Our plan from Gibraltar onwards was to sail east and get as far as ALMERIMAR. This would have taken us five more days of sailing.
At this point, we were going to leave the boat and head back to the van in Faro, via Granada And Seville.
Today, however, the weather took a significant turn for the worse and was going to get even worse during the week, meaning that sailing east was not viable for five more days. So, with regret, Sue and I decided we would head back to the van and start our journey north.
The question then for Marco was should he stay in the marina at La Línea de la Concepción (what an amazing name for a place) or move the boat around to Gibraltar where there was probably a bit more going on than here. So Marco and I decided to visit the marina there at Ocean Village to see if they had a berth and what the costs would be. Yet again we went through the passport control for Spain and Britain, then waited at the runway for some private jet to land and park and finally got to the marina. They were not overly helpful , but eventually they managed find a “finger” that the boat could be moored to for up to 3 weeks. Then of course there was the price which we needed to check against the current marina. So we set off back to the boat. The current marina was half the price and much fewer places to spend money in so…. the boat will remain here until the weather abates.
You can see gust wind predictions for the week below. Red is a bit gnarly and we do not want to be in it. When it goes grey …. you really do not want to be any where near it.
So next was the planning to get us back to the van in Faro. Trains, planes and automobiles….. turned into a hire car for a day with a personal chauffeur called Marco, ( thank you – very much appreciated!) a night in a hotel in Seville (paid for with my Avios points) and then a bus to Faro airport. The only flaw in the plan was that there were no spaces on the bus until Friday. Oh dear, we would have to stay another night (on avios) in Seville. Once that was all booked I rang Miguel ( who was hopefully still looking after our van for us) to let him know when we would arrive in Faro to pick it up.
In the afternoon it was really blowing a gale and the boat was blown away from the pontoon, so it was very rocky down below and getting increasingly difficult to get on and off the boat. There were plenty of anxious looking people around the marina!! The wind direction was blowing through the channel into the marina and causing big gusts which were really stressing the ropes. Marco popped off to the chandlery to buy a contraption which would act as a spring on one of the larger ropes. He and Dave tried to adjust the ropes where possible, but basically it was too hard given the strength of the wind and we needed to jump off the boat at the front end to head off into the town.
As it was our last night on the boat, we had a quick visit to the marina cafe for 2 g and ts and a cuba libre and then set off to La Chiminea for some posh tapas, despite Sue having cooked about 10 portions of Bolognese earlier that day. ( … a meal out is a last night tradition 😃!) Sadly it was shut due to illness so we set off to look for something else. This was probably quite useful for Marco as he would be here for a few days. We found a lively little square with a few places to eat and went for a beer at one of the many bars while deciding where to eat. Marco and Sue sussed out an Argentinian Cafe on the other side of the square and we headed over there once some other diners started to arrive to face a meat mountain.
We retired to the boat for our last night and the promise of the next stage of our adventure.
At least you were looking at charts like that from the safety of a marina! I wouldn’t fancy that at anchor…
What a shame to finish early.
Please continue the blog during your return travels.
Fabulous photos, such a wonderful place. How much meat ? 😀