36:48.879N 02:33.716W

Aguadulce was fun, a very helpful marinero and a delightful receptionist called Jessica (the oldest of eleven children apparently) she was about to leave for home when we checked in but she just couldn’t tear herself away and stayed on an extra 20 minutes just to sort our paperwork and show us, amongst other things, where the three supermarkets were and which was best for what. 

Not sure if you will be able to see it clearly but there is a man at the top of the mast of this sixty four foot catamaran near us in the marina, that’s a long way up, at least 100ft !

We also found what appeared to be sheltered accommodation for the many cats at Aguadulce 

We later found out we were moored outside the local nightclub and although they were open till 6:30 this morning we could only just hear the music. 

We left Aguadulce at eight o’clock this morning after propwrapping the dock line, an unplanned swim for the captain to remove it from the port propeller. Their dock line, which was brand new is now in at least four pieces, whoops. On the plus side before leaving the dock we did witness a rather fabulous sunrise !

As I mentioned our plan was to daysail along the Spanish coast doing 40-60 miles each day, stopping at marinas each night, all the way to Sotogrande, which so far has worked out brilliantly, we have visited; Marina Greenwich, Torrevieja, Cartagena, Gurracha and Aguadulce. We planned to carry on doing the same for another three days stopping at Marina Este and Benalmadena before reaching Sotogrande on Monday. However, it now looks like the winds will turn on Monday and blow towards us rather than with us, and no one wants that. So yesterday we decided to change from a Three stop strategy to a two stop strategy, keeping our visit to Aguadulce as planned but now rather than three 40-50 mile passages we are going to do two 70ish mile passages with an anchor stop just east of Nerja. We checked in with Simon Rowell our professional weather router who agreed with Plan B. It will mean a couple of long days sailing (motoring) but it will get us in to Sotogrande before the weather changes. I can’t say I am looking forward to the anchorage as although the forecast is for very light wind there is still some swell running from the east.  

And finally, as our favourite weather router one said “Always remember, Sod and Murphy were both sailors!”