Almerimar

Cabo de Gata in the distance

Our passage from Cartagena to Almerimar is just lovely.  

Yacht Zenara is giving us a run for our money....

Departing Cartagena around 1100H on Sunday 6 October, we soon pick up a nice Easterly just aft of the beam which takes us almost to Cabo de Gata on the south eastern tip of Spain.  Once the light fades its a very dark night with lots of lights around us from other shipping, so the AIS and radar goes on and does us good service.  We have run out of wind so creep around the Cape, engine on and navigate ourselves into an anchorage in the pitch dark on the south western side of the cape, dropping anchor around midnight and piling into bed for a good sleep. We would not normally go anywhere in the pitch dark that we do not know very well, but we can see the anchor light of another boat in there, this is an open roads anchorage on good sand and we drop anchor on the stern of a large ketch.  If its okay for them, its okay for us.

In clear blue skies and a gentle north easterly we sail off the anchor the next morning on the tail of the 22m ketch Zenara and have a sort of friendly race with them, almost getting past before they get away on us. 

Richard stamps his feet a bit but then settles down to enjoy a lovely sail while Pippy does the housework... life goes on and Matelot is overdue for a good cleanup down below.  As we close on Almerimar we both enjoy hot showers on the stern in the warm sunshine. 

We feel a bit sad as we enter Almerimar Port - the end of another year - not such a good one health wise.

Capn Buck is immediately at home with ducks to feed off the stern of Matelot.

We begin our exploration getting to know our winter home.  It all turns out pretty well considering we did not know much more than how much it was going to cost when we booked in here.

Almerimar, is an interesting place... someone's dream gone a little bad for the moment.  A bit similar in concept to Gulf Harbour really, but with more life, restaurants, a large supermarket, hair salons, banks, doctors, pharmacy etc... all the infrastructure right here.  

This is a really nice marina development right on a long sandy beach surrounded by hundreds of posh apartments, all empty.  Maybe because its in the middle of nowhere with the nearest real town about half an hour away.  No doubt we will find out the reason in time.  

We are told you can rent an apartment here for E200 a month.  When it was first opened you could not get a berth here for love or money... that was five years ago.  Now we have our choice of where we want to go in the marina and its one of the cheapest in the Med.   

Times change and the GFC has hit hard here.

SY Matelot in her winter berth Oct 2013

After settling into our berth on arrival we go for a walk, come across another Kiwi boat SY Sparkles and go 'out' for a drink with Trevor and Val, to a bar ten steps away.  

A medium beer and tapas (prawn fritters x 2) at Euro 2.20 is a great deal as we have developed a thirst and an appetite but we extract ourselves after one drink from nice company and continue on our walk to the next 'Darsena' (yacht marina basin) only to find good friends Jurgen and Monica on SY Nereus who we last saw in Palma de Majorca. We did not expect to see them here but are soon seeing them off again to the Canary Islands and beyond to the Caribbean.

There is lots of space beside us, but soon to be filled up with some late arrivals, including Danilotta with Hans and Andrea on board, whose company we are going to enjoy over the winter.

 

Many hours later and after dinner at Stumble Inn, we stumble back to SY Matelot for a sound sleep.

Almerimar with Sierra Nevada Mountains in Background