Cruising area for 2015
27th May
We flew back to Malaga on 14th April and drove down to Aguadulce. After a week of frenzied shopping for food and boat bits, we got stuck into preparing Mistroma for launch. The yard had cleaned the hull with a powerful needle jet at the end of last season and removed 50% of the antifoul. Basically this meant we had to scrape off the remaining antifoul back to the bare hull, before applying two coats of primer and two coats of fresh antifoul. An expensive, time consuming and laborious process. After launching, we had a host of other jobs to complete, including fitting our new AIS system (this allows other boats to see where we are and can also be checked on the internet, this link will show our current location).
When most of the work had been completed, we left the marina to sail to Cartagena in order to get our life raft serviced. On the way we spent two nights at extremely rolly anchorages – it felt as though we were sleeping in a washing machine and was far worse than anything we had encountered on our way down through France and northern Spain.
When we arrived in Cartagena a catamaran in front was just preparing to leave. We spoke to the couple on board just briefly and it transpired that we had met in Ardrossan marina where their previous boat had been moored next to Mistroma in 2011 and 2012. It’s a very small sailing world! That night there was a big fiesta, “la noche de los museos” (the night of the museums), when all the museums were open until 2:00am with free admission and lots of pop/rock concerts and street theatre.
One of the band stands was set up about 100 yards from the boat, so we were expecting a very long and noisy night, as most events go on until about 4:00 – 5:00am. It seemed sensible to go with the flow and spend the night out in town. All the museums had huge queues but we managed to visit three and catch a string quartet recital and some street theatre. By the time we returned to the marina it was nearly 2:00am and the nearby band was still playing but they finished up not long after that, so we had a peaceful night after all. Cartagena is not a typical tourist destination, although there appeared to be quite a few foreigners. It’s a beautiful town and we really enjoyed our time there, having stayed considerably longer than we originally intended.
Our next stop was the Mar Menor to meet up with friends Steve and Lynne on Aztec Dream, with whom we spent most of last summer. The Mar Menor is an inland sea about twelve miles long and six miles wide, accessed by a lifting bridge which opens every two hours. Once through the bridge the water is beautifully calm and flat, which makes for very easy sailing (or at least that’s what we thought). The day before we left the wind picked up to about 35 kts from a different direction, blowing us directly towards the land. One particularly strong gust of wind caused Mistroma to swing side on to the wind and pulled the anchor out, making us move rapidly towards very shallow water. Luckily we noticed it in time and got the engine started, lifted the anchor and then motored across to the other side of the bay where it was much more sheltered. No damage done, but it was a close call. During our few days there we managed to get some more work completed, as well as lunches out and watching the Monaco Grand Prix in the yacht club with our friends.
