Cabo de Palos - weather not quite what it said in the brochure?

For the last three days the wind had been forecast to blow with reasonable strength from the Northeast. Instead of bashing head first into the wind and waves we spent the time exploring Cartagena. According to our Navtex the Spanish Navy were conducting exercises outside the harbour and the naval base was quite busy with warships, submarines and minesweepers.

On Thursday, with a reasonable weather forecast, NE2-4, we left Cartagena in hazy early morning sunshine with nil wind. The harbour entrance was designed, rather impressively, by nature over the last million or so years and in the calm water we threaded our way between cliffs and a small island before turning East towards Cabo de Palos, twenty miles away. The wind built steadily to a good force four, on the nose, and life became a great deal more comfortable as we turned North around the cape and were able to sail the rest of the way. We had to concentrate on our navigation as we threaded our way between the cliffs and some submerged off-lying rocks just below the surface.

Beyond the cape 'La Manga' opened up to Port, an eight-mile ribbon of sand, with a large inland sea, the Mar Menor, behind. From our viewpoint, a little offshore, it appeared that every spare square inch had been used to build skyscrapers, not a pretty sight.

Six miles after rounding the cape we sailed into the outer harbour at Tomas Maestre and dropped the anchor for the night. As so often happens the wind died with the setting of the sun and we enjoyed a very calm night. All the more pleasurable as our Navtex picked up a British weather forecast predicting NE4-6, occassionally 7, with wintry showers for Thames, Dover, Wight and Portland - nothing like knowing how bad it is back in Britain!  Next morning the alarm went off at the horrendous hour of seven; the cunning plan being to sail early before the wind gets up.

By 0745 the anchor was back onboard and we were motoring out into a lovely calm, flat sea. Just one hour later we had a force five, gusting to six on the nose, creating a lumpy sea that was crashing over the bow. As if that was not enough, thundery showers started to blow through and we could see lightning striking the skyscrapers on La Manga. As we don't 'do cold and wet' and being in no particular hurry, we just turned around and came back. With the wind behind we got back to Tomas Maestre in half the time and dropped the hook again! Not quite the weather we had become accustomed to - serves us right for laughing at the British weather forecast!  The Spanish Met Office are now predicting NW force 7 so we might remain here a day or two . . .