Liz here again! We are anchored in the Mar Menor (an inland sea just North of Cartagena). A French couple who we were friends with stopped by the night before we left for a drink (or few) and mentioned kindly that I spoke good French! I think my accent was better for a couple of red wines! Our trip here from Cartagena was lovely - we set off early in the morning, and after getting refuelled (with no leaks from the newly repaired tanks) we mostly sailed here, gett...

Well its my turn to write a blog (Liz) as John wrote the last one. This one will have less sailing terminology in I promise! We are in Cartagena, and have been for about a week. We are tied up in the marina here (we found out yesterday that we are tied up in the expensive marina here - the other one which is not in the pilot book is about half price! We will know better next time!) on a visitors berth which means that we are alongside the touristy promenade. It i...

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 wo...

Well we did it, we moved the boat! We didn't get as far as we hoped as the kids seemed a bit fragile (scarred) and sleepy due to motion (although not as queasy as Liz). Heading up wind into 20 knots of breeze wasn't really the gentle start we hoped for but light winds are forecast for tomorrow and we should round Cabo de Gata and get out of the wind acceleration zone. The boat sailed well 50 degrees to the wind at 7 knots under full sail. The auto helm is still n...

we are here! here we are! well, that is the packing and moving out and the goodbyes all done now. I have to say, the goodbyes were much much harder than i was expecting, i was and still am so very sad to say goodbye to the close friends we have made in Scotland. These friends have supported us wholeheartedly in making this happen, Sarah and James and Ben put us up for over a week, and even put up with our hectic and random packing and panicking as we tied up endl...