Getting ready to set off 2012 - Agua Dulce Spain

Alisha and Kaylee playing with  their big cousin Alannah in Perth on our way to Spain.

So here we are again back on Islay Mist.   It has been a bit of a shock to the system this time especially after battling through a wet and windy Shetland winter, then to be abruptly blasted with 27 degrees of heat when you get off the plane. 

The boat was in very good condition when we got back to her, the only damage being the tarpaulins we had tied over her when we left, had been shredded by the wind and the sun. The Marineros told us they had had two solid months of strong wind in winter – bet they didn’t have 100 mile an hour gales on Christmas day though!  The main things we had to contend with the first day was the dusty dirt and the heat.  The girls soon started squawking about going to the beach next to the marina so Ali took them whilst I cleaned all the clothes cupboards out, unpacked and made the beds etc making sure the fridge went on and had a bottle of water in it!  They all came back refreshed and Ali and Kaylee cleaned the red desert sand of the decks whilst Alisha looked through the toy box to see what they had left behind.  Then we decided we must get the boat back into the water as fast as possible as it was too hot and you can’t use the sinks or toilet when you are up in the air -  so Ali started painting the anti fouling on the underside whilst the girls and I trekked up to the supermarket for the first time.  We didn’t cook on board the first night as it was just too hot and we were knackered so we went to the nice restaurant in the marina and had a metre of pizza and some Tinto Verano my new drink of choice out here – red wine gaseosa and a slice of lemon, very refreshing and you don’t get drunk either!

The girls with teh luggage under the boat when we arrived, Ali is up onboard checking for cockroaches!

The girls really are superstars, they adjusted to life back on board better than us- even the need to climb down the ladder last thing at night and first thing in the morning to go to the toilet.  Although the not putting toilet roll down the Spanish toilets has had them flummoxed just as not putting toilet roll in the toilet was a bit of a problem when we first got home last summer!  The heat has been the only thing that has bothered them and they usually get pretty grumpy waiting for us to finish our chores before we can go to the beach in the afternoon. 

Climbing up the ladder on the way to bed on the first night.

Metre of Pizza on the first night!

Ali got the bottom of the boat all finished in one day but we had to wait until first thing next  day  to get lifted in as the boat yard is so busy.  I was cleaning the insides of the boat emptying all the cupboards and cleaning in nooks and crannies.  We had been very pleased not to find an infestation of cockroaches onboard, though there was a tense moment when I thought I found a dead one in the cockroach ‘hotel’ under the sink but it turned out to be a big seed. 

The boat got lifted back in on Tuesday the 19^th at 8am sharp.  It was strange being onboard and trying to remember how to tie half hitches and bowlines again but it all came back pretty quickly thankfully as we had to tie up 2 minutes later.

For the next few days we have been slowly getting the ropes and sails back on in the morning before it gets too hot and continuing to clean, clean, clean!  We discovered that the thin strings we had left in place of our ropes had mostly disintegrated but thankfully not all or we may have had to hire a crane to get them back in.  Getting the ropes all sorted involved me winching Alistair up the mast twice, not an easy job in 27 degrees and rising!  We have our new smaller main sail on which we are going to test out as our usual main is very large and we spend an awful lot of time reefing up and down so hopefully this will be an end to that but if not we will just put the old main on again. 

Ali up the mast

Of course two little girls needed to have a shot too!

Fun at the beach

The girls have been occupied with letter writing and school work as the school term hasn’t ended at home yet.  There are at least three families of cats living in the rocks of the breakwater here and the girls have loved feeding them- one day they even caught six small fish to feed them! 

We had a very interesting evening with an older English couple who are on a boat next to us.  They are aged 75 and 72 and crossed back across the Atlantic a couple of years ago when they were 73 and 70 after spending ten years cruising the Caribbean, Mexico and Venezuela! To top it all off they hadn’t  realized the male had had a heart attack before they crossed back across- he just thought he was feeling a bit off and had less energy!  Now Alistair doesn’t feel so bad about taking the boat home as he realizes that he may still do the big journey  as he’s in no way too old! The funniest bit of the evening was that the lady has taken over a bottle or ready- made supermarket tinto verano ‘sin alcohol’ without alcohol which the girls had a couple of glasses of and then we realized it was actually 0.9% so they immediately started falling over saying they were drunk and laughing – I fear we have failed as parents already…..

Anyway that is our first week away we are just about ready to set sail tomorrow (Saturday).

We are just doing a short ‘shake down’ sail to Almerimar 18 miles along the coast where there is a chandlery and big supermarket and hopefully on Sunday we will set off on an overnighter to Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in Morocco (don’t tell the parents…)  After that who knows, we would love to go back to Cadiz but maybe we will go over to Gibraltar then straight to Portugal we will just have to see how the girls (and I)  are coping and which way the wind is blowing! 

Kaylee's bearded look

Rowing across the marina - she's as good as me which isn't too hard....