How can 4 days have passed? We have experienced so much compressed into this short time it’s almost impossible to absorb.  It’s an assault on the senses.  It sounds like this:  Rounding Cape Trafalgar, in the wake of Admiral Nelson, running down to Ceuta on the Moroccan coast of Africa and eating dinner at the Yacht Club, reaching for Gibraltar and taking the cable car up the Rock to be harassed by the famous apes (and an eccentric American traveler!), shopping at Morrison’s in pounds sterling, eating beef and Guinness stew in a giant Yorkshire pud. at O’Reilly’s, beating east through the straits as night falls, hardened up for Ibiza 400 miles hence. Dawn and dolphins by the dozen, no fish on the lines yet Josef, dusk and a family of whales accompanying the boat.  As my good friend Oris is known to say: “If it gets any better than this, I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope!”  Hello my old friend.

Whoa, slow down guys, this wind on the nose is getting pretty strong and these waves, well they’re not nice!  Who votes for packing this in and running for a bolt hole?  Almeira is 4 hours away.  Everyone OK with this?  “What’s that place over there?” asks Laura, pointing at the closest bit of land.  “Don’t know but I’ll check it out.”  says the skipper.  OK Laura wins.  It’s an hour away.  That was yesterday and here we are, storm bound again, with gales blowing through under a hot, bright sun and blue skies.  Guess I’ve still stuff to learn about weather here in the Med.  Don’t reckon we’ll be leaving for a couple of days but the Marina is “very nice” or so we were told by the manager and he was right really, with plenty of bars, restaurants and yes, a hairdresser, to tame Nigel’s mop that has gained him the nickname Papa Smurf when combined with his poor choice of red and blue clothing, head gear and green rubber clogs!

Yesterday we sailed all day past the Sierra Nevada mountains rising 3,000+ metres above the Costa del Sol, snow covered and spectacular.  There is talk of hiring a car and going snowboarding tomorrow! Oh such hedonistic pleasures.  I bet it ends up being engine maintenance, laundry, hoovering, polishing, drinking, sleeping!

We are moored stern to a wall in Marina Almerimar, a custom development of marina berths and holiday apartments and villas – “very nice” indeed.

Where is everyone?  Tereza and Joseph looking for a surfing beach.  Gill reading on a bean bag on the foredeck, Jon and Laura iPod’ing noses stuck in magazines, Nigel blogging, Eliza Doolittle crooning on the sound system.  Laura and Jon are re-planning their departure as we won’t make it to Mallorca in time.  It looks like a flight from Alicante on Saturday, flying straight into an important hen party for Laura – Oh what a jet-setter! Jon – well back to the challenges of the high-flying executive.

I’m really enjoying this leg of the journey but then I enjoyed the leg down here too.  Great company, great sailing.

Follow our progress here:

http://blog.mailasail.com/oboe, where you can see our daily progress on Google Earth.  Email us at: oboe {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com any time you like.  Phone us on +881 631 669 194 and we’ll pick up via Iridium satellite.

Fair winds to you all.

Nigel

Gill

Jon

Laura

Josef

Tereza