Palma - Cartagena - Gibraltar

Wednesday 30th October

Heading out of the anchorage and into the waves, against the wind, I started to wonder if I was actually going to enjoy the trip. Within an hour I was sick over the side, 4 hours later I was tucked up in bed! My 2 hours off watch passed and I felt a hole heap better but not quite up to cooking dinner.

As the night came in the waves got smaller and the reef was shaken out and we were making good ground although we didn't turn the engine off as we wanted to reach our maximum speed and we needed it to keep at 6.5knots. Our first sighting of dolphins was at about 12pm on Thursday, Rob kindly came to wake me. We all got up for lunch and then I became chief dolphin spotter.

I was woken by Matt saying "Lizzie, you have to come see this!" I appear out of my bunk to see that Rob has a bird on his shoulder! We were entertained for some while with it until it kept flying inside and Rob got tired of having to keep going and getting it. The cutest moment was definitely when it slept on Rob's arm, it buried its head under its wing and snoozed for a good 5 minutes. Eventually we put the wash boards in to give Rob a rest and we were shocked to see him leave and never return! We imagine it then went to hangout with some fisherman.

Cartagena couldn't come fast enough, it was getting a bit chilly and we were all very tired. We arrived in the marina at 4.30AM and were greeted by a security man who kindly helped us fasten the ropes. We dove into our beds as fast as possible to get warm.

Friday was officially a tourist day, we wandered the streets of Cartegena and around the city walls. We were all a little surprised by the town as it was so quite. We decided we'd have dinner in one of the restaurants by the marina as they were at least busy. Matt went to pay the berthing fees, the girl in the office spoke good English and gave us a map and listed a few restaurants that we should try and told us to avoid the downtown area as it is full of Albanians! We ventured into town and were shocked to see there were people everywhere, the town had suddenly come alive. We found the first restaurant and decided it wasn't quite what we were after, we then tried the Italian, that actually wasn't very Italian and was more Spanish. We were originally the only people in there but eventually it packed out and it really was a great little restaurant.

Saturday morning we headed off around 10AM aiming for Malaga, we were hoping to get as close as possible to drop Rob off as his flight was from there Sunday evening. Saturday turned into the biggest dolphin spotting day ever. There was no wind, no waves and we could see for miles. It was really special. We managed to drop Rob off in Caleta da Velez, where some old wrinkly blonde was trying to chat him up!! From there he could get a bus to the airport. Matt and I continued heading down the coast and planned to stay in the Marina on the other side of Malaga. We arrived there just after 6PM, and the man on the fuel dock told us they were full and couldn't let us stay the night, we could see plenty of empty berths but we weren't going to argue. We decided to just keep going to Gibraltar.

That night we saw the best dolphins of all, they were diving in and out of the phosphorescent and stayed with us for most of our trip. At 15miles to go the lighthouse of Europa point appeared and we could start spotting all the anchored tankers waiting to go into the port. We could even see lights on Africa as it was such a clear night! Avoiding the anchored tankers was interesting and we slowly navigated our way through to the Marina. Luckily the security man came to greet us and sent us over to the Customs Dock to clear immigration and then we moored up in the Marina. We eventually hit the sack around 3.30AM and had the best nights sleep. We were really glad that we'd gone for it, it was a great relief to wake up and know we were at our final destination for at least a week.

Gibraltar wasn't quite what we were expecting, it reminds us alot of Falmouth crossed with Peckham. We have however managed to buy some Ribeana and some nice bread, mmmmmm marmite on toast. We also dashed off on our first morning to fulfil our sausage cravings!

We've met up with Ben, a friend of Scotty's & Phil. Had dinner with David & Betty who were moored next to us in Club de Mar for a few weeks. Today we're waiting for Marc to find his bag at the airport and tonight we're meeting with a few of my friends from Southend who are currently working here.

ARC preparations are going well and we are getting very excited about the trip. Only three weeks to go!!! Next stop is Lanzarote, we'll be there next weekend for 2 weeks. We'll be waiting for my mum and Auntie and also for the ARC girls arrivals.

Will we have another night like the Pirates Party in Las Palmas?

Move on Our Cruise to Lanzarote

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