Bali Hai - Return to the UK

Lagos was going to be a relaxing break and everyone split up for much of the time to do their own thing.  The first thing that Emma and I did the next morning was some laundry, at which point Emma committed the cardinal sin of hanging clothes out to dry on the rigging and make Bali Hai look more like a gypsy boat than a luxury yacht.  Greg, on the other hand, washed his clothes and hung them up in his hotel bedroom which , in my opinion was the perfect place, although I am not sure that Suzy would agree. Emma flouts the rules That lunchtime John had booked a table in a beach bar that he and Lisa like and where Lisa is particularly fond of the white sangria.   We were sad that Lisa could not be with us and so raised a glass (or several) of it to her instead.  A toast to Lisa The following day was Emma’s birthday and I had booked a room at the Avenida Hotel so that she could wake up on her birthday in slightly more comfort than on the boat.   The hotel had a few q...

Being at anchor meant that in the morning it was relatively straightforward to leave and we were able to do so at about 7:15. Even with the extra mileage from having to hug the coast, it was not a great distance to Lagos and we expected to arrive in the early afternoon. En-route we had to make an attempt to fix the toilet again.   This time, as the person responsible for the blockage, it was Richard who had to do the dirty work.   Fortunately for him, we had learnt from the previous instances that the problem was due to an air-lock rather than a faulty pump and by loosening a couple of screws he was able to release the air and get the toilet working again without any messiness.  Greg was rather disappointed as he was poised with his camera for a slightly more dramatic shot when the pressure was released. Richard the handyman Having made good time and with no orca incidents we arrived at Lagos just after lunch (although we were to discover later how lucky ...

Originally, we had planned to head straight across the bay from Cadiz to Culatra but, following the news of the orca attack, we now had to hug the coast and the journey would be over 100 miles rather than the expected 79. Fortunately, with Portugal in the same time zone as the UK, it meant that we would have an extra hour.    We still left Cadiz before dawn, which was an interesting experience because Cadiz port has a number of different entrances and so a particularly large number of navigation lights, most of which are either red or green.  It was only Emma’s eagle eyes that prevented us from heading off down the wrong channel. In the end the journey was uneventful, the only excitement was when Emma almost lost the Portuguese flag when we crossed the border from Spain to Portugal.    The Spain/Portugal border Our destination was the lagoon between the towns of Faro and Olhao on the mainland and the small island of Culatra. We eventually arrived at abo...

Thursday was the day we were most worried about.  Over the last few weeks there have been a number of instances of orcas attacking boats in the Straits of Gibraltar.  For an unknown reason, orcas violently attack a boat’s rudder and, while they will go for all types of vessels, they mainly target sailing boats which have large rudders that can be more easily snapped off.  The orcas responsible are a critically endangered group of Iberian Orcas, numbering only 30-40 in total.   They feed off tuna that are migrating through the Straits to spawn in the Balearics in June, then come back out in July and up the Portuguese Atlantic coast through the summer.   With more yachts heading to the Med in recent weeks, the number of attacks has increased to be almost daily.   There has even been a Moody 66 that was so badly damaged that the coastguard had to drop a high speed pump on board to stop it from sinking. Because of the seriousness of the situation there are ...

The next morning Emma went for a run and then she and I were sitting on deck when Richard, whole normally by that time had run 10k, swum across the bay and done 75 press-ups on the back of the boat,  appeared, looking jaded and squinting like a mole emerging from its winter hibernation.  Apparently, dinner with his friend Rosemary had turned into quite a session in which they drank three pints each followed two bottles of wine.  It was all a bit much for our delicate cabin boy. The morning after the night before After shopping tasks, the rest of the day was spent at leisure.   Richard and Greg went back to Gibralter; Richard to do some bird watching and Greg to visit the Lord Nelson for a pint and a lasagne.    La Linea beach Emma and I explored La Linea and, while the place doesn’t have much in the way of sights, you can easily walk across to the Mediterranean side where there is long attractive beach with several beach bars.   We a had a lovely lunch...

Everyone was up at one o’clock and, despite it being dark, the departure was made easy as there was little wind and the harbour lit up by the lights of the working port.   At first everything went smoothly but, after a couple of hours the wind started to pick up and we were heading directly into it.   Also, the surface current was coming straight at us from the Straits of Gibraltar and was extremely strong.   As the wind increased, so did the waves and we now were barely making 4 knots, so with it being a 90 mile trip, there was no way we were going to make La Linea within the day.   I then made the decision to divert to Estepona, which is up the coast from Gibraltar and it would then only be a short trip the following day.   Greg said that it felt like going home as he and Suzy have a house nearby and Greg keeps his own boat in Estepona marina.   So w e thought that, with his local knowledge, we would be having a particularly special evening. Estepona ma...

The first thing we discovered after our long siesta was that things are usually too good to be true and Richard and Greg’s toilet had stopped working again.   Fortunately, it was no longer seriously blocked and so not a major (or too messy) task to remove the toilet pump and replace the valves.   A surprising repair given that the pump was new this year and one wonders how the valves had been damaged…. Greg and his "shopper" Richard then headed off for some more bird watching and Greg, Emma and I borrowed the marina’s bicycles and explored Motril’s beachfront looking for lunch.   It was a motely set of bikes, Greg and I both had ancient ladies shoppers and Emma a mountain bike with a saddle that descended at random intervals.   However, we did find a very pleasant beach bar with some nice tapas. Beach bar for lunch It was then another early night as the next day we would be leaving before two in the morning for the long journey to La Linea (the Spanish border town ...

The decision to go to Motril was a last minute change as the marina there would confirm a reservation, so I could arrange to have a GPS antenna for the AIS to be sent out to us from the UK.  No-one had heard of Motril before, it is the capital of the equally unfamiliar Costa Tropical, but the small marina is ranked number one in Andalusia. While we have some long passages ahead, this one would be our last overnight passage until the Bay of Biscay.   It started well with our first opportunity to have a decent sail.   In 12 knots of wind and with all three sails up, we managed 8 knots of boat speed. A decent sail at last All three sails up Unfortunately, some tensions resurfaced on this leg as one unnamed crew member who had initially shown promise, relapsed into his former behaviour of showing little inclination to participate in domestic chores, such as cooking, unless pushed. So, we were forced to introduce a cooking and clearing-up rota.    This immediately ...

Emma and I, and for some of the time Richard, had explored Majorca and Menorca when Bai Hai was based in Leucate, unfortunately we did not make it as far South as Ibiza and so we were very happy to stop there on this trip.   We decided to hire a car to explore.   Before Covid, Greg and Richard had signed up to do the Mongol Rally together (driving a 20 year old car, costing £800, the 12,000 miles across Eurasia from UK to Mongolia).   However, to date they had not actually spent any time in the same vehicle together, so we thought it would be a good idea for one of them to be the driver and the other navigator.   It proved to be an enlightening experience. Greg "Colin Macrae" and navigator Children in the back Putting two fairly strongly opinionated people in charge of navigating and driving through an unknown territory is not perhaps ideal.   Emma and I sat in the back like children watching their parents bickering, as we circumnavigated roundabouts...

When we left Cagliari all was calm and pleasant.  Little did we know what would be thrown at us in the hours ahead, it would put any worries about orca attacks into perspective.  There was perhaps a bit of an omen when Emma woke up in the morning absolutely covered in mosquito bites (I was untouched but Emma is undoubtedly the more tasty one!) Leaving Cagliari The weather was fine with a bit of a breeze but unfortunately not in the right direction, so we put the mainsail up and motor-sailed. This was to be a long journey of 385 miles and after leaving the tip of Sardinia the first sight of land would be when we reached Ibiza.   The first thing that went wrong was that the GPS stopped working and so we unable to use the boat’s navigation system.   While we have back-ups, none of them integrate with the boat systems and this would make navigation rather more tricky.   We also found that the AIS was not working and after some investigation discovered that th...

Bali Hai last visited Cagliari in 2009 and Emma has always said that she would never go back as it was the most disgusting marina you could imagine (for some reason she was not overly keen on sharing an uncleaned port-a-loo with a bunch of salty sea dogs) and 2km from the city centre.  So she was not best pleased when she found out that I had scheduled two nights back in there.  However, we arrived (at a different marina) to a lovely welcome with really friendly staff, excellent facilities and a berth right in the middle of the town. A pattern that you are going to see a lot of during this trip The first night we explored the old town of Castello, wandering the narrow streets and stopping at pleasant bar for aperitivos.   We then went for a pizza in a local pizzeria recommended to us by a contact of Emma’s who hails from Sardinia.   In recent years we have found that local pizzas are no longer the basic margarita or diavola but have now become more designer crea...