inside was particularly confusing with seven concessionaries, and the first one I rang spoke no English and said "No" (è lo stesso in Italian). The next number rang out.
As a good breeze from astern had by now built up, we decided to sail on for d'Arechi, a fine, new, very large, relatively empty marina, a few miles south of Salerno. The ormeggiatori there had some battery issues with his VHF, but after a phone call with the office, guidance arrived and we were docked by seven p.m.. Like all these over-grand marinas along the Italian mainland, the place was a bit overpriced, but a pizza-bar with excellent pizza at Italian mass market prices, fifty paces from our berth compensated. Having seen a benign forecast for our next passage to Procida, we made a late start the next day and initially enjoyed a gentle breeze close reaching along the Amalfi coast. But then the wind moved ahead and strengthened. We furled and were happy that we had adopted the precaution of putting a reef in before leaving, ever since Tropea.
With the engine assisting, we tacked and tacked our way to the strait at Capri. It was slow-going, but after the corner we were able to cut the engine and bomb along to Procida. But the wind moved more ahead again, and after two hours it was motor-beating once more into a F4-5. Thankfully, as so often, as the evening drew in, the wind moderated slightly, and as we closed, the island gave us shelter from the seastate as well.
Two ormeggiatori, one in a rubber duck, expertly helped us moor up, and by half eight we were sitting down to dinner on the seafront, just a bit more exhausted than we would have wished.
Procida to Santa Marinella - May 2019
A few days earlier we had left Procida with considerable reluctance. Not only had the island been enchanting, the marina charges had been very reasonable (for Italy) at 40E a night, and the weather had been continuing to look unpromising: cloudy skies and more headwinds. So, still feeling tender after our upwind struggles of two days earlier, we kept the main under cover and just unfurled the jib to assist the engine as we fetched to Gaeta, 35 nm further up the track.
The clouds cleared and the wind stayed, and it was looking to be an uneventful day, until the Guardia di Finanza arrested us coming into port. A big launch with many seriously uniformed men on board! Susan chatted them up, while up on the bridge the head Guardia was perusing, photo-copying and transcribing our papers (one assumes). Turned out one of the more senior crew had raced Solings back in the day and knew Marshall King and Roy Heiner. So that was alright then.
Once in, the office repeated the paperwork perusing, photo-copying and transcribing process, and charged us 85E for the night, which should have forced us to go out and explore what the place was like; only we were too tired, so Susan prepared a perfect pasta instead and we went to bed early.
It was gone ten o'clock the next day, before our energy had returned sufficiently to attempt the next passage, which was to the Bay of Anzio. The weather had finally improved and a fair wind of perhaps 10kn from the west pushed us along nicely. We rang ahead to Marina di Nettuno, and this time they had a berth. Last year with Fred and Ross, they had not, and we had had to divert to the fishersman's quay in Anzio, which in hindsight was in fact the better option, as Nettuno was expensive, our visitor's berth poor, the marina badly secured and the town not particularly attractive, unless you are a fan of 1960's town planning and high rise architecture.
We left earlier than usual at 09:00 the next day, and after a few hours motorsailing, we could turn the engine off and close-reached at 7kn in a kind F3 till it was time to strike sail and enter the port of Santa Marinella.
Marinella to Solenzaro - May 2019
Porto Vecchio is yet another gem, and since leaving Santa Marinella two days ago, gems have been par for the course, as we first put into Santo Stefano and then crossed to Elba where we tied up on Porto Azzuro's municipal marina, right in the heart of the town.
Our passage to Santo Stefano featured a small detour via Isola Giannutri, where I had anchored last year (see Fred and the mozzies), but the forecast expected the winds to back into the south, which meant the cove, where, wherever you pick, you have to anchor close in, was going to be exposed, so we baled out to arrive in Stefano by 6 p.m. As it happens, one of my online sailing rivals who races by the name of Ricotina runs a waterfront restaurant there. Needless to say, we sought him, and his establishment, Il Molleto, out, to surprise him thatbonknhoot and Mrs. bonk were his impromptu guests. We enjoyed great food and bade Andrea farewell until the next online race.
On Saturday then it was onward to Elba. The wind had indeed gone further south, but as it was light-moderate we again motor-sailed, and this time all the way. One thing that is not so great in Porto Azzuro are the showers, but compared to the facilities in Santo Stefano, they are luxurious. There are segregated men and women facilities, each with several shower cubicles, and there is a janitor who keeps the place clean and wants E2.50, unless you have a pass from the marina office. However, Azzuro's ablutive infrastructure is well past its amortised life, unlike that of Stefano, which is brand new, but features only one cubicle for everybody and no attendant.
So, freshly showered and scented, it was off again the next morning which dawned drizzly and missr'ly. Heading now mostly south towards Corsica and with some 70nm to traverse, the wind, having turned round during the night, was once again astern, and the engine had to put in several more hours until luckily around 4 p.m. the air pressure was sufficient to average 6kn plus under sail alone. Fuel had gone very low - so, at least, the gauge indicated.
And thus, as the weather deteriorated ever further, we got in and moored up on the fuel dock in Solenzara at 8 p.m. for some superior on-board cooking and after that a well-earned rest.
Unfortunately, our rest was of short duration, as the weather disimproved further during the night and by 6 a.m. I was up on deck in the rain taking the boat astern on her lines further away from the swell that had started to refract round the mole of the dock. A half hour later I was back in bed, but sleep was over.
After refueling, a young man in a rubber dinghy helped us to get off against a stiff crosswind, which went well, and then to reverse into a berth along the harbor wall, which went less well. Ashore we found Solenzara to be a pleasant, quite place, and given the very poor forecasts for the next several days ahead rented a car, and it is the car that has transported us to belle Porto Vecchio, whilst Damacle shall stay put behind Solenzara's wall until it is time to leave for Mallorca with new crew, and it looks like hopefully better weather.
Solenzaro to Mahon - June 2019
Bonifacio might have been interesting to see, as it is truly an amazing harbor, at the top of a long narrow inlet hewn out of the cliffs by aeons of geology. However, it is also always very full with visiting yachts and overcrowded with quayside bars and restaurants and sailors in shorts and t-shirts and 'dooburries' or similar. So, we said we've seen that before, as indeed I had just two days earlier whilst exploring Corsica with Susan in a hearse with a 'tz'.
As for Stintino, it really was just a bit off the beaten track tucked in under the main island's northern shore, south of a tricky narrow strait between it and Asinara, a smaller but rather long island pointing north, which we would have to round the next day, leaving plenty of room, as the charts said it was a nature reserve and all boats using an engine were to keep their distance. For that reason also, we decided we could not moor up in Asinara's lee either, for which otherwise there would have several opportunities in Cala's like d'Oliva and Tappo.
So, on we went, killing the engine for a brief hour every now and then whenever the fitful wind could push us forwards at more than 6kn, and re-'booting' when BS fell below 5kn. And, as we exited the Bonifacio Straits and the sun started to set, its horizontal rays illuminated the tiny sails of a never-ending stream of baby jellyfish. Velella I think they are called, or perhaps these were medusae, the embryonic form. Magical.
Pretty much in sync with the gribbed forecasts, during the second night of our passage the wind died completely. By midnight we were scything through a sea of glass under a star-studded moonless sky, with the reflected stars oscillating erratically on the front of our super smooth bow wave, and the reflections further away making it difficult to tell where the sea ended and the sky started. More magic.
When dawn broke, the coast of Menorca was clear to see, and soon our devices were picking up GSM signals, so we could find out who won the Champions League and ring ahead for a berth. However, it was Sunday, and by ten o'clock we came to the conclusion that all the marina offices in Mahon were closed. As we motored in, a yacht, then several and then many more, came out the other way. The Menorca Coastal Championships were being held, and clearly that meant that the one place we hadn'tried, the Yacht Club, because the book (by Hutt) had said there would be little chance, was certainly not worth trying now. So, we motored on and went stern to with assistance of a passer-by on the public quay.
The rest of that Sunday we slept and drank a little too much, and on Monday we hired three motor scooters and explored the island. We liked Menorca very much. A calm, unspoiled sort of place with tidy fields and farmsteads, and a little (but not too) overdeveloped with parks of holiday homes. And unusually informal. When I went to report in to the harbour office, the man in attendance made a call to check about the berth I had taken, then said that was alright and asked me did I want a stamp in my passport, in which case we'd have to go the border police office. I let him know I was indifferent to having my passport stamped. He asked me was I from the EU and when I confirmed that, that was alright then too. Amazing!!
Mahon to Palma - June 2019
Back on the boat, we had a look at the forecast, which firmed up on what it had been saying for a few days: strong headwinds out of the SW were going to be blowing up the coast of Mallorca all Wednesday afternoon. It was time for a further change of plan. A leisurely departure for an early landfall on the north east corner of the island and a quite anchorage in Cala Molto or Cala Guya just north of and well sheltered from southerlies by Cap de Pera was canned, in favour of an early start and a direct route to Palma.
As we had used a fair bit of fuel coming from Corse, getting away early meant we were opting to sail most of the way. So, when we had cleared through the strait between the main island and Illa de l'Aire, we cut the engine. The wind was light but at a very good angle just ahead of the beam, and the boat speed varied between the incidental 7kn and the slightly more frequent 4kn.
By nine in the evening we had reached Cap des Ses Salines on the south eastern tip of Mallorca and a major change in course meant that the wind was now going to be from dead astern. We put the engine at 1600 revs and went into watch mode and when it was my spell at three in the morning, there was less than 9nm to go to our final destination where at the rate we were going we'd arrive at 0430. I switched the engine off again.
As dawn broke, a few hours later and twenty-four after leaving Mahon, it was time to reboot the engine once again. With a lot of traffic about – two tugs bringing in a small products carrier, two ferries coming in almost in convoy, various yachters in more of a hurry than us – it was reassuring to see that the new Garmin plotter was picking up the various AIS signals, lighting up vessels that were moving away from us green and those nearing us red, and placing little sunken ships ahead of us if we were on course to hit or near-miss them.
Palma is always pleasant, but our first day in we mostly slept, to then, too well-rested, linger a little too long in a bar or two – The Corner Bar and The Shamrock in particular, thus requiring more rest the next day. Except for John, who went to bed early together with his rented tour-bike and was well gone before we rose for a climb to the top of the Col de Soller and then a descent to the sea at Port de Soller. He took a taxi home. Nevertheless, Pete and I were mucho impressed. And to round of the day we had dinner in yet another great recommendation by Dermot, Café Ca'n Toni.
Waiting for my next victims to aid me continue these Damocletian Voyages, there has also been time to catch up with old friends; Curtis from Dominica with whom I crossed the Atlantic in 2014, Janice from Crans Montana, North London and the World together with her lovely friends, and Dermot of course, another citizen of the World, who greatly helped me getting Damacle ready for the season a month ago in Palma.
Palma to Javea - June 2019
So we left early the next morning, intending to anchor in Cala Boix on first landfall. We had a super quick broad reach across, but alas the weather developed exactly as forecast and as we approached the wind died and then turned into the South, making Boix very exposed in a cross swell, so we opted out of that. With Ria back on board, who last year advised not to decide/log where you are going until you arrive, we had no hesitation in changing our plan and going into Marina Santa Eulalia instead, mooring up at c 19:00.
Eulalia, at E88 for the night, turned out to be one of the most expensive overnight berth Damacle has enjoyed in the Med so far during my tenure of her. It's a super slick, shiny, jet-setty place, so many people would think 'fair enough' and presumably it is good value compared to Marina Ibiza. All a bit lost on us though. We ate and enjoyed a glass or two of Mallorcan vintage on board and went to bed early.
The next morning the wind had turned again and we set sail for the cove on the south coast of Espalmador, a sandy islet just north of Formentera. We found the cove policed by a burly bloke in a blow-up boat who said 'no anchoring'. There were a lot of boats in and on closer inspection they were all swinging off yellow mooring buoys. We bit the bullet and got away with paying just E28 for the night, as somehow or other our friendly businessman had understood we measured 11m overall. Was he the private island's owner perhaps or had he acquired a concession from 'the man' or was he simply entrepreneurial?
Everybody went swimming; I for the first time voluntarily this summer, having been in once before to clear a mooring line off the keel bulb and another time by accident together with John as we attempted to get on board one evening in Mahon. Hagen and Sinead swam all the way ashore, and we all together gave Damacle's waterline a scrub. We dined aboard again, this time on spuds and sausages, rather than more pasta.
It continued to blow hard all through the night, and we were all glad we were hanging off a mooring buoy rather than relying on an anchor hooked into sand. Sunlight always makes the wind force appear less severe, so the next morning, having checked the forecast, we decided to tarry no longer in the Islas Baleares and set off for mainland Spain. We put two reefs in the main and part-furled the jib.
Within an hour we were averaging 8 knots in a F5 and a matching sea-state fetching all the way from the Gulf of Leon, and, then, gliding above the waves, there was a flying fish. I thought it the first one I'd ever spotted in the Med, but then my old 470 helm reminded me I'd seen a few before, from the trapeze at The Europeans in Denia in 1978. I don't doubt him.
With the wind forecast to swing back into the south again and only moderate slightly, a safe anchorage either side of Cabo de San Antonio or Cap Negre as we approached the mainland was out of the question. Various marina's offered possibility, but the nearest was Javea, so we rang the Capitaneria there first.
A lucky dip, as it turned out to be the place I well-remembered from my first cruise on Alpaire nine years ago, one of the nicest marinas along the entire Costa Blanca, on the edge of an elegant, sleepy town with a spectacular beach fronting a long pedestrianized crescent boulevard. Lucky twice over as the marina is the property of a members' only yacht club, and overnight berths are only available when members boats are gone. We ate out. It was lovely.
Javea to San Pedro del Pinatar - June 2019
Greenwich lies on 0 degrees West/East; well you knew that. But the Greenwich we were heading for was a new(ish) marina at 38.63N or so, not 51.45, just below a cliff-top resort called Mascarat. We found it quite pretentious and expensive and we ate on board. One interesting fazit was that up overhead clinging on we could see the Denia - Alicante tram passing by at half hourly intervals. I'd been here as well then, nine years ago, traveling home after disembarking off Alpaire in Denia after my first cruise on said famed vulture.
Seeing how much we liked Greenwich, we got away promptly the next day, despite a serious lack of wind. We engined most of the day, except across the bay in front of Benidorm, where that fairly monstrous high-rise resort apparently gets hot enough to generate its own thermal circulation. Past Benidorm that effect was gone again and it was back to driving on diesel.
That evening we moored up in a place called Puerto Campello, where the local sailing club gave us a berth on their quay wall right beside their little club house. We had to weave our way in through a fleet of ten Optimists coming home after a day's training. Campello was a bit like Javea – a resort for the locals – but busier – it was Friday night, of course – and more downmarket. We ate out and it wasn't great. Indeed, Hagen was quite astonished that his fish dish came without a hint of potato or vegetable. Nada! As did mine.
Saturday morning the wind was back and back out of the north east. We put the second slab reef in as we hoisted, and a half hour later we put four or five rolls into the jib as well. Soon we were averaging 8kn and our wind instrument was hitting 20kn apparent. Zoof!
We kept well outside the marine reserve of the islands and shoals around Tabernaca and then gybed for Torrevieja. As we approached and were getting ready to strike the main, Hagen spotted our track infill (thing you take out to feed the mainsail cars onto the track and then screw down) was hanging by just one of those screws. With the two reefs, one of the cars had lined up exactly on the infill and the strain (perhaps on gybing) had worked the infill loose. No worries, Hagen fixed it.
Torrevieja is an impressive harbor. There is a big commercial quay which functions as a salt terminal. There were large conical heaps of it resting on the wall. Apparently, Torrevieja is sometimes referred to as the salt cellar of Europe. There are also three marina's there, one of which is operated by the Real Club Nautica de Torrevieja. Yacht clubs, if they have space, by this stage, we had concluded was the way to go, and this particular one was quite super, with a very grand timber-paneled club house, with pictures of all their really quite many dinghy and offshore champions decorating the walls. Impressive.
Less impressive was that no sooner were we moored up and settled, loud music started to emanate from the shore. A concert in aid of cancer support was on. Live bands and the first one we heard was from Norway. Punk rock; they weren't actually that bad, if you liked that sort of thing. However, the Norwegians were only the warm-up for the Spanish tribute bands, to AC/DC and to Queen and others, that were to follow. This was much worse and somebody sounding less like F. Mercury than the guy fronting the quasi-Queen band, it would have been hard to find. The music stopped at two in the morning.
As there was only a short 10nm passage left to Damacle's lay-up destination for one month of San Pedro del Pinatar, and given the disturbances of the first half of the night, we allowed ourselves a noon-time departure. The wind had dropped a bit, but was still from astern. We left one reef in and scooted along and were docked by two.
The marina here is called Las Salinas. It is seaside of the dunes that from a natural barrier to the salt pans behind, behind which in turn there is a vast recreational lake by the name of Mar Menor. Las Salinas is a relatively new marina. It is unassuming and good value, but still has a reasonable number of chandlers and kindly-priced restaurants and even a Volvo service centre, along the marina front. The beach, which stretches out as far as the eye can see, is 5 minutes walk away. E600 for the month. The perfect place then to leave Damacle and head to Athens for more nautical adventures, this time on some friendly other people's boat; the awesome Alpos.
San Pedro del Pinatar to Los Genoveses - July 2019
Arriving fourteen hours later than planned in Barcelona in consequence, chaos theory (butterfly effect) took hold, since the next train and the next train and the next bus to Murcia were all 'full'. In the end, I found a bus from Barcelona Nord to take me south on a nighttime journey. Completing the journey to the marina by taxi from Murcia Bus Station (50km which cost more than the 1800km from Athens to Barcelona), I was back on board Damacle by 6 a.m. to be welcomed by Susan who had arrived (as planned) the night before, and to then immediately fall asleep.
We slept it out and spent the rest of the day checking and cleaning the boat. There had clearly been a few sand-bearing southern rain showers while I had been away, and clearly also the marina's location right next to an extensive lagoon of saltpans had been deterious for the brightwork. "Not good" as Joao Malafaia would have said.
The next day the wind was up. We decided to delay our departure and go into Pinatar for a big shop. Pinatar is a new town on the shores of the Mar Menor with no redeeming features. The next day there was more wind and the next and the next and in the end we spent a whole extra week in Las Salinas, doing such sensible things as procuring some extra potent rust stain remover (HCl based) and a decent bolt cutter (just in case).
So, it wasn't until Thursday 25 that we were on the move again. We hoisted with a reef in and initially the wind from astern was light enough. We kept the engine ticking over to keep BS above 7kn and held out to sea to give the marine reserve off Cabo de Palos a wide berth. By midday TWS had got up to 20kn, and 7kn SOG was being achieved without diesel power, but after an hour or two it was back to motor sailing to assure our ETA for Aguilas of c 7 p.m. would be achieved.
Having rung ahead to the Club Nautico (I always try the local sailing clubs first now – much more friendly; socially and financially) my berth was reserved, but alas the man at the other end of CH9 was not the man I had spoken to in the morning, indeed couldn't have been as he spoke no Ingles. And he knew nothing. Nada. And the marina was full. Completo.
There was an anchorage opportunity under the beach, but it was going to be exposed if the wind turned south, which it was forecast to do. Our reserved berth was probably empty, but it was a very tricky narrow, yellow-buoyed to left and right, entrance. So, we dillied and dallied, went to anchor, changed or mind, went to go in, changed our mind and then somehow a marinaro figured our predicament and came out in a rubber duck to welcome us and guide us.
We liked Aguilas and stayed three nights for the princely sum of E75 incl. shore power and water. The fact that there was now a small gale coming round the corner from Cabo de Gata was also a consideration persuading us to tarry, but on Sunday it was onward again, with slightly groggy heads, after having consumed one more bottle of wine too many with a Belgian couple (the only spoken English we heard there) that we befriended in the outdoors diner/tapas bar.
With the wind still on the nose, but reduced to a F3-4, Cabo de Gata was as far as we could get, so we emailed ahead to a small marina by a village named San Jose, the last port before the cape. Fortunately they said they (too) were completo, and so we sailed on a little further to anchor in the bay of Los Genoveses, which was a simply stunning place, and so we stayed an extra night to get a lot of swimming in and to give Damacle's waterline a good scrub. An enterprising local came round the second evening in a rib selling mojito's. We negotiated him down from E7 each to E5 and then he came on board and prepared two excellent cocktails, complete with deck-crushed ice. We also asked him, by the way, what was with the helicopter with searchlights and men-on-the-beach during the night; ah, si, ilegales, Tunisia is only 100km away. Another saving for the UK exchequer post-BREXIT, then.
Los Genoveses to La Linea - August 2019
The shoreside scenery now changed in earnest, with the concrete growing in height and the polythene disappearing altogether. Having motored the whole day the day before, we kept the cover on the boom and the halyard on the clew again. It was another flat clam and the easterly swell was still not completely gone.
Benalmadina, together with Puerto Banus, slightly further west along the coast (where we won't be stopping), is probably the summum of marine resort development along the sun coast. Large blocks of apartments in afaux Moorish vernacular housing thousands of holiday makers and hundreds of berth owners; great numbers of mid-priced restaurants and nautically-themed boutiques, all a bit tired and not as madly busy as when we were there last, eight years ago.
But busy enough, and with friends in residence in magical Mijas and classy Calahonda we stayed two extra nights to enjoy their company and a lot of wine and to take us over the weekend for a departure on Monday to this passage's final destination, La Linea, just across another British border in a foreign land.
The forecast for later in the day, when we would be approaching the straits and negotiating a rounding of Europa Point, wasn't great, so we tried to leave early and got away by nine. We motored solidly for a good few hours and then started to get some wind across our port beam, so basically a southerly. To get some help from that, we unfurled the jib and for a while engine-assisted we were hitting 7kn SOG with the current against us. We kept the main under wraps though, as we were sure we were going to want it well tidied away when we got closer to Gibraltar, which proved to be the case.
But before that we encountered a right mix of sea states – first a steep swell out of the west but no wind to match it, next choppy, breaking water, then some flattened sea – and then a sequence of shoals of cetaceans – big dark monochrome ones, little two-toned ones and in-betweeny ones. We had of course had the pleasure of these creatures' company on previous passages, but this was by far the biggest cohort (not a platoon of a Roman legion, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, mind Pat Kenny) we'd encountered and Susan even got some photos of them darting about in the water ahead of the bow.
No sooner were the dolphins gone, than the wind out of the west as forecast, started to build, but soon it was exceeding forecast quite considerably. We had stayed consistently north of the rhumb line to dodge a little bit of the current and some of the patches of confuses sea and now we put in more northing again for shelter from the rock which worked well until we got to the last half mile before Europa Point at which stage a F6 hit us with very steep seas. BS dropped to 2.5kn at times and as we staggered round the corner, we counted our blessings that the engine was again proving to be a very reliable performer, well-serviced of course by Jacques Vassalo in Malta.
And now we are moored safely up in the spacious, budget-friendly marina of Alcaidesa. Birmingham-on-Sea aka Gibraltar is 1 statute mile and a border crossing away, but we've been there and done that and I am not planning to do it again until new crew arrives, when we will dip in for bunkering before we depart out into the Atlantic.
La Linea to Santo Antonio - August 2019
A delay at Gatwick meant my new crew were only on board by ten in the evening on Wednesday; a minor inconvenience in comparison to Susan's unscheduled stop in Madrid on her way home, in order to disembark a passenger to Manchester who had suffered a heart attack in flight, which put Susan's chances of catching her onward flight from Manchester to Dublin in jeopardy also, but she made it and so I sincerely hope did the stricken passenger.
Anyway, back in La Linea, we made a leisurely departure the next day, the holiday ambiance of which was further enhanced by the office having to send a marinaro to our shore power point to read that we had used exactly E1.10 of juice over the three days, followed by a bit of searching in the Gibraltar docks for a fuel station, which of course at 65p a litre is quite worth doing.
It was a beat out of Algeciras Bay to start off with and headwinds and a strong current continued to thwart us till around 3 0'clock, nearing Tarifa the wind died and a thick fog set in and got to its thickest as we crossed Tarifa's entrance and had various close encounters with vessels emerging out of the mist. When it cleared, the wind was back from ahead and we motor-sailed the rest of the way to Barbate, where the girl in the office in La Linea had told us they have the best swordfish along the southern Atlantic Spanish coast.
Alas we arrived too late in Barbate to have the energy to take a taxi into town from the newish, but already dilapidating marina featuring a never fitted-out shops-and-restaurants concrete box and small prides (is that the word?) of feral cats attracted by the administration's no-bin-lids policy. So we ate on board, on one of the skipper's always different spag bol concoctions.
From Barbate, the obvious next stop was Rota on the western shore of Cadiz Bay. It was a pleasant enough sail, although with wind and current against us once again, but we got in relatively early, giving us time to explore the old town, right behind the marina. I (the skipper, that's me, of spag bol and other culinary skills) had been here twice before, but on neither occasion had found the inclination to explore. The first time, the weather had been miserable, and Scrabble on board had won out; the second, we hit the first restaurant we found, which as now transpired had been an excellent call, since, after having marched up and down the attractive streets, we ended up there again.
I had also been twice to Vila Real de Santo Antonio before, which lies on the Portuguese side of the Guadiana river, slightly downriver from its Spanish counter pole, Ayamonte, on the other shore. On both occasions, the first time on taking the ferry across the river travelling from Seville to Faro with Susan to catch up with another yacht (yacht 'A'), and the second on passage from Vigo to Cadiz on a different yacht (yacht 'H'), the place had seemed pleasant but sleepy. On both occasions, however, we never got any further than the local yacht club's bar and restaurant.
Although we had sailed-and-sailed a twelve hour day, this time we went to explore and found the place very alive and very charming. Like Rota during the vacation month, Santo Antonio, blessed with many beaches on the Atlantic coast, turns out be a popular local, rather than package holiday, tourist place, so busy in fact that to get service outside the corner restaurant of our choice we moved to a table on the side street it fronted and found the waiter there to be more attentive.
The next day, it was very windy, and we had no problem in deciding to stay a second night, but by noon around Monday it had eased somewhat and we were off again. It was still a challenging enough departure, with wind funnelling down the river out of the north and the flood running against it, kicking up some quite disturbed water, but not as bad as the day before, when a safe embarkation would have been nigh on impossible as the marina itself does experience some of the swell and current in the river.
Santo Antonio to Oeiras - August 2019
Having enjoyed local culture and E30 to E40 marina fees ever since leaving San Pedro del Pinatar, it was disappointing to be confronted with an E72 bill and nothing in return for it other than loud music, rubbish wifi, poor showers that are hard to find, and marinaros who only turn up when you have already made a dog's breakfast of docking. This is Vilamoura, the girl at the desk said, when I gasped at the charge she proposed. Well, it was, but it was the same Vilamoura as eight years ago, except that everything was now a bit run-down. Who wants Chinese and Indian cuisine anyway when in the Algarve?
Stopping on our way out at the fuel-and-waiting dock for a top-up and to reclaim the E30 deposit on the key cards, we were out on the open sea again by 1130 next day. The wind was strong and warm off the beach and we were hitting 8kn straightaway, thinking we'd get to Sagres and Cape St Vincent and seek out an anchorage by 1700 before the forecast strong headwinds would develop.
Needless to say, the wind gods deemed otherwise, and within an hour we were being headed off south. But under the shore we could still see the beach breeze, so we tacked in, which got us into the zone where the two winds met. After a few less than successful tacks, we finally got into the land wind and held it for another hour, but after that the cool breeze out of the Atlantic won the day and built in strength, hitting 30kn a times. Quite exhausted and a little bit worried would our anchor hold and what would tomorrow bring, we holed up in the first cove the German pilotbook (photo grab out of the reception in San Antonio) had written about and preferred.
It was windy and bumpy in Baleeira and we decided to do 3-hour anchor watch spells. A sensible precaution, but as it turned out unnecessary; the new anchor and extra chain courtesy of Jacques Vassalo easily held firm (very rusty second 30m though, Jacques, must see can I get it re-galvanized). In the morning it had moderated – slightly. The forecast still wasn't great, but once round Cape St Vincent and if you kept under shore it looked like it would be OK. We could always go back and leave the boat in Lagos, as this 'lull' really was the only window for the next several days.
We put two reefs in, kept the jib furled and motored off, and soon the wind was exceeding forecast comfortably, hitting 30kn in the gusts again. But no sooner were we round than it did breeze down as forecast. We tacked to follow the shore in slowed air as soon as it was safe, and gradually as we progressed north the wind started to die. We didn't dare to shake out the reefs though, but it was only in the last hour as we approached Sines that the wind got back to anything like the forecast strength that warranted this caution.
Sines, despite another one of those Damocletian crew learns-to-swim episodes (this time because skipper made a bit of a Horlicks of the docking), was lovely. No music, wifi that worked, and a quiet, old town centre, cooled by the breeze, up on the hill guarded by a fort. We took our time leaving Sines, but despite stories about a fuel supply strike in Portugal decided not to wait till the fuel dock said it would be open at 11 o'clock, as the forecast once again was unkind, promising more headwinds, steadily increasing in strength. It turned out different and we had a cracking sail in 10kn to 12kn of breeze that freed us as the day progressed, so that after a short hitch out to sea we laid Sesimbra with one long port tack.
Sesimbra too (they say) is lovely, but as there was no room in the inn (small yacht club marina) we anchored off the beach, where the disco music was back, and the hot air off the land also, gusting down from the high rise and the cliffs. Balmy in comparison to Baleeira; however during the night the wind gusted up beyond anything we'd had at that previous anchorage, keeping the skipper and the foc'sle hand Ria very awake.
Being awake, and given the consistent pattern to the forecast of a building breeze over the course of the day and more wind out to sea than in along the shore, we lifted anchor at 7 a.m. as dawn broke, rode the squalls with a reef in the main and jib furled, to harden up at Espichel and tack pretty straightaway onto once again a moderate lifting breeze which took us all the way to the sandbanks of Bugio island at the mouth of Lisboa's Tagus river, engine assisted this time, as we wanted to be there for lunch and showers and before it got uncomfortably breezy again.
As we approached, the wind clocked into the east, again just as the day before, and we tacked to lay Cascais, where, to our surprise, the marina had no room once again for a yacht of 12 meter and a little bit. 12m exact would have been OK. Their loss turned out to be our gain because Oeiras where we ended was quieter and more competitively priced but with the same high-end automatic hydraulic ram operated pontoon security gates as in Vilamoura and Sines. And it is that bit closer to the airport to make life that bit easier for crew changes.
Oeiras to Combarro - August 2019
The visitor's marina in Nazaré turned out to be a bit of a dump with not a soul about, which was not too bad a thing as I made a bit of a meal of the docking again. Loosely associated with the local yacht club on the other side of the harbour, it had proved impossible to get in contact by phone or VHF to arrange a berth, but there was plenty of room. Town was a 15 minute walk away, and by the time we got there Gui had fully recovered from his sea trials, quite coming into his own, piloting us to a great value, great local food restaurant.
Allowing ourselves to sleep out just a little, we got on our way again at eight the next morning, destination Figueira de Foz, a mere 45 nm further upwind. Keeping our distance from the big waves rolling into the Pontal do Nazaré, famous for generating the highest breakers on the planet much loved by extreme surfers, we tacked onto port some distance out and killed the engine. With one reef and full genoa we carefully picked the changes in wind direction (more west close in for long gaining tacks on port) and strength (stronger offshore for more boatspeed) to arrive in Figueira by five in the evening.
In Figueira, Gui, who had a better second day, proved worth his weight in olive oil again, quizzing the reception as to the best local eatery, which we then duly found to be indeed excellent – quality, quantity and price.
With André's flight booked out of Vigo for Friday morning early, we had no time to tarry, and with our next practical destination being Opporto, a further 70nm up the track, it was another get-away in the dark on Tuesday. As per the day before, we got the main up in the shelter of the harbour. However, once we were out beyond Cabo Mondega we encountered bigger seas and stronger wind than previous. We kept the engine running with the genoa set to work our way upwind at 6kn to 6.5kn, weaving to avoid the worst near-breaking waves and tacking back in on port when wind strength started to grow beyond 16kn true.
By five in the evening the wind was hitting 20kn, and we opted to put in a second reef, but then, a few hours later, as we were fetching in to Opporto, trying to furl the jib, the furling line snapped. After concluding that we were not going to be able to fix it, nor to drop the sail, in the bouncy conditions, we decided we'd just sail into the Douro river and drop our sails there in what would be sheltered waters. Worked a treat.
By the time we were docked in the new(ish) marina on the southern shore of the river, there was no office staff to quiz about local restauration, but this did not matter. Gui regularly delivers his bottled and branded virgin oil to the quayside here for shipment by sailing vessel to Amsterdam and Bristol, so he took us to his regular haunt, Vapor, where we enjoyed fantastic barbecued fish and squid. And for the third time in a row, including manly quantities of beer and two bottles of wine, the bill came to no more or not much more than E100.
With the furling line still to be replaced and only really Bayone as a potential stop a mere 20nm before Combarro, Damacle's winter destination, the decision to spend the next day in Opporto and visit the old centre, after the repair was effected, was an easy one, the more as it was going to be windy out at sea again during the day, but probably light enough during the night.
By 12 o'clock then, John, André and I were on the ferry boat across the river to catch the 1898 vintage tram carriage, once horse-drawn, briefly steam-powered, and ever since electric, to the centre, Gui having left us in the morning to get back to wife and children and the day job. I was retracing my steps from five years ago, when Peter and I had put in to the Douro Marina as well on Harmony's way back to Vigo. But this time, the tram didn't take us up the hill, instead dropping us early, in front of an obstruction on the track made by a building contractor engaged in renovation work.
The very touristy Opporto river bank, however, wasn't far away. Without the benefit of Gui's guidance, we found a fine restaurant nevertheless. It was a steakhouse, so we each had a rib-eye, ending up with a bill that we said was 'back to normality'. After lunch we walked across the lower deck of Opporto's Dom Luís I Bridge, built in 1886, but not to a design by Eiffel as anecdote has it, but by his protégé Seyrig.
On the other side is Vila Nova de Gaia, and it is where all the port houses are to be found. So, of course we crossed and had to have a glass, and having very much liked the chilled white port Gui had introduced us to the day before, we chose the same. Sated and watered, we hailed a taxi which took us back to the marina, in half the time and for half the cost that our public transport adventure had set us back earlier.
Back on the boat, John and I went for a snooze, and André for a swim. We had thought of heading on to Combarro around 11 p.m. or so, but by 7:30 the weather seemed calm enough and off we went. With the wind blowing us onto the dock, André and John encouraged me to apply the trick Eddie English had taught father and son when gaining our 'International Certificates for Operators of Pleasure Craft' the winter before last; driving against the spring. Lots of wellie, John said, and, yes the bow moved out. And off we were.
Outside, the sea was now much flatter, but initially still with 12kn of breeze, which however faded quickly. We kept the jib down and motored on, keeping the main semi-filled and tacking every now and then when the wind shifted.
The big challenge now was going to be the lobster pots, which are everywhere to be found along the Portuguese coast, typically quite far offshore in 50m water depths or so. Hah, but they are not lobster pots, Gui had told us, but octopus pots or octo pots or pussy pots for short, we decided. John caught one on his watch, but it shook loose. I had a close encounter. André had no trouble. For the rest, the night was uneventful and at 12 local time, André docked us up in Combarro, in time for a well-deserved lunch in the delightful, a (very tiny) bit too touristy village centre with beautiful views out over the Ria de Pontevedra.
And so, here I am typing away at my nav station, with André and John departed since five in the morning to catch the same flight to Madrid to then head north (again, again) in different directions. A small fleet of old-time lateen-rigged boats lie on the dock opposite me and the sea fog has come in. It's cool, nice for a change!
