Back from Spain and back to the Grindstone

We flew back on Sunday and then back to work yesterday. The weather is gray and cold with more forecast while the sun continues to shine down in La Linea. We won't be able to get back down for a little while now but we paid the mooring through till the end of August. A nice little surprise caught us on that as the financial crisis in Europe has actually benefitted us with a devalued euro reducing the 1700 Euro down to £1400 odd.

The last couple of days in La Linea were great as we managed to get chatting to a few of the other long distance cruisers (as I shall slightly cheekily call ourselves).

Here are some pictures which, now we have our speedy broadband, I can put up here.

I had treated myself to a zoom lens in Gibraltar and it gives a nice view of this dry dock.

While down there I had intended to replace both the main and jib halyards and to splice the eyes in them myself. This defeated me. This picture shows roughly how far I got with one of them.

What did it was how hard it was to pull the core or cover up through the already thickened bit above the eye. There must be a technique because I have seen videos of people doing it. I am determined to get to grips with it as the ability to do a bit of rigging work might be a useful way of earning some beer money on the go.

The wind continued to blow hard right up to Friday when we finally managed a day sail in the Bay of Gibraltar or Bahia de Algeciras as the Spanish call it. The wind between the rock and the mountains behind Algeciras make for very flukey wind and we literally had spells of near flat calm from the WSW through to a F6 from the NW. Still, at leas we proved to ourselves that we still know how to handle a sailing boat.

I include this final picture to show just how revolting boats can be. This has been tied up in the Marina for ages but then on Saturday suddenly left.

Happy sailing to all especially to those in sunny climes and blue waters. We're not jealous delighted for you!