Almerimar - February 2019

Almerimar - February 2019

Tuesday 5th February…

LINDA - This week in paradise (well almost) we were shocked to receive 3 whole days non-stop gale force winds. It first started to blow around bedtime on Wednesday and carried on right through until late Saturday afternoon, at times reaching approximately 56 knots we believe.  So that was three nights without any decent sleep. Not that we were worried about safety, but just that the motion of the boat and the squeaky fenders and bumps in the night kept us from dozing for too long. So it was a long three days without being able to do very much outdoors. 

Just look at those waves hitting the shore

Here comes the next one

Good for surfers....not sailors

It just so happened that Dean has been poorly all week with a very sore throat and bad cough. The medicine we got from the chemist made him cough twice as badly, so much so that he took his anger out on a poor packet of Strepsils.  We read afterwards that the medicine can make you feel manic. As if he isn’t manic enough! Sorry Dean, only joking dear. Hence we missed Wednesday’s quiz because Dean was in bed by 9pm. So what with the weather and the illness we haven’t taken hardly any photos this week.

We have been following the Golden Globe Race since we were in Les Sables d’Olonne last June. If you don’t know about this race, it’s a single handed non-stop round the world sail boat race, and the winner Jean-Luc Van Den Heede actually returned last Tuesday after completing his circumnavigation in 212 days. I can’t imagine being at sea for that long, can you? What an achievement. Can’t say I will be following in his footsteps, not just yet anyway. 

On Thursday we ventured out in the windy weather and went food shopping. We always take the groceries back to the boat by shopping trolley and it was a bit of a fight against the wind this week as we pushed the trolley about the marina. We’ve been keeping our eye on the neighbour’s boats, and there were a couple of loose lines which Dean tended to. We’ve booked a hire car from Almeria Airport for two weeks starting on the 11th Feb at a cost of 48 euros. We think that’s a very good price, all things considered. It’s not as good as hiring from Malaga Airport though where you can get a car for less than one euro per day. Trouble is you have to get to Malaga to get it and that’s about 100 miles from here.  

Dean kindly ordered me a new battery for my laptop. On the internet we found a place that will ship from Madrid at a reasonable cost. We could have got one delivered cheaper to the UK but the trouble is the airlines won’t let you carry batteries unless they are in a device, and that would have meant carting the laptop back to the UK with me next week.

The old battery removed....not very exciting 

but we don't have many photos this week!

Even though it was awful weather on Friday I still went along to the line dancing. Dean made sure I went well wrapped up in wellies and waterproofs. The venue is along the beachfront and the sea was raging with very large waves crashing onto the shore. To be honest it was hard to concentrate on the dancing because the sea was so mesmerising. The wind was blowing so hard that the roof was rattling and shaking, and so I nicknamed this week’s session ‘Extreme Line Dancing’, lol. Amazingly there was a good turnout, but towards the end the electric packed up and so we had no music.  At the Ladies in Boats session this week, one of the new ladies turned up with a bag full of peppers for us all. Apparantly she is a geneticist at one of the big greenhouse companies here in Almerimar. Quite an interesting job I would think. Anyway the peppers were absolutely delicious.  Another of the ladies has offered me a sewing machine so we’ll pick that up this week. It’s turning out to be quite productive going to all these ladies events…

We didn’t go out Friday or Saturday night as Dean was still not well. Monday came and it was VHF Net day. Poor Dean was not feeling up to it and couldn’t afford to go into a coughing session half way through, so I took the plunge and told him that I would do it! How brave is that? I was a bit nervous but tried not to let it get the better of me. I think everyone must have been very shocked when they heard my voice on the radio instead of Dean’s. 

Good morning all listeners

Straight after the Net I carted Dean off to the local doctors, he didn’t argue. Well it was obvious he wasn’t getting any better. Turns out he has got a chest infection and the doctor wrote him a prescription for antibiotics plus tablets for his cough. We weren’t able to use the EHIC card because it was a private doctors, and so the appointment cost 50 euros. At least he should be on the mend soon. 

DEAN – I went to see the stainless man on site here this week. It looks like the only way I’m going to fit a new anchor is to have a special roller assembly made. Anyway, he’s too busy so it can’t be done before we leave. He does have drilling facilities though so maybe I can have the roller assembly cut and folded at home, shipped out and then drill the final mounting holes here when it arrives. Back to making more anchor templates then so I can decide which anchor to go for. They're all pretty ugly looking things!

Still no bloody anchor chain from the guy in the yard. I think I’ll give up and try elsewhere! Some good news though.... my mast halyard exit that i ordered last week arrived from the UK. Now just to decide whether i wait for the 'manyana' rigger to fit it, or should i do it myself? 

The Mast Halyard Exit.

Cost a whopping £20 to send this part from France to Spain! 

I contacted the local leather girl! Nice…. Anyway we have some marks on the vang. That’s an aluminium tube that runs from the boom to the base of the mast and the rope block that controls the tension has been rubbing and made some marks. She sold me a nice piece of leather which I cut to size and then stitched in place.

Nice neat job i think

I’ve been cleaning the boat up recently, stainless polishing, deck etc. After I also spent a couple of hours cleaning the bikes and oiling parts etc last week, we had a storm that brought with it lots of salt spray and sand so now everything is covered with salt and sand again. Start over I think!

My ideal anchor search is still ongoing. This week i made a template for the Rocna 33, hardboard this time. 

Work in progress, takes my mind off feeling ill

Looks pretty good but the shank is too long

You never really know how it will sit until you try it

I also had to visit the Spanish doctor this week. My man flu was getting the better of me. Turns out that I have a respiratory infection. Off to the pharmacy for antibiotics. Feeling a lot better now.


Tuesday 11th February…

LINDA – We’ll start this week with the awful words ‘DOG OVERBOARD’. Yes it’s true, Saffy had her very first overboard experience. I suppose it was going to happen at some time, and I guess it was a long time coming since we’ve had the boat for over four years now. She has been getting very familiar with walking the passarelle lately, sometimes she escapes the boat even to just say hello to passers by . One day this week we had the passarelle set high so that she wouldn’t walk up it. It so happened that I set the smoke alarm off when I was cooking. She hates any noises that come from the boat, and when the alarm sounded we checked on her and found she had walked the plank when it was raised up high. We found her sitting on the pontoon, God knows how she got there.

Anyway, the overboard experience came a couple of days after this. I was just about to take her for her morning walk and she was following me along the passarelle onto the pontoon. As I said she is getting too familiar with this and suddenly I heard a big splosh behind me, turned round and there she was in the water, about 5 foot below me. We think she had tried to cut the corner, jumped, and missed her footing. Dean had already gone inside and I shouted in a panic… ‘The dog’s in’. He came out to see what the commotion was about and I shouted again… ‘The dog’s in’. Our hearts were racing, but he quickly went to get the landing net and had to coax Saffy towards him before he could reach her. We think she was in the water for about two minutes in total, having swam away from the boat and back again.  She was coughing and spluttering, and when Dean pulled her out she was very shaken, and so were we.

Recovering and trying to warm up after the 'ordeal'

On a lighter note, Friday was a busy day. Tina, a friend of ours suggested Cindy and I try a bit of yoga this week before the line dancing session. She let us use her yoga mats and we found ourselves perfoming all sorts of stretchy positions on the floor in the park looking up at the beautiful blue sunny sky, quite surreal. After line dancing it was straight to the ladies in boats meet up where one of the ladies had offered to give me a sewing machine that she didn’t want. So by the time I had taken my trolley round to collect it from her apartment I didn’t get back to Thesee until almost 2.30pm. It was a very quick lunch and then at 3pm we were taking part in a litter pick on the west beach. This had been organised by our friends Ant & Cindy and an amazing 30 odd men, women, children, and dogs turned up to help with the beach clean. Mainly it was the plastic we were picking up that had found its way onto the beach during last week’s storm. Everyone was really enthusiastic and in high spirits, afterwards all stopping for a drink outdoors in the sunshine at Leo’s Bar. It seems that everyone had heard about Saffy’s overboard exploits and she was the talk of the marina.

Ant & Cindy giving pre-beach-clean instructions

.... and the litter pickers are off....

Dean's already getting stuck into the undergrowth

Saturday…. Happy Birthday to me. Dean took me out for a full English breakfast at a local bar. It was delicious, and a real treat. I was so excited to see sunshine on my birthday and we sat outside to eat.

Would you believe this is the first one i've had since we left the UK

Back on Thesee, our newly acquired sewing machine was not performing as it should and so Dean took it to bits. He loves to fiddle with stuff and won’t settle until he has found and fixed the issues.

 He'll soon have this sewing machine ship shape

All working now of course. After lunch we took a walk to the beach and spent an hour or so flying the kite. There was just about enough wind to keep flying, although at times it seemed to just float in mid-air, so it was quite tricky to keep it from crashing down. There were quite a few people around being the weekend and sunny, and again we were aghast at how people just wander underneath the kite when it could come crashing down on their heads, and some even trying to step over the line when it’s on the floor. It’s not like were hogging the beach, there was more than plenty of room, the beach is massive.

Dean setting up the kite... 

seems Saffy doesn't think much of our excitement

 A quick birthday selfie whilst no-one is looking

See, i told you there was loads of room on the beach

It's my turn to fly the kite and 

you can see i'm having a whale of a time

Walking back from the beach I got a phone call from home, the grandchildren singing Happy Birthday to me. Thank you so much Summer & Isaac. I can’t wait to see you in a few days time for big cuddles.

On the evening it was back to Leo’s again. Dean had booked a table for us for a birthday meal before the quiz started at 9pm. We walked in and to my surprise Dean had arranged for our friends Ant & Cindy to eat with us and there they were waiting at the table. I was so pleased. The food was great and after the meal and just as the quiz was starting the staff brought out a chocolate birthday cake for me! All arranged by Dean, you have been busy planning haven’t you? Thank you for making my birthday here in the sun so special. We had a brilliant night, even though we did terrible at the quiz and only came in 7th place. I like to change our team name each week and make it something topical. Tonight we were called 'Bin Bags R Us'. Maybe that's why we were rubbish?

Here's Ant & Cindy

.... now our turn to pose

Dean's dinner.... lamb tagine

It's cake time

Getting down to business with the candles

The super duper yummy chocolaty dream cake

DEAN – So once again this week I have been playing about with anchors! I managed to borrow a 30kg SPADE anchor from our new friends Sam and Rose. Sam loves the SPADE and previously had issues with the Rocna he used. There was a bit of hoisting and lowering going on to position the anchor, but once in place it seemed the best fit so far with the least modifications. So I’ve ordered the 30kg SPADE from the shop here. SPADE actually stands for: Societé de Production d'Accastillage et Divers Equipements.

 The borrowed SPADE anchor in situ on Thesee's bow roller

 Now time to return it to Sam

It’s a French design which I think is made in Tunisia, hopefully it will be here in two weeks. The chain sample also arrived and looks good. Sam tipped me off to a website that has a table to measure the two different types of chain available, ISO or DIN. The chain is made to two different standards and you have to make sure you replace like for like or things can get messy with the windlass.

About to check the windlass is good for the new chain sample

After all the excitement of ordering the chain and anchor I messed up with the credit card and ended up paying in Stirling instead of Euros. Bugger! I had to ask the two suppliers to issue a credit for each and charge me again so I could correct the mistake and pay in Euros. My bank gives me a far better rate if they control the exchange rate!

I spent one evening reading up on the strength of the windlass. With a 30kg anchor and 100 metres of chain out the weight can be quite a lot to recover. Usually there is only the anchor and the depth of chain deployed but you never know. Anyway all’s good and the windlass should cope easily.

We had Linda’s birthday on Saturday. All went well, which I’m sure she has told you about. Needless to say I booked a table at the Saturday quiz and ordered a cake with candles. Everybody sang Happy Birthday…job done!

I had a Whatsapp message from Jeremy on S/V Right Turn over the weekend, he’s in Guadaloupe at the moment after crossing the Atlantic with the ARC in November. He sent me photo of a boat he came across. It’s a Belgian cat called Thésée. The only other Thésée that we know about. We have it on AIS and have followed it for a while now. Quite strange to actually see a photo of it though.

The 'other' Thésée

We have a hire car for the next couple of weeks. Linda flies home later this week so I can drop her at the airport and pick her up when she returns. We had to take two buses to Almeria airport to collect it, two and half hours! We have a Fiat 500L. Big ugly looking thing. It’s quite dirty inside, pretty beat up and wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, can’t think of any good points to say about it really. Anyway I finished my antibiotics this morning so time for a quick dram before bed. Nite nite. Here's some scenic photos that Linda took today whilst we were on the bus going to get the hire car.

Looking down over Almerimar as we start the bus journey

This is in Roquetas de Mar. The striped hut is a WC.

Now overlooking Aguadulce marina

 Fish Farms as we near Almeria

Clear waters here

A lighthouse here i think

The bus station in Almeria.... time to change buses

Back at Aguadulce marina on the way home

Think this will be Thesee's next port of call after we leave Almerimar

Tuesday 19^th February…

DEAN - We took advantage of having the hire car this week and went for a day out to the Sierra del Cabo de Gata. It’s a national park just the other side of Almeria and a lot of people have told us about some beautiful anchorages and scenery there so we thought we would go and check it all out. Unfortunately the day we chose to visit was cloudy with a strong easterly wind so the conditions weren’t the most comfortable. Still we did manage to have quite a look around and indeed the coastline is quite spectacular.

 Little bird hiding from the wind

Nice beach and views

 Birthday sunglasses

Thanks Saffy!

 Weird storm clouds

 Beach road and windmill

 Guess who might live here?

Burglar proof plants

So making further use of the car we drove into El Ejido for the Wednesday market. It was the usual kind of stuff....clothes, shoes, bags. Think we’re just about done with markets now. We found a sewing machine shop which was a treasure trove of cottons and purchased some strong navy thread. Wednesday turned out to be quite a hectic day what with one thing and another Linda was mainly preparing to fly home.  

Wierd cauliflower at the markets. Not sure about this!

Back to the early hours of Monday morning we awoke to loud noise. The wind had got up again and one of the decorative windmills was catching the spray hood. It wasn’t till we both got up later that Linda noticed that the hot plate had exploded! There must have been some sort of temperature change in the night and the ceramic glass top had shattered all over the place. On the way back from dropping Linda at the airport I popped back into the place we bought it from and they are going to exchange it for a new one which I will collect when I pick Linda up later this week.

Smashing!

I spent some time over the weekend trying to sew the cable protector for the solar wires on the spray hood. All I wanted to do was stitch on a piece of Velcro to secure it in place. I ended up having to strip the sewing machine down again. I used all of my new thread testing! It nearly got inspected by Davy Jones! Anyway it looks like it’s working correctly now. Fingers crossed.

 Next time it goes in the drink!

 Sample stitches

 Two neat rows at last

 All ready to fit

 This is where it goes

Job done

While I was in a sewing mood I decided to have a go making a leather block cover. It's for the vang and it's been rubbing and making a mess. I made a leather cover for the vang last week so now the block is covered also. 

 Template first

 Finished job

I used the machine with no cotton to make two neat rows of holes and then hand stitched the leather using tow needles, one from each side. Not too bad in the end. Best done while Linda is away as some of the sewing terminology that is shouted is not for the faint hearted!

Tuesday 26th February

LINDA – Thanks to Dean for looking after Thesee’s blog last week whilst I nipped back to the UK for some half term cuddles.  What a good job he made of it.

My flight home was very good with wonderful clear views all the way. Thankfully I had a window seat! On leaving the north Spanish coast we actually flew over Laredo. Laredo was Thesee’s first Spanish port of call after crossing Biscay last Summer. What a coincidence. 

Just after take off, the Sierra Nevada mountains

A lovely flight with Jet2, my first time with this airline

... and this is the view of Laredo, North Spain.

The marina is in the top corner of the bay.

Back at home in the UK the grandkids were busy helping their Dad laying new floor tiles. On Wednesday my sister treated me to a day out along with Summer & Isaac at Middleton Hall, where we tip-toed through the snowdrops, and shared fond memories of our lovely Dad who would have been 100 years old that day. 

Isaac knows how to do it

 Summer lends a hand too

 On the snowdrop walk, Isaac finds a comfy seat

Summer finds a fairy doorway

Linda finds and aptly painted flowerpot

Now Isaac has the binoculars keeping an eye on us

Selfie time with the snowdrops

.... and even more snowdrops!

By Saturday lunchtime I was back in sunny Malaga. Both Dean & Saffy dog were waiting to meet me at the airport. It was great to see them and we chatted all the way back to Almerimar….almost 100 miles.  By teatime and after a Bacardi and Coke I felt really tired, but still managed to let Dean take me out for dinner and the usual Saturday night quiz. Six of our friends turned up for the quiz so that meant we had a team of 8 (4 Swedish & 4 Brits) but the quizmaster said we had to split into two teams so we played ladies v gents. The ladies had a great team name…. Swinglish, and the men called themselves ‘A few anchors’!!  Neither team did very well but the gents did beat the ladies by one point. 


I had only been back in Spain for 24 hours when Dean had me trying on a wetsuit. It’s been a long time coming but I finally gave in and tried it. Looks like I might be getting in with the fishes soon after all.  Not sure how happy I feel about that really.  

DEAN – Linda is back now, luckily I remembered to collect her from the airport on the correct day and all went well. Almost anyway. I dropped into the electrical shop on the way as agreed to collect the new hotplate they had promised to replace. When I got there the wa%&£rs were closed. I’ve since explained my disappointment to the manager and they say they are going to post to us here at the marina, we’ll see.

I did a few more jobs around the boat to pass the time. One was to collect the new anchor and a few other bits n bobs from the yard. I picked up a spare spinnaker halyard and spliced a nice eye in the end to take the QR shackle, I just need to thread this down through the mast when the exit is fitted. While I was doing this I stitched a loop in the end of all the other halyards. This makes the job of moussing the new lines so much easier when needed.

 Moussing loops all ready

 Just a bit more essential shopping while the boss is away

mmmm... nice eye splice sir

I met an ex yachty now a flaty and motor home owner that had some items to sell at one of the coffee mornings here. I advertised his bits for him on the Almerimar face book site but had no takers. However as Linda was away I decided that some of the bits would be handy aboard Thésée so I bought them.

Spot light

 Wet suit

Another wet suit

On Friday I was invited for a tour of one of the local greenhouses. It was fascinating, they use good insects to eat the bad insects so no insecticide is used, all quite technical really. I did the tour with some other yachties that were all Swedish. I had to introduce them to scrumping…yummy, although a little strange to the system scrumping tomatoes and peppers.

 Scrumping tomatoes

 Peppers

 Tomatoes as far as the eye can see

and more!

I also found a few minutes to clean the top of the oven. Look you can see your face in that!

What a pretty face it is

Thank you Ryanair for bringing Linda back to me, through duty free of course.

She does love me