Almerimar, back on dry land again - weird

The least said about the trip to Almerimar the better! Lets just say we were reminded why we usually wait for the weather to be right and that waves on the nose slow your progress significantly. The thirty five miles took us eight long hours of motoring, the last three of which Chris had to helm as we "tacked" through the waves rather than slam over them. I was very relieved when we finally tied up on the reception berth especially since Chris had been considering turning back to Motril with the apartment blocks of Almerimar already in sight.

Within a day of being in Almerimar we decided we would haul La Premiere out. The yard was large, well organised with good facilities and despite long term residents complaining about new regulations we thought it was good value. The haul out would include using their men to do the cleaning and antifouling for us, and it was still cheaper than in England for a simple hoist out and splash back! We organised for a few spare parts to be sent out to us (they had been delivered to Chris' parents) and then asked the office to arrange the lift for the next Wednesday, giving time for the package to arrive. Meanwhile we had to occupy ourselves in a place that had no soul or character.

It seems that Almerimar is purely an apartment/hotel holiday resort. There is no town as such, the nearest being El Ejido, a bus ride away. There were plenty of bars, restaurants, and heladerias (ice cream parlours) a fairly good supermarket near the yard and at least four chandleries. The floating community had created its own atmosphere to make up for the lack of character, I suppose, the long-term live-aboards (anything from 6 months to four years in Almerimar) having organised an information net on the VHF every morning, a BBQ on Sundays and a Quiz Night on Wednesdays. Giblet enjoyed being on a pontoon with other ship's cats, most of whom had never sailed because they had been adopted there! There was no shortage of feral cats in the area and they seemed well fed, if not completely healthy. Several had hints of Siamese but none were quite like our Giblet!

We went along to the BBQ on the Sunday, a very windy affair in a bar by the beach. The wind had been pretty severe since we arrived and so if we hadn't endured our trip we would still have been in Motril! Zephyrus had already been hauled out and Thursday Island was still there so it was a good gathering. Ian, Jo, Chris and I also went to the quiz night. An American, Nick, joined our team and despite a few howling mistakes we didn't do too badly, coming third, only one and half points behind the winners. Unfortunately, (although it occupied another evening) we were chosen to write the questions for the next weeks quiz! We explained that we may not still be there but happily put together four rounds of twelve questions. As it turned out, we have no idea how they got on because we had already moved on to Almeria by the following Wednesday.

The morning of the haul out dawned bright and calm, much to our relief. We left the berth and reversed very slowly towards the lift out area. With only about 50 yards to go the engine made a strange whizzing noise and the revs suddenly dropped! We had come over two thousand miles without getting anything round the prop and here we were, just a stones throw from the travel lift and we get something caught! Chris shoved it into neutral and dived below to check the prop seal and that we were not taking on water. There was nothing amiss below so, as the prop had not actually stopped but slowed, we tried the engine ahead. The same as before the engine laboured hard and we could hear a strange noise below the water, so quickly back in to neutral, at which point whatever we had wrapped around our prop sprung off with great force whooshing backwards in the water! Greatly relieved to have avoided a prop-wrap at a rather awkward moment we continued to the hoist. The travel lift put three boats back in the water before it gathered La Premiere up into its slings and smoothly carried her to our spot conveniently beside the shower block. We were left hanging from the hoist for an hour before she was lowered onto wooden cradles so that we could drop the rudder to inspect and replace the bearings, which fortunately had arrived from England the day before! The marineros were very efficient and by lunchtime the boat was cleaned and safely sitting in the sunshine drying off. We were very pleased how the hull and keel looked and decided we really must have done a good job last year. The prop and shaft were a different story. They were so encrusted with cling-ons it was a wonder it was managing to push us through the water. Cleaning the prop and shaft would have been an awful job and we were glad to have paid for someone else to do it! When the marinero got to this part of the job he reached for a bottle of 'magic' liquid and liberally sprayed the prop and shaft, which frothed like a rabid dog and belched clouds of gas! Within seconds both prop and shaft were showing through bright and shiny like new and pretty soon there was barely a trace of the crustaceons that had made La Premiere their home. Keen to find out the name of this magic potion, so that we could get some in the chandlery, Chris examined the bottle: 25% Hydrochloric Acid!! Pretty nasty stuff, and the Marinero applied it with bare hands! Our crustacean friends, whose shells are Calcium Carbonate, were turned into Carbon Dioxide and evaporated in front of our eyes!

While the boat was out of the water we took the opportunity to check up on all the "below the waterline" bits'n'bobs, changed the anodes and polished the topsides. It was a weird sensation living in the boat but not in the water and the ladder the yard lent us had such widely spaced rungs that I did not find it very easy getting up and down. Giblet was stuck too, although she tried to escape a few times. The yard was gritty too, and the deck and cockpit were filthy. The loos were handy though, and it meant that quite a few people came by and chatted, usually about boats. The marineros did a good job with the antifouling, rolling it on so thick that they used nearly five litres of paint! They also suggested and then provided a clear teflon coating for the propellor and shaft. Hopefully, with warm clear anchorages in the Balearics we will be able to swim down to check for barnacles this year! We did the stripe ourselves and after five days we were ready to go back in to the water but it was still gusting around a force 7 and we decided to stay put for another day.

On Tuesday the weather was calm and sunny and we paid up so that they would put us back in the water. "No cash, no splash!" they said. We asked for a berth for one more night, (just in case we had any leaks) and set about a big cleaning job on the deck and down below. All the floorboards were washed and polished, the bilges flushed out with fresh water, the cushions bashed and aired and we made the boat ship-shape for departure the next morning. We had filled up with diesel on the way from the yard to our berth so the tanks were full. Oh, and Giblet had her third swim, chased off a neighbouring boat by another cat!

The next morning, once the weather had come in on the Navtex and I had popped to the supermarket for bread we were ready to go. Chris nipped round to the office to pay and who should he see there, on the reception pontoon, but Kasara! They had arrived late the night before and were going to stop in Almerimar for another day, but with a good forecast and the fact that Zephyrus and we were heading to Almeria they came too!