1st July 2008 - Cabo de Santa Maria to Cadiz (a long motor, a short sail and a long walk)
Bali Hai
Neal Stow
Tue 1 Jul 2008 23:54
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It turned out that Jim was not completely lost to
the world and emerged late afternoon. The chaps, now determined not
to be shown up by Lyn's only catch of the day proceeded to set up all of the
rods and lines we have on the boat and catch us a fishy supper.
As there were several local fishermen not too far away we must be in the
best place for fish.
Julian took responsibility for the barbequing that
evening and cooked the beefburgers, pork chops and (radioactive pink) sausages
to perfection. It was an excellent evening, like Andrew before him Jim is
a great sunset photographer and was clicking away like mad as the sun went
down. We ate under the stars and washed the food with some beers and
wine. It was only when Jim insisted on us finishing the third bottle that
I thought "there is trouble ahead."
Today's sail to Cadiz was to be a long one (80
miles) and we would also lose an hour with the time change. So when I
said that we needed to leave at five in the morning to get to Cadiz at a
reasonable hour there was general grumpiness among the crew (what do they think
this is? - a holiday!). Even when I said that once we had left they
can go back to bed there was no increase in enthusiasm. "Don't worry" I
said "I can do it on my own"
I was awake for five and listening for the sound of
stirring from the crew. Nothing. I decided to wait until six.
Surely they are not going to leave it all to me? But when there was only
silence, except for Julian's snoring, I started getting us underway (it was
actually very peaceful on deck, although a bit smelly as the tide was right
out). I tidied the boat, got it ready to go and started to pull up
the anchor only to find that it had caught on an old line with some bricks
attached. As I could not get the line off on my own, I was
forced to go below and wake Julian for assistance. At first he appeared
reluctant, I understood later that this is because he thought
that I was asking him to dive down and cut us free but when he
realised that he could do it on the surface, all was fine. We were
in the process of lowering the dinghy when Jim popped up and with his help we
managed to cut the line off and free the anchor quite quickly. As we
motored out of the lagoon, Jim appreciated the one advantage of getting up at
that hour and clicked away at the rising sun. Then he was straight
back to bed.
The weather forecast was for little wind and so I
expected that we would motor all the way to Cadiz but not too long out, the
wind picked up from the east to around 15 knots and we started a period of some
really excellent sailing. 18 knots of wind over the boat, close hauled,
heeled over in smooth blue seas with the sun blazing down this is
what sailing is all about. Unfortunately only Lyn and I experienced
it. Both Jim and Julian were down below being ill. Julian, after
throwing up (in my ensuite toilet!) accepted that he was seasick and
took some pills. Jim with "an upset tummy" stayed comatosed in bed
(and he did not even eat any of the radioactive sausages).
Lyn took the helm and after some initial
zig-zagging she soon got the hang of it and in the great winds we zoomed along
at 8-9 knots. Julian eventually emerged and found that a spell on the
helm also did wonders for seasickness as you are forced to concentrate
on something else. However, by early afternoon the winds had dropped and
shifted to the west, so we were forced to motor the rest of the way. Apart
from sighting a couple of dolphins nothing much happened and we arrived at Cadiz
at about 7:30 in the evening.
The marina at Cadiz is not particularly attractive
(unless you like concrete) but the berths are quite large and easy to get
into. Despite this I managed to make a bit of a mess of the docking and we
ended up being quite far from the pontoon. On the first day Jim told me "I
do not do leaping" and Julian claimed to have a dodgy knee, so the boat has
to be right next to the dock before they are willing to get
off. However, even the ship's monkey Andy from the last crew would have
had trouble making it across to the pontoon this time. Fortunately the
marina had supplied someone to take the lines and we were also helped by someone
from the next boat.
By the time the boat was docked and washed down it
was nine o'clock and although this is the time the Spanish evening
normally begins we were all quite tired. The marina told us that it was
only ten minutes into town so we headed off for some tapas. The ten
minutes turned into a good half hour trek but we ended up with a great meal in a
local tapas bar. Jim, who had been photographing more sunsets on the way,
flirted briefly with the idea of an alcohol free day but the wine turned out to
be too good to resist. Then we trekked back to the boat and
bed.
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