37:35.7N 00:59.0W

Thursday 17th June

Yet another apology to make. The fireworks that greeted the return of the Virgen into the port of Almerimar, were just a gentle curtain raiser. The main event kicked off at 00.30am (thank you God!) with a much grander affair. Lots of quite impressive rockets etc. but there was always something about it all that reminded me of school events, in that no-one actually knew what any of the fireworks would do. This resulted in some of the best ones, surely destined for the grand finale, being let off very early and the event ended on quite a tame note and just petered out. Sarah, for the very first time in her life failed to even get up to watch them, but then what they lacked in sparkle they made up for in sheer noise.

9.30am saw the arrival of Mike Hughes, who is the local expert on ham radio and SSB long range radio.  Sarah is our expert in this field, having spent a week on a very difficult and boring course to get qualified, but on the trip down with the rally, she had found that although she could hear all transmissions perfectly, the others could not really hear her. Mike is an expat whose wife runs a yacht brokerage in Almerimar as well as a large book swap shop, whilst he is happy to help solve electrical and electronic faults etc. when not tending his olive grove. Lots of boxes of test equipment were opened and connected up and a whole myriad of tests run. One interesting side effect of the RF leakage (oh yes, he explained all these wonderful terms!) was that on full power, when you spoke, the bow thruster came on! This will have to be looked into in due course (Mike Jennings are you reading this?). The extraordinary result of all these tests was that the microphone which was supplied with the boat and radio is the type that features something known as noise cancelling (to cut out background noise on a boat) but because Sarah is softly spoken over the radio, it is her voice that it tends to cancel! Now there are some amongst you all (Tom, Ewan and me for a start) who will find it hard to credit Sarah with being softly spoken, at least not when she really wants to be heard!! However, I watched the dials for myself and she struggled to make them move. Anyway the outcome is the need to buy a proper phone handset for SSB and we await some suggestions from the manufacturer.

We left Almerimar at 3.00pm and set off for an overnight sail to Cartagena, which was a trip of some 111 miles, meaning that we should be arriving around 9.00am in the morning. The wind was barely able to ripple the ensign, so we had to set off under motor. This was the chance to try the new fishing lures, so the rod was rigged and the complicated assortment of feathers (fancy lures with hooks)and a spinner was set to weave its magic behind us. Needless to say very little happened and it was at least an hour later that Sarah glanced behind us to see the head of a very large fish rear up out of the water as it took the spinner! Cue for general excitement and panic in which we did none of the right things for sure and right enough, the fish was soon gone, but so too was the spinner and the line, leaving just the feathers dancing in our wake. Mmm. the book says we should have put a trace line  on which is tougher than the 50lbs breaking strain line that we use, to stop them biting clean through. But we only went for the smaller lures to try to catch smaller fish, so it is clearly a very complicated game when there are so many very genuine game and sports fish lurking around us. Once we reached the Cabo de Gata , the seas increased in size and there was a modest increase in wind strength, but sadly only to 10 knots and this was bang on the nose, so we opted to continue motor sailing to minimise the increasingly violent pitching of the boat.

Friday 18^th July

It was a full moon and a clear sky all night so it never truly got dark, which meant that on our different watches we both saw dolphins that joined us along the way. The seas eventually began to settle a bit, but the wave size and frequency made Serafina buck like a rodeo horse at times. Around 2.00am a Fred Olsen Lines cruise ship passed us, destination Carthagena, which was giving us clues as to the size of the harbour. Full daylight broke in time to help us weave through fleets of fast moving working trawlers, next the Greenpeace boat ‘Arctic Sunrise’ (Photo on the website www.rhbell.com  ) came past and then Sarah pointed out a swordfish jumping. Finally as we made our approach into the chicane entrance to the main harbour, between two hills bristling with mainly 19th century defences, we met a submarine coming out to add to the complications. (Photo on the website www.rhbell.com  )

The harbour is very extensive and we now know that it is the principle home of the Spanish Navy’s Mediterranean fleet, as well as taking in the odd cruise ship, and indeed, just by the marina we were heading for was the Fred Olsen ship ‘The Braemar’ that had passed us earlier.

We failed to raise the marina either by phone or radio, so we edged our way in and found space on what would once have been the main town quay. In due course we were able to contact the office and they dispatched a ‘Marinero’ to give us the details. This is the Spanish way, and the Marinero are generally very helpful middle aged or older men, who direct you to your berth and help you with your lines and in particular the lazy lines. We fell into conversation with a group of watching English folk who were off the cruise ship. They were easy to identify even without the obligatory Fred Olsen Carrier bags! Hordes of them were strolling gently (it was already very hot and just 10.00am) armed with maps looking for something to do. It seems that finding and talking to the nearest English yacht is high on their agendas and so the numbers rose. However, the first couple burst the bubble with the question,”If you come from Worcester, do you know John Bennett of Bennett’s Dairies?” Now it was at this point that our (sorry, my) luck changed as we were approached by a blonde Lara Croft (bikini top, long bronzed legs and the hottest hot pants with radio, notepad and phone on a belt, who turned out to be the marinera. (my brother was right, you do need to listen to the words more carefully, an ‘a’ on the end makes all the difference!) Eventually she was able to direct us away from the very public quay, over to the pontoons in the main section of the marina and for good measure, she then jogged round to take our lines. (Photo on the website www.rhbell.com, you wish....)

The marina is run by the very posh local yacht club, but sadly does not have wi-fi (so no pictures in today’s log) or very good security, but the berths are well maintained although there is a pretty constant swell set up by the various ship movements in the main harbour.

Very historic city, with a very strong Roman and Carthaginian heritage, which has shrugged off its more recent run down past including being a R & R drop off point for the American 6th Navy fleet, to reinvent itself as a tourist location, and a regular call in spot for the cruise ships. We are staying here tomorrow, so should be able to give more detail in the next posting.