Almerimar; 36.41N,02.47W

Island Wanderer
Peter and Avril Brookes
Sat 14 Aug 2010 18:19
We had an unsettled night last night as firstly we were woken to heavy rainfall, and had to rush to close the hatches, then the wind swung through 180 degrees and blew up, so Avril & I had to quickly re-rig the mooring lines, and really tension up the bow line to hold us off the pontoon. Although we were well fendered up, a fender had popped out, and the transom scraped under the pontoon in the swell. We now have a resultant scrape on the transom which will require a gelcoat repair. We learned a valuable lesson with the mediterranean mooring technique - always have the bow lines really tight to keep you off the pontoon or quay wall in case the wind shifts!

Today we ended up motor sailing again as the wind was dead on the nose. The coast was fascinating, there were mountains just behind a plain that lead to the sea, and the plain was covered with square mile after square mile of glasshouses. Apparently a large proportion of the EU winter vegetables are grown here. I wonder what temperature the glasshouses reach in the blazing summer days!

We arrived at 4.30pm after a 39 mile trip. The marina is interesting - again it is a man made development of marina with apartments, hotels and shops. Unfortunately it does not seem to have taken off - many of the shops and appartments are unoccupied, and there are a significant number of available yacht berths, at a reasonable price. I wonder whether part of its lack of popularity is that it is surrounded for 30 miles in each direction by glasshouses, and perhaps not much else. We will do some exploring and let you know.

The temperatures today have been more pleasant - in the high 20's rather than mid 30's.

We still have no wifi access, so no pictures yet.

Peter.

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