Finally we managed to get out of Cartagena and start our journey to Las Palmas.
On Wednesday October 4th we left port of Cartagena in the afternoon and sailed for about 3 hours to a small bay nearby called Playa Cala Cerrada with mooring buoys.
The bay was enclosed by hills except for the entrance, providing good protection from waves at night, almost like being in port.
On the way there our brand new triducer for measuring depth and speed didn’t seem to work. The depth was set to a factory offset and constantly showed about 4.9 meters. The mechanic from port of Cartagena who installed it changed the offset to 10 meters, which was the depth in the port, and thought that solved the problem. It didn’t!
We moored at the buoy and Martin went down to see if the fault on the triducer was just a loose connection that he could fix. He managed to make it work in the evening, but next morning it showed the offset at 4.9 meters again.
The next day October 5th we were up early and on our way. Got the parasailor up for the first time. Ian had prepared the sheets for the sail ready to be hoisted. Martin and Ian got the sail up. Due to little wind it flapped a little at first.
A couple of hours later the wind picked up and we were sailing between 5 and 7 knots.
Towards evening we found an anchorage outside Garrucha. When we got to shallow water, the triducer suddenly worked again, but later returned to the 4.9 meters offset. The anchorage provided almost no protection from the waves and we laid rolling all night. I had already been seasick during the day because I tried to do dishes on a rolling boat and felt even worse by the swell.
Next morning we got an early start again and headed for Almerimar harbor, hoping to find an electrician to help us with the triducer.
The wind was with us, and perfect for the parasailor. Unfortunately, the waves were coming from a different direction than the wind and the boat was rocking quite a bit. I got really seasick and had to take a pill and lie down. Martin, Anton and Ian trimmed the parasailor and got the speed up to 11.8 knots at one point. Most of the day we sailed between 6 and 9 knots. As the day went on, the wind died down and the waves got smaller.
In the evening we arrived at the port of Almerimar. The port facilities were poor, but it was so nice to lay still again.
We spend the next day, October 7th, in port in Almerimar. Almerimar is a small resort town. There’s a fairly large harbor and buildings that mostly look like vacation apartments.
Whilst in port Victor and Elliott got some miscellaneous school work done, and we did some practical stuff like shopping and laundry.
Martin and Ian spent the day getting a windex, some blocks and eyes for the parasailor’s sheets. Ian was up in the mast to measure how big a windex could fit there next to the radar antenna. They got all the necessary equipment from a chandler in town, but didn’t get around to fitting the windex before it got dark.
The electrician from the port came in the afternoon to have a look at the triducer and concluded that it was broken, possibly damaged under transit. He put the old depth gauge on and now we can see the depth again.
Early next morning, October 8th we sat course for a small town called Nerja. Just north of Nerja is a small mountain town called Frigiliana, where Martin have been on a holiday as a child with his father, Ivan.
According to our weather app, we should have had tailwind, but unfortunately the prognosis was incorrect and we had almost no wind and had to sail for motor all day. There weren’t any waves either and we had a very pleasant sail where we could do some homeschooling whilst on the move.
In the evening about 6 O’clock we dropped anchor by a beach just outside Nerja.
Ian, Martin and Elliott were about to take a dip in the water when Ian saw dolphins close by the boat. First they swam to another boat anchored nearby, then they came very close to our boat and we all had a good look at them.
Today October 9th, we took the dinghey to a small beach in Nerja and continued by taxi to Frigiliana, which is a very charming city in the mountains placed high up with great views of the landscape everywhere you go. The narrow streets are paved with beautiful mosaik and decorated with pots and plants everywhere. The houses are white-washed and the many cats lying around on the porches, make it seem like walking in a postcard.
