Teri and George continued – Costa del Sol

All sails up, with winds ENE most of the night (10-12kt winds). All night following seas made us feel we were riding a slow bucking bronco. We worked our 3 hour shifts again and only had one needed boat deviation when a fishing boat came steadily at us with all their lights blazing, but . . .

We assume the captain must have been asleep at the helm, or just plain out to get wandering sailboats.

The Reception and fuel dock

We arrived in Almerimar around 1:30 the next day (Oct 21) and stopped at the fueldock to check-in and top off our fuel. Very friendly, huge marina with tons of empty condo’s and many shops, most of which were closed. We did find one of the larger Super Mercado’s for shopping which is always a plus. Seems Almerimar is one of the Winter live-a-board communities along the coast. George set off to make friends with a boat Evergreen tied down the Quay. We would later bump into them sailing with Niki, John and Ron.

Had a big lunch around 2:30 AT Franc’s on the Quay which proved to be a very nice restaurant. Our dinner was tapa’s on the boat and then to bed.

On Thursday, Sept 22, we got ready to leave around 9AM. Again a no-wind day so set Auto pilot for our next stop at Marina del Este (Punta de la Concepcion o’mona. It was a great lazy day for reading and napping on the boat. Along the coast, we saw countless “farms” or greenhouses known to be some of the biggest suppliers of winter vegetables for North Europe.

We arrived at Mona around 4:40 and ate dinner at a lovely Quay side called Buona Sera. The owner Chema was also our waiter and did not speak much English, but would call his other server over to translate for us. We took some group photos and he gave us his “business” card that had a great picture of him and his chef. After dinner we had a quiet cocktail hour on the boat with one of our finds at the last super market. Rum Baily’s. Quite good! I can tell you the bottle did not last very long on the boat!

We made plans for early checkout and left the next morning at 7AM. Still dark outside and only 2 kt winds. Our first plan was to stop in Malaga to change crew, but found that Malaga was not a very well liked marina for yachters like us. The next marina was in Benalmadera and was a stupendous, large harbor with good beaches on both sides of the harbor. We checked in, filled the tank and got our berth assignment. This marina was more like Atlantis in Bermuda but downsized. The marina was well set-up for the tourist that has some money to spend. Our berth was in front of condos in a high security “island”. Ron arrived around 1PM and got settled in the boat as George and Teri were packing for their departure. We had a great Friday night there eating sushi takeout on the boat from a Quay-side restaurant.