Motoring

Costa Del Sol & Costa Blanca Spain

It was late July and we needed to get moving if we were going to meet up with friends in the Balearic Islands by mid August. Who says we don’t have a schedule? More than 500 miles to go and only three weeks left to do it.

The plan was to day sail up the Mediterranean coast of Spain, stopping each night until we reached Cabo de la Nao, the northern end of Costa Blanca and then cross to Ibiza.

We sailed along the Costa del Sol, 155 miles of coastline that roughly parallels the African coast. It has over 300 days of sunshine per year, which makes it very popular with tourist from colder climates (UK and Russia primarily). Then we continued along the Costa Blanca which runs approximately 200 miles north east along Spain’s eastern coast.

When we decided to sail in the Mediterranean Sea, many cruisers warned us that we would do a lot of motoring. They said the wind would be very light in the summer and when it did blow, it was too strong and from the wrong direction. This proved to be the case, we motored or motor sailed our way up the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca. It was so calm that sometimes we wished we had a water-ski boat.

This coast has been heavily developed with towns and harbors every 15 – 20 miles. Most of the harbors were originally built for small fishing boats and have been expanded for yachts. Even so, many were too small for Berkeley East. No problem, we had spent a lot of time in marinas in the last month and were looking forward to finding some quiet, beautiful anchorages.

Our first stop was along a high cliff, with a nice beach behind us. It was perfect, with people swimming and kayaking along the shore and only one other boat in sight. As we set the anchor and settled in to enjoy the afternoon, we noticed that everyone on the beach was naked. Oh well, we are obviously in Europe.

The second stop was in a marina (Puerto de Benalmádena), as we couldn’t find any good anchorages in the area. This was a real shock. It was like Disneyland. A train came down the dock every hour full of tourist waving at us. We made a quick and early departure in the morning.

The third stop on the Costa del Sol turned out to be a great surprise (Puerto de Aquadulca). It was a nice, small marina just down the road from Almaría. We toured Almaría the next day and had a great time. It is a quiet town with very few tourists and some great food.

When we were in Portugal we had heard about delicious ham made from black pigs that are feed only acorns. While wandering around town we discovered a shop that sold this ham, so we got a little (just a little because it cost between $150 and $300 per pound).

In contrast to the other churches and cathedrals we had seen, the church in Almaría is built like a fort. Despite the fort-like exterior the inside was beautiful and looked like the other churches we have seen. Apparently the city was attacked so often, that even the church was fortified.

We had planned to leave Berkeley East in Puerto de Aquadulce for a few days and travel to Grenada, but our schedule got shuffled a bit and we needed to get to the Balearic Islands a week earlier, so we canceled the land trip to Grenada and continued up the coast. We said farewell to Al and Linda, who had been cruising with us since Cadiz. They continued on to Grenada, while we pushed on toward the Balearics.

We got a real surprise at the next anchorage. Our very, very large anchor that has held in all conditions, would not set in the small cove (Cala Cerrada) we had planned to stay at. The cove was only about 100 feet wide and we couldn’t risk dragging, so we moved on to a large beach anchorage at Ensenada de Mazarron. Much to our surprise the anchor would not set there either. After six attempts and almost two hours, the anchor finally set. All we could figure was that there was a lot of sea grass on the bottom.

Next we were off to a small anchorage just north of Benidorm at Punta de la Cueva. The cruising guide we were using must be a little out of date, because when we arrived there was a water-ski course in the anchorage. Not a slalom course but a system of cables that pulled skiers around the bay. We squeezed in next to the course and watched people water-ski and wakeboard against a back drop of high-rise apartments and hotels.

This was a last stop on the Spanish coast before sailing over to the Balearic Islands and we thought hard about staying the next day and enjoying the water-ski course, but we had a schedule to keep. So we were off to Espalmador in the Balearics!