MAINLAND SPAIN
We reach the mainland berthing at Burriana Marina 30 miles north of Valencia. We are here to remove Musketelle from the water for an unscheduled haulout having only hauled in Bodrum in May. We normally only haul every 2 years so this is clearly not budgeted for but yachts being yachts you can always find things to be done out of the water.
The reason we are hauling out is we need to repair the leading edge of the keel which we damaged back in July in the Levkas Channel in Greece.
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| Damage to lower leading edge of keel - cleaned up |
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Grinding damage
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| Job done |
We will also take the opportunity to remove the forestay and headsail furler for a long overdue refurbishment and service and install a tensioner on the forestay specially made for our model Furlex headsail furler. This will remove a longstanding inability to tension the forestay enough and improve upwind sailing performance.
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| Servicing furler with help from Kiwi Chris from SY Cuttyhunk |
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| Sail cleaning and minor repairs |
Burriana Marina is located within an old fishing and tile exporting port but the fishing fleet is now diminished due to the EU paying owners to scrap boats to conserve fish stocks and the once vibrant ceramic tile making industry is being undercut by China. The marina is probably only 5 years old but is under utilised and services that we would normally expect around such a facility were lacking to say the least meaning we end up staying much longer than planned. We regret not going to Almerimar to the south which was our initial plan, but that is in hindsight.
Nevertheless we meet some really nice locals and including a Kiwi lady Lorraine married to local sailmaker Benito. Once a week we go into town to join the local English speakers and those learning the language, for a social drink and meal which we enjoyed and alongwith two other Kiwi yachts in port, Awaroa and Cuttyhunk hosted a barbie at the marina one evening to balance the hospitality. Also watched our first RWC game here.
Finally underway again we head south along the east coast of Spain passing an increasing volume of tourist development that Spain is known for, most of it hideous use of waterfront space.
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| Little New York on the Spanish coast...tourist development on steroids |
We are heading for Cartagena an historic port city of Spain and home to the countries Navy. Visiting the maritime museum is the primary reason for calling and we stay a few days.
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| In Cartegena we again spied that ultra mod supership we had last seen in Italy |
Departure planned for lunchtime is delayed by ships cat WiFi going awol and falling asleep on another boat in the marina and not responding to calls to return to Musketelle. A bit of comedy on the dock as everyone had seen her earlier that day but damned if anyone could find her now…..she turned up eventually as the heat of the day passed and food beckoned. We eventually departed late afternoon questioning value of said cat.
RWC
The Rugby World Cup is full on so we call into Almerimar where we should have come for haulout but now come for the serious end of the RWC. This is a town largely inhabited by Brits and soccer is the game at most of the cafes. On arrival we met a few Aussies, Brits and and Frogs that will be interested in the rugby so P walks the parish looking for a locale that will open early for the games starting at 08.30am local time.
First obvious stop is the local Irish Pub and the publican says games are too early and he is only offering a delayed broadcast at 12.30pm lunchtime which P sort of considers but then he adds 'the commentary will be in Gaelic! Finally find a soccer bar that the owner will have his cleaner open specially for us, so this café gets the nod. After the first game watched there the owner could see the business potential and for subsequent games he offered full bar service and cooked English breakfast and did a roaring trade. The Irish Pub the normal rugby pub was outraged their position had been hijacked by the soccer bar but he was not prepared to get up early and paid the price.
We stayed in Almerimar right through until the final we enjoyed the atmosphere so much. During this time hired a car and toured inland to Grenada and also visited the ancient Muslim fort city of Alhambra. Completed yet more jobs on the boat in between games and we were visited by a couple of winter lows to remind us the seasons are changing.
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| View from berth at Almerimar to Serria Nevada mountains |
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| Tourist at Alhambra Muslim palace circa 1400's |
Microwave Story…..
We were looking at new microwaves in a store in Almerimar one day and as if the existing microwave was in on the banter it decided to blowup the next day to let us know it was not impressed. So we were forced to spent a few more days installing a new unit because as per normal the overall size was a little different to the old unit just to keep us on our toes. Another couple of days.
