On 1^st August we finally managed to escape from Gibraltar and started to head west along the Spanish coast into the Mediterranean.

 

Goodbye Gibraltar:

 

Our first trip was to a place called Puerto de Benalmadena where we spent one uncomfortable night on the waiting pontoon due to the strong surges coming into the marina.  We left the next day to head further into the Med.

 

Puerto de Benalmadena:

 

This was one of the boat trips going out from Puerto de Benalmadina,  I think that there was a restaurant on board:

 

On 2^nd August we headed to a place called Puerto del Este, first we tried anchoring in a sheltered bay, but decided to move into the marina behind this as the bay was a little deep for anchoring.  Unfortunately we do not have pictures, but this was a wonderful relaxing place without too much hustle and bustle.

 

Puerto de Este on the right of this picture,  the anchorage is in the middle between the rocks:

 

The next three nights were spent at anchor. 

On 3^rd August we headed to a place called Adra which is a fishing harbour with a marina, we anchored in the harbour.

The next morning on 4^th August we departed Adra at 06:30 and covered 110 miles to reach a place called Aguilas, there was a wonderful anchorage here so we stayed for two nights. In the daytime the Aguilas anchorage filled up with motor boats and fortunately they all left in the evening leaving just a few sailing boats.  We went Snorkelling around our boat, the water was really clear, but there only seemed to be one type of small fish, I was able to dive to the anchor at 4 metres.  On the second night we took the dingy to see the town and to eat in one of the restaurants, there was no safe place to leave the dingy on the beach so I had to wade thigh deep to tie our small landing craft to one of the many small mooring buoys used to moor the smaller boats by the beach, the warm weather meant that I soon dried out.

 

The sun setting on the way to Aguilas:

 

Anchored at Aguilas:

 

A windmill on top of the castle in Aguilas:

 

On 7^th August we waved goodbye to Aguilas and went to a place called Cartagena.  This was a naval town and although the berthing fees were quite low (19 Euro per day) the marina was well organised and had numerous bars and restaurants.

 

 

Some sights from the town:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evening Entertainment:

 

Those palm trees are much harder to climb than you think: