This is out of order a bit, since the last post was about Almerimar still.  In between we have crossed over to Gibraltar, stopped by Fuengirola, and celebrated Andrew’s birthday.

We also sailed out of Gibraltar.  That’s notable because it means that we have left the Mediterranean and entered the Atlantic.  I’ll fill in the details later, but suffice it to say that it was a smooth exit.  There is much discussion of transiting the Straits of Gibraltar where the wind, current and tides all conspire to set up some very complicated conditions.  The water is flowing one way a few miles out and then the other direction a few miles past that, at times.  Well, we cut right through that, and the huge shipping lanes there with no trouble to speak of.

Our port of entry in Morocco was Rabat.  Our original idea was to go from Gibraltar to Casablanca just because it sounds so cool to say that.  We had an exhausting night at sea and found out that there is no marina at Casablanca, so we changed our plan.

The marina is Rabat is a mile up the Bou Regreg river.  They have a pilot boat that comes out to meet you and guide you up the river.  It’s not too hard for us because we have such a shallow draft, but it’s always good to know that you’re not going to hit a sand bar.

We tie up to the reception dock and await the authorities, who are manifold here in Morocco.  First there is a doctor to check that we don’t have Swine flu or any other diseases.  Then comes the police with a sniffer dog.  Evidently, they were looking for explosives.  They found our stash – the pyrotechnics in the grab bag.  These are the flares that we keep for emergency signalling.  So, the dog comes and goes and then we have customs and immigration.  More paperwork and bureaucracy.

We’ll come to find that arriving in Morocco by boat is not as easy as arriving by air or land.  We have to go through customs each time we enter a port.  This means that we have three stamps in our passports.  Ok, stamps in the old passport are cool, but only to a degree.  This is excessive.

While we are waiting for other officials to come to the boat (we still haven’t left the reception dock) we hear an American accented voice coming in over VHF.  They are trying to call the marina, but no one is responding.  So, we respond and tell them that there is indeed a pilot boat.  We then let the pilot himself know that he should go meet them when they arrive.  That takes care of our boating mitvah for the day.

The marina is nice.  It’s a new development with restaurants along the edge.  The problem is that there is not a lot of space.  Each pontoon has these finger docks sticking off from them to form the berths, but they are only 20 feet long. Our boat is 41 feet.  So, we end up having six different lines tied all over the berth to keep us steady.

There were other American boats in the marina and we took the opportunity to talk with some of them.  One guy had sailed his boat (the first hull built by Hans Chrisitan) from Los Angeles all the way over here. We were blown away with the trips that some of these crews had done. Many of them knew the marinas in Israel firsthand, because they had stopped there on the way to or from the Med. It was great to talk to people who share our same culture and language, too.

We toured Rabat a little, although there is not too much to see. We had coffee in the cafes where the men all sit looking outwards at the street. We walked around the grounds of the presidential palace after going through a security check where we had to relinquish our passports. The tower and mausoleum dedicated to Hassan II was clearly visible from the river. So, we just relaxed after the hard sail, mostly. We went to a very overpriced but delicious buffet in a hotel there. Suddenly we were surrounded by Americans. Where had they come from? Why were they in Rabat anyway?

I did take the opportunity to lose my phone while in Rabat. So, if you know me well enough, send me your number by email.

From Rabat we sailed down to Casablanca. The lady at the office of the Rabat marina told us that we could stay the night there. We were greeted on the VHF by the authority asking who gave us permission to enter. They then let us anchor in this one section of the harbor. It was an industrial landscape, right next to the container terminal. In the placid expanse of water in this open-ended rectangle of breakwaters, we moored up next to some rusting hulk of a loading dock. In the middle of this strange area lay the partially submerged remains of a wreck. We didn’t get off the boat. But, hey, we were in Casablanca! Play it again and all that rot.

From there we sailed to Safi, another industrial port. This one is known as the export center of phosphates! We rafted up to another sailboat and a giant fishing boat. The little sailboat between us was on five or six meters long, dirty and in disrepair.
We had to go through the formalities here gain, including walking through some sort of machine that takes your temperature. It looked like a metal detector. It’s always disconcerting when a doctor takes you over to a special shed that is kept under lock and key and bids you to subject yourself to some strange contraption. But it was actually painless.

This time we did exit the harbor. It’s a long walk next to a high wall meant to keep international crews away from the Moroccans and vice versa. The old town of Safi, the medina, was pretty cool. It was full of twisting streets and vendors of all sorts, but no tourists. I think Andrew and I were the only white guys around. We bought some pastries at a little counter where we were served by a “jedi”. That’ the term I picked up in Kenya for the women who wear the hooded robes and face veils. Others prefer to call them “ninjas”. It was a very interesting experience; we didn’t know if we should talk to her or not, she didn’t seem to know how much things cost, or perhaps how to add, and of course, the whole time we are wondering what she looks like under all those coverings.

After we came back from town I went to the boatyard where they build the traditional fishing ships. They are all wooden and come in two sizes; small ones with outboard motors and the huge trawlers. A friendly kid showed me around the place. I can only imagine what his life must be like, doing hard labor all day long, exposed to toxic chemicals and injury and with no chance to get anywhere.

We were overcharged by the harbormaster and then had to stay at the boat to get our paperwork and passports back. So, we couldn’t go out for dinner. We tucked in early to be fresh for the next day’s trip down to Essaouira.

The week of living dangerously

I returned from Madrid to Almerimar with a new friend, J.  J is a friend of Marian’s who is also a California native and Cal grad. As luck would have it, she was free of obligations for the week.  So, she came down south with me.  What a relief it was to have company for the drive down and for the next week.  Andrew had flown back to the U.S. for a short family visit.  He’s only been home a few times in the last three years, and this was one of the only times he would be able to get away.  

 

I spent the week chasing around the various contractors in the boatyard, making sure that things were progressing.  The boatyard i run by an Italian man named Paolo.  He has grey hair, jowls and a bit of a stomach although he still does some of the boat work himself.  He seemed to be very knowledgeable and pleasant at first.  

 

The things we had done to the boat included; having the standing rigging replaced, fixing a leak in the stern, fixing up various scratches along the hull, repairing a section of our rolling furler and repairing some damaged electronic components.

 

To replace the rigging, they took down the mast.  Strictly speaking it is not necessary to do so, but that’s the way Paolo wanted to do it.  I was there to supervise as they detached all the cables, including the forestay, and lifted the mast into the air with a crane.  For the next week it would sit beside the boat on a couple of oil drums.  Our mast is deck-stepped, which means that the end of it sits on the deck as opposed to sitting on the keel itself.  There is a pole inside the main salon that we had always assumed was part of the mast.  It turns out this is what is called a compression post.  The compression post transfers the pressure from the mast downward to the keel.  The oddest thing I learned when they lifted the mast is that the thing is really held in place by the rigging.  At the bottom of the mast, where it sits on the fitting on the deck, it is only held in by a pin sitting in a groove.  Not a pin through an eyelet or hole, just a semicircular groove.  The cables of the rigging hold the mast into place by forcing it down and balancing it forward to back and sideways.  

 

The standing rigging is the set of the cables that hold the mast in place.  Running rigging refers to things like lines that also go up the mast and put tension on it, but can be changed or removed when not sailing.  The standing rigging is supposed to be replaced every seven years according to the insurance companies.  Most people say that one can wait a little longer to do so, but we’re going to be crossing an ocean soon.  

 

Paolo had to fabricate new cables for our shrouds and stays, complete with new end fasteners.  I got to see Paolo using the machine that swages (<- today’s vocab word) the ends onto the cables.  It’s a hydraulic machine that pulls the cable through an opening.  In passing through that same opening, it squeezes the endpiece together onto the cable.

 

Meanwhile, a rotund, balding man with thick glasses is hard at work repairing the leak we had in the stern.  The boat is manufactured with two pieces of fiberglass sealed together at a sam that runs all the way around the edge.  The top piece of fiberglass is the deck and the bottom is the hull.  At the stern they dip below the waterline.  I guess thsi was done to have a nice shape and make entry from the water, i.e. after swimming, easier.  However, it means that a seam is below the waterline and hence a possible source of leaks.  We have been dealing with the leak and the periodic piercing klaxon of the bilge pump that it causes for some time  We thought that it was a failure on the part of the sealant in the seam.  It turns out there was an actual crack through the fiberglass where the hull makes a sharp corner.  

 

Our portly friend sanded back the area of the crack and started building it up again with fiberglass.  After that he layered on gelcoat – the shiny outer surface.  Finally the whole thing was painted with anti-fouling and the cover over the seam was screwed back into place.  He also went over the seam with some gelcoat from the outside.  (I had gotten into the transom locker at one point with a gun of silicone sealant to try to fix the leak.  He had it easier on land, methinks.)  He then went on to fill in the various small scratches around the hull.

 

At the same time we were also having our sails repaired.  The broken part of the rolling furler had pinched the jib and our battens in the mainsail had shattered and poked through the sail.  We took them both over to the sail loft, An’C, run by a nice South African guy named Colin and his wife.  

 

He was a great help in getting the sails off – something I had never done before.  He was quite busy in the loft and shorthanded, but he promised to get our sails back to us by the next Wednesday, our scheduled departure date.  

 

Colin is a wiry gu with shaggy blond hair, a suntanned face marked by deep laugh lines and surprising blue eyes.  We got to kno him quite well.  He told us of his time traveling in the U.S., hitchhiking back and forth, and the sailing he had done on the North Star, a restored classic wooden boat.  He had been a wooden boat builder before he met his second wife, and current partner in the sail loft, in Mallorca.   

 

The week in Almerimar could have ben torturous, but with J there, it was pretty nice.  We explored what the place had to offer within walking distance – the beach, the plazas and, uh, the supermarket.  We fell in love with the sweet old man who runs the bar called El Bucanero.  It quickly became our favorite breakfast place (cafe con leche y tostadas de tomate y atun) and a frequent cana y tapa stop, too. 

 

I met the somewhat nutty guy who sells “acorns” that he whittles himself.  He’s a older gentleman who has also written a few books of poetry.  He gave me one of the books for free after I bought an acorn for a euro.  He insisted that i don’t say “gracias” but rather “salud”.  He also asked me to tell whoever I met that I had received his poetry for free.  So, world, I got a free book of poems by Antonio Torres Montes.  

 

I decided to make the trip up to Granada for the last weekend I had in Almerimar with J and without Andrew.  Almerimar gets pretty quiet on the weekends anyway and no work was going to be done to Tocayo.  So, J and I left on Saturday to take the bus up.

 

The first stop on the way to Granada is El Ejido, the nearest big town to Almerimar.  Described by some as “el pueblo mas feo de Andalucia”, El Ejido has nothing much to go for it besides big shopping outlets and the tallest skyscraper in the region.  J and I took the local bus from the marina to the bus station in the E-dub.  We had to wait for a few hours until the next bus to Granada, so we walked off to a nearby park.  We came back to the station and saw that the bus was supposed to leave at 4pm, according to the sign on the wall.  We waited for a while so that the line at the ticket counter would go down and then we went up to get our tickets.  The lady at the counter told us that the bus had just left – at 3:45!  The ticket office didn’t even open until 3:30.  We couldn’t believe we had missed the bus while sitting in the station.  So, we had to wait another couple of hours for the next bus.  That’s a little too much tim to spend in El E, in my opinion.

 

Fially we got on the bus and up to Granada.  It was already dark by the time we found our hotel.  We freshened up and headed out for tapas.  Granada still keeps  the tradition of serving a tapa with every beer.  So, you can go out drinking and have dinner at the same time.  The first place we went to was called La Bella y La Bestia.  It was crowded and the tapas they offered were more like a burger joint than a Spanish bar.  They have a system where you get better tapas with each round, but after the first round of ham sandwiches and fris, we didn’t feel like staying.  The next place was also similar, but then we found some more authentic places.  At the last bar which was the most tourist-oriented, we actually ordered a tapa and sat down at a table outside.  We asked for the check three different times from three different waiters who each ignored us in turn.  Finally, we gave up trying to pay and just left.  In Spanish this is called a “sinpa”, short for sin pagar.  It’s the first time I’ve ever done it in Spain – or elsewhere if memory serves.  

 

On Sunday, J and I walked around town and had a few more beers and tapas.  Then, sadly, I had to get back on the bus to El Ejido and she had to wait for hers to Madrid.  I would have two days in Almerimar to tie up loose ends before Andrew returned.

 

They went quickly because everything seemed to be coming to a head at once.  The mast went back on in an unexpected change of plans.  The carpenter came on board to say there was nothing he could do about our groaning bulkheads.  The work on the sails went along apace, in time for that deadline.  I retreated when I could from the dust and desolation of the boatyard to the air-conditioned comfort of the cybercafe, missing J and awaiting Andrew’s return.

 

Almerimar

We arrived in Almerimar, a large marina West of Almeria run by the junta of Andalucia, after an overnight sail from Cartagena.  The entrance to the marina silts up, so they have to dredge it regularly.  They mark the dredged channel with red and green buoys that give the impression of landing on a runway. The first stop was the torre de control.  It’s the administration building for the marina, an incongruous mix of architectural styles capped by a lighthouse-looking tower whose main role seems to be symbolic.

 

We checked in quickly and found our berth.  It was a real tight squeeze between two other boats.  When we first saw the space, we balked because it looks so small.  Andrew drove us in without hitting on either side, though, so it wasn’t too bad.

 

We decompress then, as we tend to do after overnight sails.  Dinner that night was a vegetable paella in the meson “El Laurel.”  I found it amusing that people kept referring to the place as the “Meson restaurant.”  A meson is a type of restaurant in Spain, not a name for one.  It’s like my brother’s joke that he really loves the desayuno breakfasts offered in so many places in L.A.  

 

Almerimar is more than just a marina, though, it’s a complex of shops, restaurants and apartment buildings.  There’s also a golf course, but we didn’t realize that then.  What we did realize was that this was yet another part of Southern Spain ruined by the influx of English and German vacationers and expats.   The vast apartment buildings built up around the edge are now mostly empty.  Pues, la crisis, hombre.  Too much was built here and now no one wants to buy it.  Half the stores are closed for good and there seems to still be too many restaurants.  I don’t have any pictures from here because the place is so un-photogenic.  

 

There are nice beaches on either side of the marina, but the complex itself, which extends for miles, has no soul to it.  It does have a pretty steady influx of visitors, though.

 

Among those was a boat carrying two Americans, and two Swiss.  (No names have been used to protect the innocent and make the guilty feel better about themselves)  They pulled up right in front of us as we were enjoying a single afternoon caña.  They made a beeline from their berth to the welcoming arms of the Stumble Inn.  As they walked in we noticed their American accents and we struck up a conversation.  These would be the first Americans we had met sailing in the whole Mediterranean.  (For you fastidious types, I’m not counting the Americans we met in Athens – we travelled overland to get there)  The Swiss owner of the boat was the uncle of the young American kid.  He was a freshman at UCSC (go b. slugs!) who wanted to transfer to another UC school to study business.  I lobbied for Cal, which he was hopeful for.   Their other friend was an Indian-American who had worked at Xerox with the boat’s owner.  The other Swiss guy was the owner’s long-time friend.  They had been sailing East on their way to the boat’s winter home in Aguadulce.  

 

Well, they were thirsty for beer after their sail and we were happy to meet American-English speakers.  They kept buying us rounds.  We kept graciously accepting them.  The hours flew by.  We went out to dinner with the American contingent as the Swiss guys headed off to bed.  We had dinner and a bottle of wine and then stumbled back to our boat.

 

The next morning we woke up with something of a headache and very little recollection of the later parts of the previous evening.  We had an appointment to meet a man from the rental car company (with our car) at the control tower.  The long walk over and the formalities seemed unendurable.  For some reason the man’s portable credit card machine took ages to enact the transaction, adding to the time we spent struggling to be alive.

 

We saw the crew having breakfast at our usual spot, the imaginatively named Cafeteria Dársena 1.  It’s the cafeteria on dársena one.  We joined them for the tail end of their meal.  We went over some of the conversations that we had forgotten we had.  We all laughed at the youngster’s disbelief in the concept of hangovers – he called them “migraines”.   They had to head off so that everyone could make their flights and so we said our goodbyes.  They were a great bunch of guys to have run into. Afterward, we reflected on our luck at meeting not just our first Americans, but a cool boat of fellow sailors.  

 

Then we had to organize ourselves for the trip up to Madrid, a rather slow process in our state.  It wasn’t until the afternoon that we set out for Madrid.

 

We arrived to the Eastern edge of Ibiza at a little place called Cala Boix.  We passed the island of Tagomago, which Andrew was captivated by.  The small, South-facing cove had a little chirinquito in it.  We arrived, dropped the hook, and made it ashore just in time to get a caña at the chiriniguito.  The steep walls of the surrounding cliffs were topped by a few houses and three restaurants.  We had a nice seafood paella in one of them with a fine view of the cove, and Tocayo, below.  We hurried back, though, out of concern for not having our anchor light on.

It wasn’t until later in the night that the boat started rocking on the swell.  It wasn’t as bad as in Mallorca but it was annoying.   Still, I’d highly recommend Cala Boix, if you have the means and the weather’s good.  Oddly, we had the whole place to ourselves that night. 

The next morning (8/22) we set off for Cartagena.  I weighed the anchor for the last time in what should be a good while.  Throughout Spain and in Morocco and probably even in the Canary Islands, we will be staying in marinas or harbors and the anchor will stay stowed.  No more hand balling for me until the Caribbean!

We passed between Ibiza and Formenterathrough Freu Mediano.  We had some nice beam reach winds for a bit.  Then they died out and we were on motor until 4 in the morning.

Some sailboat, heading towards us, changes course to pass right in frontof us with just his tricolor on.  Later that night, while Andrew is on his shift we have a close call with some cargo ships.  The ships were to starboard and a turn to port would have meant a dangerous gybe.  That night was full of some close calls and a few blunders from the crew.  (Who are a band of ruffians and miscreants, for sure, but usually quite competent) 

The next morning we are motoring along the craggy, foreboding cliffs of Cartagena.  Closer to the harbor we see tons of jellyfish in the water.  There are clumps of a hundred or so, followed by more.  We are sure that we are chopping up a few of them with the propeller, but it’s hard to feel sorry for a bunch of spineless drifters.

Cartagena’s harbor has an imposing approach.  the craggy cliffs and industrial behemoths beneath them give a decidedly unwelcoming impression.  We were guided into one of the marina (there are two there) over the radio.  We had to do a tricky little swerve maneuver to get ourselves into the spot on the end of the pontoon.  The situation of the marina itself was lovely.  We were right across from a plaza with a huge Spanish flag and, admittedly, a Burger King.   But it looked pretty nice and much better than the brick factory or sand mine or whatever it is on the edge of the harbor with the huge chimney.  At the entrance to the marinas is the reconstruction of the electric-powered submarine “El Peral“.  We had no idea why they were so proud of this thing at the time, though.  It seemed like it might just be an elaborate fountain. 

Anyway, the marina, the Real Club Nautico de Regattas, had a bar, a pool, and, gasp, showers!  It was also about a fifth of the price of the so-called marina in Mahon, Menorca. 

After resting up, we head into town.  There’s a lovely calle peatonal that extends through the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and into the city center.  We passed by the “famous” statues of a sailor and a soldier waiting to ship out.  They aren’t that impressive, but everyone stops to take their picture with them. 

We had dinner in Restaurante Columbus which has a sign reading ” We speak a little English and make a good paella.  We are the best.”  Unfortunately the last part is far from true.  Our food (merluza a la romana) was mediocre.  We were forced to stop at the nearby gelato shop to cleanse our palettes. 

In the morning of the 24th, we went out for a leisurely coffee in one of the plazas.  We had a copy of the International herald Tribune to read and the coffee flowed; life was good.

We walked around the town around lunchtime.  We ended up having tapas in a place called el Rincon do Miguel or something like that, after taking a pass by the Roman theatre.  Then we bought a cell phone.  When we asked the lady in the tourist information office why several of the phone stores had closed, she responded with a statement that sums up the zeitgeist in Spain these days.  “Pues, la crísis, hombre.“  Roughly translated, she might have said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

That night’s dinner was a vegetable paella followed by a visit to the Irish bar.  It was a weird little place, not without charm.  They had mirrored ceilings (cat noise!) and foreign currency with notes from former customers on it pegged to the wall behind the counter.  They were trying to sell Pinwinnie whisky for €18 a glass. (compare)  We had Cordhu instead.

August 25th, we get our laundry back from the industrial cleaners who promised us they’d be cheap.  They lied.  Our big sack of laundry cost about as much as the two nights in the marina.  We hopped back on the boat to make our getaway.

Stopping by the self-serve diesel pumps, I messed up in tying off the lines.  This lead to a botched job tying off, but we managed to get close enough to pump some fuel in.  I’ve learned in doing these things that preparation and timing are essential.  With the tanks full and my lessons learned, we set off through the jellyfish-infested waters for Almerimar, the marina complex outside of Almería.

The boat is still in Almerimar, close to Almeria, but I’ve come up for a weekend in Madrid.  We rented a car and drove up through the beautiful landscapes near Granada on Friday.  Friday evening we met up with a friend from the English school I used to teach at here, Marian.  She had some of her amigas with her and we had drinks and tapas while we caught up.  It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, but she’s good people.  We fell right back into it.  

Saturday we walked around from where our hostal is near Plaza Cibeles to the Palacio Real.  I bought a cheap Chinese guitar in the very cool musical instrument store near the opera.  I think the staff was sad that I didn’t buy a Spanish-made guitar, but I’m afraid the thing might get destroyed on the boat.  Last night we met up with another former colleague from the English school and a friend from Tarifa for another night of copas.  

Today, we’re going to check out the Rastro a bit before I head back down.  I have to get back to the boat because we are having repairs done early Monday morning.

More on that, and what happened between the Balearics and here, later.