Safely Arrived Marocco

We arrived here in Rabat on Thursday. Getting updates will be difficult as wifi is patchy here.

Leaving Spain (At Last) (And A Second Try)

Well, we really are on the cusp of taking our departure from Europe at last. There was a previous case of this of course when we were set to leave for the Azores form western Portugal back at the end of May. Now we are more prepared and have a much shorter trip though one that will take us to a different world culturally speaking.

For the last few days we have been poring over the weather forecasts and a Saturday departure seems to be indicated now. We will therefore spend another night here at Puerto America in Cadiz and head south to Rabat in Morocco on Saturday. We have been going through the usual preparations that all long distance cruisers undertake when they are leaving an advanced western country for a much poorer one. We went to the Carrefour supermarket here in Cadiz this morning and spent a lot of money on all the staples that are either difficult to find or expensive outside to Europe. We chose stuff that would both, serve us well while in harbour but also stuff that will be best used when on passage. This second aspect though wasn't so important as we will be visiting both Madeira and the Canary Islands before heading off on the longer passages to Cabo Verde and across the Atlantic.

It is both exciting and a bit daunting. However, we definitely feel ready for this stage and are raring to leave southern Spain, nice though it is.

We have even tried one departure but ran into some engine problems. This has meant spending a couple of nights at anchor. Thankfully, it seems to be resolved now. There was a problem with water circulation but after finding a split in the host leading from the water pump to the engine block I have bodged it up with PTFE tape and that seems to be holding OK for now will we can get a new hose fitted - perhaps in Morocco.

While being anchored here we have got to know Eva Kullgren who has been sailing her 28 foot boat all the way from Sweden to here over the last four years. Rather than take the usual North Sea route, she went all the way through the canals of Germany and central Europe and then down the Danube to the Black Sea. She has then traveled the entire length of the Mediterranean and is now planning to how to get to the Canaries.

Her website is here and makes fascinating reading.

Access to WiFi Is A Terrible Thing

I have taken the opportunity to upload a lot of photos to the cruise_piccies album in what was Picassa till Google started trying to compete with Facefail and they now call plus.google

Googly album thingy

More Photos

Yet more though the wifi connection here is not the best. We will go to the bar for a drink after dinner to see if it is better there!

This is a view over the village of Alcoutim on the Portuguese side of the Rio Guadiana. It is an excellent place to visit and has some truly excellent eateries though regular readers will remember that it also got very hot with several days peaking at 38 degrees.

Another perhaps unremarkable view across the river.

Jumping forward a lot here to our recent stop in Rota. You can tell that the summer season has well and truly kicked off as this view of the beach shows. Interestingly though, it is very much a Spanish resort with almost no Brits or Germans in evidence except for the marina which is very popular with British yotties.

Rota is a very old fishing town though now more famous for being a holiday destination. It's big claim to fame is that one Bartolome Perez was a crew member on Columbus' voyages and rose to be pilot on one of the Caravels on the second voyage. This fort overlooks a square named after him.

For the last couple of days we have been at anchor outside a huge marina called Puerto Sherry of all things. It is very close to a town called El Puerto de Santa Maria which was the town where the wines of Jerez were shipped out from. This is the riverfront there.

Finally, there are some pine forests - well woods really - between the marina and the town past which we walked which are very pleasant and make a nice shady spot to sit in as well as being quite photogenic.

That actually brings us up to date though I may feel the need to put more up of Cadiz after tomorrow. So, look out!

Some Photos

We finally have a wifi connection here at Puerto America in Cadiz so I shall use the opportunity to push some photos up. Well, I will in between Audrey downloading radio plays and such like that we still need to get for the long ocean passages and anchorages.

Some of these will go back a while but I like them.

First up then: We celebrated our new outboard by having lunch on a sand bank in Alvor way back in Portugal. Alvor, as the avid readers of this featherweight tome will remember, is between Portimao and Lagos.

Of course after that, we didn't take so many photos as usual because we have been revisiting territory we have already passed but there is a nice picture of Sarah G anchored in the Guadiana along with a couple of pictures of the Don Quixote windmills in Sanlucar de Guadiana

Since leaving the Guadiana, we have really not taken many photos at all though. I hope we can update soon with exciting new cruising grounds a we finally take our departure from Europe.

Administrative Stuff

Sometimes it feels as if all we do is administrative stuff. Take insurance for example. We have for a long time been insured with Pantaenius who are one of the best leisure marine insurance brokers. However, cover provided is dependent on the area you intend to cruise. It is easy to get cover for European coastal waters down to Gibraltar but now of course we want to extend that. We are therefore getting a pro-rata extension to cover Morocco, Madeira and the Canaries. The renewal comes up in August so they will duly take a wodge of money for the same cover for next year. The complicated bit comes in that underwirters will not cover "small" boats in the Caribbean so we are going to have to go third party only once we leave the Canaries.

Therefore, when we come to leave the Canaries, we will have to notify them and we will get refunded the remainder of our hull cover policy which can then be held on account till we reach European waters again. All a lot of fun. I should point out that Pantaenius have been extremely helpful all through this and I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone contemplating a trip like ours.

Next, we have also to look at getting our Emergency beacon or EPIRB serviced which has to be done every five years. There is a service agent in Gibraltar but that is not convenient for us and there are none in the Canaries where we will be when the service time comes up. Therefore, we are going to have to send it back to the UK with one set of visitors and get another to bring it out to us with a new battery in it. I know that it is a very sophisitacted piece of equipment but I would have thought that a replacement battery could have been made a user serviceable job rather than one that entails sending it to the factory!

Oh well, at least that is all we have to do and we are now all but ready to head south to Morocco now! We will go across to the marina in Cadiz tomorrow to do the last bits of shopping we need to do.

Swimming!

The first (well almost) swim of the cruise. I did try it a few weeks ago in Alvor but the water was a good bit colder then and I was more or less straight back out. This time it was nice and refreshing!

We are anchored now just outside El Puerto de Santa Maria over the bay from Cadiz.

Rota

Well, we really are at the end of the mainland European part of this adventure. We arrived in Rota yesterday after a long and frustrating beat from Chipiona. The wind was effectively in the south west which meant a long beat which was exacerbated by having to buck against the flood tide running into the Rio Guadalquivir. We were nervous of using the engine too much as it seems to be showing a bit of a propensity to overheat at the moment. We are looking at ways of flushing it out at the moment. Still, we got here just as the sun was setting and are now setting to seriously prepare ourselves for our departure to Morocco.

It is only 155 miles from here to Rabat but that will be the longest sail we have done for a couple of years now and we need to be prepared for it as well as adapting to a very different culture in Morocco. We had a similar feeling when we got to the western end of Portugal and were planning on heading west to the Azores. Now however, we feel much more ready and it is likely that we will make the leap this time.

Rota is a nice town and the marina is quite comfortable as well. We will also take the ferry across to Cadiz in order to get some suitable clothes for wearing in Morocco. We took a wander around and found a square named after one of the crew members of Columbus who got the distinction of being pilot on the second voyage. Clearly a favoured son of Rota! If I can get some wifi other than this this dongle, I will put a photo up of it. We are set to have a meal ashore this evening and are resolved to try Manzanilla which is a type of sherry made near here at Sanlúcar de Barrameda. We may, if we get time take a bus there and visit one of their bodegas. I'll report on the experience of tasting it later though.

This is a picture of the lighthouse at Rota. I think that the Orange 3G dongle can take the beating of one photo.

Finally - The other member of our families undertaking a great waterborne adventure have been enjoying themselves as well it seems.
Read Nik and Tony's adventures here

Finally Left The Rio Guadiana Behind

Well, we left Ayamonte yesterday after deciding to break the journey to Rota at Mazagon rather than try it in one hop. The sail was not the best though it was mostly quite fast with a SE force 4-5 most of the time giving us a close reach. Frustratingly though we haven't worked out how to balance Sarah G very well on that point of sail which meant Henry the Navigator (AKA Aries windvane) struggled to keep her on course.

Still, we got here just before sundown after a lunchtime departure. We had to wait till then as the tides would have given us nasty over falls in the mouth of the Rio Guadiana. As ever, our resolve to only spend one day here has failed and we will move on to Rota tomorrow.

The bar here seems to have wifi which we will check out later. If it does, we may be able to get some pictures up.

Finally Out of Ayamonte Marina

We really like Ayamonte which is a nice little town. But four days in the marina was too long and as it was quite sheltered, things got very hot at times and made sleeping difficult at night. Now we have dropped anchor in the river just upstream of the town.

This location neatly avoids the wash from the fish boats and the cross river ferry. We will wait here for the Levanter that is blowing at the moment to blow itself out before heading back to the Cadiz area. Tuesday is looking promising.

For those of you unfamiliar with the weather terminology for this area - a levanter is the strong easterly wind that periodically blows down the Straits of Gibraltar and then spills up the coast as far as Cadiz even.

We have told the insurers that we will be heading to Morocco sometime after 15/07 so hopefully we will be bidding Europe farewell in a bit over a week.

Nice view of the bridge that connects this part of Spain with Portugal.