Setting sail again

After almost 3 weeks in Gibraltar, we are now setting sail again, this time our destination is the Canary Islands! It will be the longest trip yet, at 688 Nm, but if the weather doesn't misbehave it should take about 5 to 6 days. The island we are aiming for is Gran Canaria.

In Gibraltar

We are now moored in Ocean Village Marina, Gibraltar, after a pretty hard trip from Cartagena. We did get the wind with us this time, but when it reaches storm strength, it isn't that comfortable anymore. It took 3 days. All crew were well when we came to port.

Then we experienced another storm yesterday night. This time our boat was struck into the concrete pontoon, which we obviously couldn't let happen. The anchoring rope also fastened itself in our propeller. Some english guys came over and helped us out so that we got a line from another pontoon directly behind the boat, holding us off. This whole thing took a few hours, and we didn't get to bed before around 3am.

Leaving for Gibraltar

We are leaving Cartagena today, going towards Gibraltar. If the weather is anything like the forecast says, we should be able to get there in a few days. If the weather goes bad we'll find a sheltered anchorage (we are sailing along the coast, so there's bound to be one close by). It's about 225 nautical miles to sail.

Hasta pronto!
Thorstein

Cartagena!

We arrived in Cartagena on Saturday after a days sail from San Pedro. Not too much wind, but we had fog! It was the first time that we were navigating with the aid of a fog horn. We heard the sound from the light house at Cabo the Pelos far ahead of us as the coast landscape disappeared, and we could easily recognise it as we passed. Of course, we have all the other means of knowing where we are, map, GPS, radar, but it was comforting to hear that we were on the right track!

Cartagena has lots of history and so far we have barely started exploring it. We visited the new Museo Arqueologico Submarine this morning. And have picked a few others for tomorrow. But we have had visiting friends from Norway on board, and we will visit them in their holiday home today! Teenagers even, so it is great for Ingeborg and Thorstein.

When the new ceramic top for our cooker arrives from England we will either sail on to a new destination or stay to finish the repair. It depends on the weather most of all.