Sailing Catamaran Lunara Sailing Crush, The Turtle. Remember?

Crush, The Turtle. Remember?




Gibraltar to Almerimar (Aug 22).

(posted Aug 27)
We left Gibraltar with a bit of sadness. Due to Covid-19 we didn’t dare to go down-town and mingle with all the other tourists.

Motoring south the Bahia de Algeciras, the rock showed itself from the best side. A small cloud shrouded the rock.

Gibraltar
Gibraltar Anchorage for the big boys
Soon after rounding the Rock we sailed under Genoa only and winds gusting 25kts+ with 7 to 9 kts over ground.
Gibraltar is always very busy. In-between all these ships are also boats with no AIS signal.

Gibraltar Current

Our ride of the Gibraltar current.

The distance from Gibraltar to Almerimar is 136nm. Our sailed distance through water was only 109nm. The difference was the current pushing us with 2knots for most of the trip. Coming from Gibraltar we initially headed SE some miles to pick-up the current and then drifted a la Crush NE to Almerimar. The PredictWind current projection was spot on.

Crush the turtle and Squirt riding the East Australian Current in ‘Finding Nemo’.

Calm Sail

Soon after leaving the Straits of Gibraltar the wind calmed down towards 0-wind in the evening.

Many laid up ships either under anchor or driving large circles at 2knots, while their AIS says “waiting orders”, like this freighter in the background.
Sunrise short before arriving in Almerimar
Almerimar Marina

26 hours after leaving Gibraltar we arrived in Almerimar. We had star lit skies with no moon. Fish jumping at night. A magical ride again.

Torre of Almerimar Marina

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Living In ParadiseLiving In Paradise

So being in this beautiful anchorage is paradise. Well, not so much sometimes. On an anchorage you need water, right? No problem! We have a water maker, when it works. So we started the water maker and received a “blocked system” message. Ok, get out the manual and see what it means. So after the first start up of the season it needs to be primed? Fine, did that. Start again, but the same thing is happening after a few minutes, and again. So we found the water maker was leaking salt water and not having enough pressure. Tried the 2nd pump and this one seems to work. Not making the advertised 60 liters/hour but better than nothing. Took us 6 hours to resolve.

Next day we find that our bilge pump is not working, tried the hand pump to empty the bilge and it breaks alter a few pumps. Ok, fix it. Again 3 hours later working again on the electrical pump. Martin is able to fix the electric pump with pieces from a coke can, long story, but it works. Another 6 hours gone.

This morning we had to cut our breakfast short. A big thunderstorm was heading our way. We got lots of wind and rain and all our salon hatches began to leak. Have to place bowls everywhere.

We decide to leave the anchorage. The sand from the beach is washing from the beach and the anchorage water is silting such that we were concerned about the engine water cooling pumps. Heading to Port Sant Antoni. This was a good decision. One hour later all the boats from our old anchorage were following and the good spots were gone fast. It is still raining but not that heavy. This gives me a break and I have time to do a little update on the blog.

So that is paradise! There is always something to fix on a boat. I could go on and on about this, but it will get boring after time.