Sailing with the Treleavens

Since Banus (to clear Ian’s mind) we had a fantastic sail to Caleta de Venez 42 miles and by passing Malaga. To-date this has been our best sail. It’s either wind from the east or no wind at all so it’s on with the motor. Here we contact a friend of a friend and in true Aussie style its come to a BBQ. We stayed here a few days and became tourists. It’s Ian Jnrs 21st. With Jane and David we visit a white village in the mountains with narrow lanes, hanging bougainvillea, picture post card Frigiliana. After a Spanish summer wine and tapas we are invited to dinner to a private Spanish villa over looking Frigiliana. The owner, Pepe, has a private cellar and we sample homegrown straight from the barrels muscatel wine. This was just starters and after more wine, squid on the BBQ, Ian Jnrs 21st Birthday cake, we all have a very pleasant evening thanks to Pepe.

Next morning we are up early to catch, yes, a bus, to tour the Alhambra in Granada. It’s a day tour and in over 40 degrees, we are happy to sit in an air-conditioned bus. Caleta de Venez is a small Spanish fishing village and for a change we are the biggest yacht. It’s still very hot, but enjoy getting out to sea to cool off. Ian Jnr left from Malaga and then we sailed-motored onto Salabrena with Jane. Anchoring out from the beach, Jane, David and Pepe decide we haven’t had enough to drink yet, so they join us at their favourite restaurant.

We are now on our own and sail-motor to Motril, where we unfortunately wrap a fishing net around our prop, so its dive time for Ian. Three days ago we rounded Cape Cabo de Gata into Costa Blanc - the white coast. Very brown and baron, but with interesting towers on every point. That night we free anchor in yet another nude beach, why not! The next day with wind behind us we use our never used yellow spinnaker. The temp is 35 degrees out here with perfect blue skies and we sail 62 miles - our longest trip to date.Wind 15 - 25 knots, we hit 11.4 knots, and Ian is in heaven or Hamilton Island. All days don’t quite go to plan and that evening we go to anchor in a bay and hook an illegal net 100 meters long.What a mess, 2 hours later and Ian, having swallowed half the bay, vomits and shits for the next hour while I motor on to Cartagena 4 miles away. We seek a marina and recover for the night. Cartagena is full of history, and we stay for the day (big deal), and explore. Surrounded by hills and century old towers, you can imagine the past history going back to 200BC. Today we sailed past Mar Menor, a huge inland salt-water lake which looks like Surfers Paradise from the water. A gentle breeze and now in Torrevieja, a salt seller of the world. We have now been going 3 weeks and covered 500 miles. Today is cooler, does it ever rain? A relaxing day would be nice but I am with Ian and that’s all I have to say!Our Aussie flag creates a lot of attention and they think we have sailed all that way. None the less, it’s a communication point. We have also been called the young ones as so many retired couples are cruising.Not short of making friend and you keep seeing them again and again in different ports.
On our way now to Alicante.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2003 at 3:46 am and is filed under 2003. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.