The Victoria Shadow Association

CALADH

Gibraltar to Ibiza, June 2009

We spent ten days in Gibraltar while we arranged repair to our autohelm, which was eventually successfully completed by Jeremy the helpful engineer from Shepards - although at some cost as we had to purchase a new course computer. We were therefore pleased to slip our mooring at Queensway Quay Marina at last early on 31 May and, passing a wrecked tanker that had run aground there late last year, motor around Europa Point on a calm sunny morning to enter the Mediterranean for the first time, accompanied by a small group of dolphins. It remained a hot and still day and we continued to motor the 30 miles to our first port of call, Bajadilla on the outskirts of Marbella.

The Costa del Sol is very overdeveloped with many huge resorts dominated by high rise apartment blocks and hotels. You can still see what originally attracted people to holiday on this coast which is backed by spectacular mountains which sweep down to the sea, but it has been developed in such an intensive and unsympathetic way, we felt there was little to linger over so for the next few days we hopped up the coast to reach Almerimar on 3 June.

Rounding Europa Point

Almerimar had been recommended to us as a pleasant port offering good value berths and we planned to spend some time there to visit Granada and the Sierra Nevada mountains which lie inland. The port itself is huge but is divided into 3 separate yacht basins each surrounded by bars, restaurants and low rise apartments and is an agreeable place to spend a few days.

This area is also one of the main centres for growing salad vegetables for the European winter market and the low plains between the sea and the mountains are covered with hundreds of acres of plastic greenhouses, so extensive they are apparently visible from space and locally called the City of Plastic. Hideous but vital to the local economy which is evidently suffering the effects of the credit crunch, as everywhere we visited had huge blocks of brand new apartments standing empty and unsold. We had been led to expect this coast would be very busy with it being difficult to find a berth in any marina but everywhere we stopped had plenty of space and bars, cafes and restaurants all seemed quiet for the time of year.

Our sightseeing jaunts were well worth it. We hired a car and spent 2 days touring the Sierra Nevada. The mountain scenery was incredible – spectacular, huge views over snow capped peaks and excellent roads which the little Fiat Panda we hired tackled with ease.

One day we toured the Alpujarras, a region famous for its dried cured ham. In the highest village of Trevelez, just below the snow line there are many shops and restaurants in which the ceilings are completely covered with hams hanging from the rafters, curing in the clean mountain air.

Hams drying at Trevelez

The following day we drove east to Tabernas into the area Serge Leone made famous when he filmed The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and numerous other spaghetti westerns here in an region that bears a striking resemblance to the Arizona desert. The film sets are now tourist attractions but are still used occasionally for making pop videos.

Spaghetti western film set in the Sierra Nevada

We also went on a tour of the Alhambra in Granada. On this site there are 3 Moorish palaces dating from 13^th century Nasrid Empire. The Alcazaba was the defensive stronghold, the Royal Palace their main residence and the Generalife a summer palace with beautiful gardens and courtyards. The Royal Palace is famous for its intricately carved walls and ceilings and its cool courtyards and was very beautiful. Jo had last visited it in 1973 on the Hampshire School’s Cruise but in the one area she particularly remembered, the Patio de los Leones, its central fountain of 12 marble lions had been removed for restoration!

A courtyard at the Alhambra

After our break from sailing we were keen to move on up the Costa Blanca towards the Balearics, but were delayed a few more days as our RM69 sea toilet had sprung a severe sea-water leak, eventually traced to a cracked base. Luckily Almerimar has an excellent chandlery which managed to source and obtain the spare part within a couple of days but it was 18 June before we eventually set sail again. It is one of the challenges of maintaining an older boat. 

The coastline of the Costa Blanca is less developed with high cliffs retaining more of their natural beauty. From Almerimar it is a long 70 mile hop around Cabo de Gata and up the coast to Garrucha, our proposed destination and we left at 7am with a forecast of north easterly winds force 3-4 occasionally 5. North easterly winds were not ideal as they would result in a windward passage but the winds had been blowing consistently from the north east for some time and were forecast to continue to do so for some days, so we decided to go for it. For the first few hours the winds were light and we motor sailed along the coast but by noon as we approached Cabo de Gata the winds freshened to force 5 and came hard on the nose. With building seas our progress was slow, bashing into head winds and waves and lacking a making tack. It was well after 2pm before we rounded Cabo de Gata and with conditions and our ground speed not improving, it was clear we could not reach Garrucha by nightfall. We decided to go into the small port of St Jose, previously rejected because it was said to be very expensive.  However, as we tried to close the coast, the wind freshened considerably screaming off the high cliffs and gusting up to 28 knots. We took the view that it was unsafe to try to enter the small harbour in these conditions, so turned round and headed out to sea again. We continued our slow progress up the coast and as late afternoon arrived we reviewed our options. We could enter Garrucha in the dark – not an attractive prospect in an unfamiliar harbour. We could try and find a sheltered anchorage but there were few options with an easterly wind blowing directly onto the exposed coastline. We could continue sailing through the night and make landfall the following morning at Cartagena, a large protected harbour another 50 miles up the coast from Garrucha. When the evening weather forecast promised light winds overnight we decided this was our best option. Indeed as night fell the wind quickly eased and although there was insufficient to sail, our ground speed improved as we motored up the coast. It proved to be a quiet night. We kept a watch each and by 9.30am were moored up in the yacht club in Cartagena. 

We liked Cartagena a lot. The yacht club had a pleasant bar and a free swimming pool. The town sits besides one of the few large natural harbours on this coast and has been fought over for centuries, first by the Carthaginians after whom it is named and then by subsequent dynasties that wished to rule this part of Spain. In the Spanish Civil War, the town held out against Franco and the Republicans for over 2 years and the bullet holes of the subsequent fighting can still be seen in the walls of the town hall. Today it is a busy naval and commercial port but has an attractive old town with a nice atmosphere and pleasant streets, shops, cafes and tapas bars to try. It feels like a real place where real people live and work, compared to the somewhat artificial holiday resorts along the coast and we very much enjoyed our few days there.

page last updated 30/10/2009