5th June - Altea

Soundtrack: The windgen doing its stuff in the gusty breeze, topping up our batteries.

High Point: For the last few days, calm seas and slight winds predominantly from behind the beam have given us some delightful sailing conditions. It’s mostly warm and sunny, so the going is easy.

Low Point: A rolly anchorage in Cala de Genoveses just past Cabo de Gata gave us a restless night’s sleep which made us irritable with each other the next day, picking quarrels over trifles. Stupid.

Leaving Almerimar, a good downwind sail of 36 miles – goosewinging part of the way- brought us past Cabo de Gata, where the weather is inclined to be awful. So we approached with some trepidation – well I did anyway. As it turned out, passing the high cliffs (which reminded us of Prawle Point) was a bit of a non-event. The wind was benignly astern and the sea was calm. We turned into a sheltered cala just to leeward of the headland to anchor for the night. For the first time, the water was clear enough for us to see the sandy bottom. That’s what we’ve been waiting for.

In Almerimar, Leighton did some electrical repairs to a boat whose home port is further up the coast, and whilst onboard got chatting with the owner about good places to anchor. Cala de Genoveses was one of his recommendations. It is an idyllic spot in the Cabo de Gata national park, which is protected by law from development. A beach, a shallow bowl of scrub and cacti, with a steep backdrop of mountains, and the remains of a swell coming ashore that gave us that restless night.

The next day we followed the coast northwards – sailing when we could, and motoring when the wind fell light. We left the wild mountainous scenery behind to reach Garrucha some 30 miles away. It is an unappealing holiday resort with a small marina where the marinero gave us a distinctly cool reception. He kept us on the fuel pontoon overnight, rafted up with other passing cruising yachts. The rubber tyres against the pontoon left filthy black marks along the hull. Not a place to recommend.

Next morning was misty and dead calm. As luck would have it, a light breeze soon filled in from ESE, allowing us to sail – albeit rather slowly - at Makarma’s sweet spot of 60 degrees off the wind until it finally died mid-afternoon. We dropped anchor in the bay of La Azohia, just east of Mazarron. It was a quiet sort of place with a diving school ashore, protected by a rocky headland topped with an old hexagonal stone tower. Fish farms lay below, marked by a cardinal in a boat. We enjoyed a peaceful evening and night, but by early the next morning a slight swell encouraged us to make an early start. We motored past the rocky headland of Cabo Tinoso and found a land breeze to take us across Cartagena bay. Unlike yesterday’s course, we pass close to the land, and visibility is better, giving us plenty of interest to see. We are joined by three other yachts all going in the same way – round Cabo de Palos. Our little flotilla motorsailed into a F4 easterly until with Palos lighthouse abeam to port, we could unroll the jib and sail a more northerly course between two sets of shallows off the point. We’d intended to anchor in Mar Menor, an inland sea protected by a spit of land which you enter via a canal at Tomas-Mestre. We were shocked to see wall to wall high-rises on the shoreline – not quite the Morbihan we’d imagined, more Miami beach. With the wind now astern, and still early afternoon, we decide to sail on to Torrevieja instead and anchor inside the harbour – a wonderfully sheltered place. A good day’s run for us - 48.5 miles.

With the promise of a southerly breeze up to F5, we are expecting a fast sail up the coast the next day. We actually get a F4 for a couple of hours and that’s it, so we have to donk it for the rest of the day. Ah well – at least it’s a chance to do some cleaning and to bone up on the history of the Med, courtesy of John Julius Norwich – that most erudite and readable of historians. Instead of reaching Marina Greenwich right on the meridian as we’d planned, we stop off a few miles short in the marina at Altea instead. Irritatingly, the wind is getting up just as we get in.

With berths now charged at summer rates, we only spend one night there – making full use of the free Wifi and showers. After filling up with water, doing the washing and restocking with food, we leave to anchor in the bay outside for the next couple of nights in readiness for the 70 mile passage to Ibiza.