In the Med they use a system called Med or Stern to mooring. Where you have ropes from your stern to the dock and ropes (ground lines) from your bow to the sea bed out in front of you, the ground lines are attached to the bottom with concrete and chains. You reverse up close (but not too close) to the dock, throw your stern lines to the waiting Marinero who passes them round a bollard and back to you. He the passes you a light but horribly slimy rope which is attached to the dock at one end and the thicker stronger ground lines at the other, you work this hand over hand as you move forward along the boat to the bow, where you pull up the ground lines that are equally slimy and horrible and often covered in sharp crustaceans, you then pull them as tight as you can and attach them to your bow cleats. You then add “crossovers on the stern to to stop you moving sideways and finally you get out the hose and wash all the slime and mud of your boat !! 

Anyway, the marinero appears on the dock to direct us to our berth and guess what? Yes we are directed next to the aging motor yacht. Right I say to myself “I must keep clear of his ground lines”, guess what …. ? Guided skilfully by the bosun we did manage to get free of them ready for attempt two. The Swedish couple on the catamaran on the other side were both up on deck clearly looking to protect their investment. Attempt two went fine apart from the fact that our assigned berth was meant for a 24 metre yacht and we are only 15 so the ground lines barely reached our bow and required some strong pulling by both captain and bosun. The ground lines excelled themselves in sliminess and were covered in crustaceans that would happily have your fingers off.  Once we were “all fast” and the marinero had been given the customary few euros “para ousted, para cerveza”, it was time for a wash down and check in at reception with the usual “original” documents, registration, insurance certificate (in Spanish) and passports for all crew. 

Once all clean we had a walk around Torrevieja and selected our restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was great, the waitress delightful (but that’s not unusual, everyone has been so nice and so friendly) the food was some of the best presented and most delicious we had experienced so far,  but for a third of the price in Ibiza. 

Up early again Wednesday morning for our passage to Cartagena only to find it was pouring down and not just your regular rain but dirty orange rain completely negating the day before’s washdown. 

Once out at sea the swell from the storm was still very much in evidence and was directly on our beam making life a little uncomfortable, I’m sure the bosun would describe it differently! But the wind was good and with some engine assistance we were making good progress. 

Arriving in Cartagena was interesting with tankers everywhere and a requirement to radio port control to request permission to enter the port. A small delay but soon in our berth which this time was alongside a floating pontoon (like in the uk) when we had of course prepped for stern to. 

We decided not to wash down for a third day running and headed in to town and what a great town it was. Lots of amazing building and some interesting history. 

We also found a boat that trumped our 11 fenders. 

We are now on our way to Garrucha, the sun is shining, the sea is calm, we have a little wind on our starboard quarter, the engines on and we are once again making good progress.