Sailing Letter January 2015

January, 2015  Almerimar

Now January has passed. The coldest month in Almerimar, so far. Snow on the mountains surrounding us, but 14-20 degrees at the coast. We have had a couple of cold nights, +2 degrees, where the water based heating has been working perfectly. The water temperature is now, end January, down to +15 degrees, but still necessary to keep the beer in the fridge. We have also survived a major storm with 74 knots gusts (Force 12 or 38 m/s). Not nice. We calculated the number of times we have endured the same magnitude during our almost 19 years onboard and that is 4-5. 3 in the home harbor of Långedrag, Sweden. All went well but we crashed one fender and so did the neighboring boat. We are placed too close to one another in this harbor, to my opinion, but the piers makes good shelter so it is the violent gusts that are consuming fenders and mooring lines rather than waves from swell or wind.

January has also been a time for some social events, visiting and having visits from neighboring boats. In early January, the 6’th, the 3 Kings came to visit all children in Almerimar. Big hullabaloo in the harbor area since the Kings came by boat. The transport on land was arranged with horses and nice carriages with people dressed according to the Kings, spreading candies to all children (and boats) in the area.

We have made trips by car to some close by areas, among other things visiting Spain Hollywood, the place where all “spaghetti westerns” are made. Besides famous Spanish and Italian actors, Clint Eastwood has made this region famous. On the way, we passed Nijar, with a nice market, one of Spain’s biggest solar parks and the village Lucainena where the movie “3 came to town” was made.

This first month of 2015 has been spent on small and big projects on the boat. We have:

• Installed a deck outlet for one of our toilette tanks. A heavy and difficult task which has to be done before entering some of the countries in East Med.
• Varnishing of 2 port hole wood garnish and some other wooden parts in the galley/kitchen
• Changed shower equipment
• Painting of anchor chain
• Installed wireless control to anchor windlass
• Changing and painting of hoses/drainpipes from deck, and sea water pump
• Replaced glycol to water heating system
• Mending of clothes: everything is worn, especially shorts since we now use them 11 months a year instead of 2 (as in Sweden).
• Plugging and caulking deck

During one of the exercises, the chain painting, Eva went overboard. We had taken away the ladder and the anchor to climb on, so when Eva was trying (!!) to get onboard she slipped and fell into the water (temp +16 degrees). On the way down she had a close encounter with the anchor and then jetty, resulting in huge black marks and scrape marks on one leg and the back. “Grounded” with long trousers for 2 weeks to avoid suspicion of woman abuse (smile). We are glad that all went well and now she (Eva) is up and running as usual. A bit worrying though
that the marina is almost without ladders.

Nature

• We are still enjoying the mountain scenarios that we see when traveling from the coast to the villages inland. The closest mountains are now snowcapped, and we follow the expansion daily, having booked a ski-tour end February.
• We start to see some new flowers, since this is regarded as the green season. One of them is a very bright yellow small 4 petal flower, found almost on every slope, like our wood anemone (Sw. Vitsippa) that we find at home in beginning May.
• Also worth reporting is that the White Wagtails (Sw. Sädesärla) are ready to take off for Sweden. They are now so well fed that their ground clearance is at the minimum (smile).
• Peter just reported that the amount of snow and cold weather is the coldest for the last 3 years. We are so happy to have been choosing Almerimar!

Gastronomy

• We brought along Hans, who has been living in Spain 40+ years, originally from Stockholm, to Arroyo de Celin, a countryside restaurant, famous for its “Choto”, goat kid stews. Fantastic, tender meat.
• Chris and Aggie, our boat neighbors’, hosted a curry dinner on their ship Driké. Great food and company!
• We have invested in an “orange squeezer”, so every morning we enjoy fresh juice.
• This area is called the “Mar de Plastic”, due to the many greenhouses covered with a plastic roof. The last 30-40 years this area has grown rapidly, now supporting most of Europe with vegetables. Mainly tomatoes and pepper fruits. We enjoy fresh salad, fantastic peppers in all colours and sizes, lemon not like anything you get “back home”, beans in all shapes and forms etc. This gives us the opportunity to eat good food, mostly onboard. We tend to take a tapa (a beer with some small snacks) at lunch and make our own dinner with all the nice things we find in the supermarket.

Until next time – hasta luego

BR Eva, Peter

Storm damage to favourite restaurant

Beach boulevard damage

Wave heights 8+ meters

Choto, an Andalusian gourmet treat

Beverly Hills equivalent in Almeria district

Lucainena del Torres

Almond blossom

Almond blossom

FInally, we can empty holding tanks from deck

Los tres Reyes arrived @Almerimar