Hello from Almerimar, 14th October 2009. 36:41.78N 02:47.47W

Well Hello to family and friends.

We have been very fortunate to have had a lovely summer in Mazarron. The weather was kind to us if not a little hot in July when the Spanish told us it was the hottest July for 3o years—great but a little over whelming at times touching 40c. Sleepy Mazarron transformed into a busy holiday resort for Spanish tourists, mainly families and retired. It gave the area a really nice atmosphere with great beach scenes during the day of wall to wall parasols.

Tony commented that you would be able to walk from one end of the beach to the other in the shade probably true !! Also lots of simple café culture and great photo opportunities of large family groups bbqing on the beach at 11pm and lots of elderly women and gentlemen wondering back and forth to the beach ( which sadly we missed never carried the camera at the right moment ). It’s a photo opportunity we don’t want to miss next year. There is something great about the spectacle of very elderly people dragging, sometimes literally their chairs and bags to the beach. Lots of couples and ladies who looked like sisters but lots of men or women on their own. You can assume that they either lived in Mazarron or had holidayed there for years. Some of them looked so frail and so determined. Ladies with new sparkly plastic beach shoes, usually very rounded in volumous swimming costumes and fine fabric swathed around them big floppy hats , beach balls and chair dragging being them. Lots of old guys sitting under palm trees with large hats, fully dressed often asleep siesta. We enjoyed their determination a lesson learnt that either together or alone there is something magical about sitting in the sun with the microcosm of life and fun going on around you. We have enjoyed having family and friends visit us during the summer and will post a few photos alongside this blog. One of our pathetic but hysterical activities this summer has been jumping off the back of the boat in groups using the self timer on the camera. A practice which creates hysterical laughter trying to time your jump mid shot rather than an empty shot of splashed water. There were moments with our great friends Lesley and David where I thought that I would drown choking with laughter swallowing mouthfuls of sea water !!! Another dear friend of ours has requested some photos of bad weather and or ‘miserable’ photos, just to create balance—and yes we have had a few stormy days in early sept, Tony managed to get a shiner of a black eye when he decided to slip on the side deck at sea and head butt our bimini frame but sadly we don’t have those photo moments for you. However we do have some of me spending all day sweating over a sewing machine sewing our stackapack system back together ready for the Atlantic crossing ( a large bag on the boom which collects the lowered sail). We’ll endeavour to photograph any other ‘grumpy’ days just for you TIM !!! We left Mazarron on Monday12th for an overnight sail to Almerimar and Gibraltar. An emotional moment to leave Mom and Dad on the dock along with their friends and Mazarron neighbour. It will probably be 8 months before they see Tony again and would have been 6-7 for me, however I will have to go home early next year for some routine post treatment medical checks a great disappointment to break up our long planned adventure but the up side is I get to see family and friends. We are now sitting in Almerimar just west of Almeria. We intend to set off this evening for another overnight to Gibraltar. I’m not a fan of short handed overnight passages but we really don’t want to go into unknown ports at night and especially dodging large tankers in the straits of Gibraltar. Our trip this evening should take 18-20nhours so we should spend a good few hours approaching Gibraltar in daylight. Our plan is to be in Gibraltar  Thursday to then relax overnight and then provision with fresh food and ‘make ready’ the boat for the arrival of our friends Janet and Dominic for the passage to Gran Canaria about 720 nautical miles.

Hope you enjoy the attached photos.

All our love Tina and Tony x x x