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Blog 4Well we have had an interesting few days with its ups and downs! Leaving Almeria was no problem and we motored and sailed up to San Jose in pleasant conditions, as we passed the bay before San Jose we commented on how that would probably be the best anchorage for the wind direction but pressed on as a number of people had told us that San Jose town was lovely. As we were keen to see it we attempted to get in at the yacht club and were initially told they would give us a berth for just one night however on seeing how wide we were the shouted their apologies and waved us away. After spinning on the spot, we excited through the gut which gave us 10 feet to spare….. when half way through some holiday makers on kayaks from the local resort appeared from behind the wall continued half way across and promptly stopped in the channel apparently unsure as what to do. Some frantic arm waving and shouting soon encouraged them to move on! We decided to anchor and dingy ashore to explore, the anchor set no problem and we dug it in with full reverse just to make sure, lowered the dingy and struggled to get the outboard to work. The kids were excited to get into the dingy…at first…then they were cross at it still not being ready…then to make matters worse once they had their life jackets on I had climbed in to get going the wind shifted and increased… and I made a very difficult decision to call the trip off and motor back to the other bay to the more secure anchorage. Fortunately this bay turned out to be as sheltered as expected, stunningly beautiful and have a fantastic beach, so all was well. (turned out to be nudist beach, in for a penny…well saves on the washing!).*add on from Liz - beautiful anchorage - beautiful beach, Ellen and Anna loved the swimming, dingy ride was fun, kids and grown ups happy - this is fantastic!We were up at 7 the next morning to make the best of the light and favourable forecast, raising the anchor went much better and spending a lot of money renewing the whole system was shelved (for now but not for long!). There was a 10 knot wind on the beam was great in a flat sea and we shot off a 7 knots plus, as we cleared the bay, we were getting some gusty downdrafts from the mountains, 15 knots, 18 knots, 20knots. Liz was on the helm and the boat was flying at over 10 knots, I suggested steering down any gusts at 20 knots plus and explained how turning up as would be done on a monohull was not the best course of action due to central fugal force acting to increase healing moment. I didn't think there was any danger certainly with gusts of less than 30 knots but I accidentally managed to scare Liz! She relinquished the helm and I had turned a peice of enjoyable sailing for her into a frightening experience unnecessarily (must work on tact!). We did have one gust of 30 knots not long after I took over and the boat accelerated incredibly, with spray from both bows and a wake any motor boat would have been proud of, she was incredible, obviously in her element, but we were not after thrills so we put away the fore sail and continued under main alone until the wind settled down to a steady 14 knots. We had a great sail the sun rising just as we left and 50 miles covered without problem in pleasant conditions, then we arrived!Puerto de Aguilas didn't appear particularly attractive from the sea, and we were at a loss to see why so many people had said it was nice. The yacht club had no space for such large visitors and behind the wall was taken up with moorings for local boats leaving…well…nowhere particularly so round into the next bay to try the anchorage between a rocky island and a concrete wall built for a railway (presumably used at one time for loading cargo vessels. The bottom was rock, the bay not particularly sheltered for the wind and on the first attempt to anchor Liz injured her ankle and we dragged! The anchor was a complete w@^*£r to recover and we decided to take another look at the harbour - Aguilas, this time I picked a spot with good shelter inshore of the moorings in 3m but we had to pay out a stern anchor as well to limit our swing due to the limited space. All was well and after a good nights sleep we went a shore and were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely town and indoor market, after shopping and playing in the park it was back to the boat for lunch. The wind was rising as we sat down to eat and due to our limited swing we were showing a lot of the boat to the wind, something didn't feel quite right…transits were taken and it was decided that we were dragging all be it only very slowly… but we didn't have much space to go back so we broke out the stern anchor, raised the bower and away we went for a quick after noon sail to Mazoron 20 miles up the coast. Or so we thought! The wind was on the nose all the way and built steadily till we were getting 20 knots apparent, the sea quickly built into a sharp chop which caused us to slam occasionally, but the kids were happy! As we approached Mazoron we decided to drop sails and motor the last bit rather than tack back out into the larger waves. At this point Liz notices the port engine is running at 110 degrees C, (it had been running a bit hotter than the other at around 90 so we had been keeping an eye on it) our lack of mechanical knowledge comes to light and we decide to take no chances and shut it down immediately! However with just the Starboard engine we are unable to turn the bows back to starboard into the wind and we are being blown sideways towards the shore which is a mile or so away… we turned away from the wind and set the jib to run out to gain more sea room to take stock (back into the waves). We are making good way using the engine and foresail but I felt we would struggle to make to windward on the other tack as the engine would serve to pus us off the wind. We decided to triple reef the main before tacking back in which turned out to be a mammoth task as we couldn't motor strait into the wind and the dam thing kept catching on the lazy jacks. I decided to take the lazy's down till we raised the sail, which turned out to be much harder than expected as the boat heaved around (thankfully kids playing happily inside oblivious to our drama!), in the process I managed to whack myself in the eye with one of the battens in the sail, knocking one lens out my specks and giving me a bit of a sore eye (lens never to be seen again!). add on from Liz - this was a very bumpy time with the boat slamming around and John and I soaked with spray and sails and ropes very heavy to manoeuvre. Although there was no danger I have to say I didn't enjoy it! Also - thankyou whoever invented the queazaway wrist bands. Spare specks were recovered from where my saintly wife had packed them and all was well… well almost we got the sail up and laid a course which got us in ok (the hot engine was used briefly for manoeuvring) into the harbour where we were told they had no space but the big marina in the town would take us (next bay, pilot book had said that was a commercial arbour only!), I insisted we must stop to look at our engine and we were reluctantly given 10 minutes along side the fuel berth. We both had a swim…under the boat to clear the water intake, hopping that would solve the problem, which it doesn't seem to liz - noses full of salt water for at least half an hour afterwards!, but we manage to limp round the corner to the marina, which fortunately is shiny new and not to expensive and first impressions of the place seem good, although there is no mechanic!
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