We left Almerima at 9am on 27th April and travelled 68.2 miles to Garrucha. Our original aim was to anchor in St Jose a normally sheltered anchorage on route, however having entered the anchorage, the weather and wind conditions were such that we we would be happier tied up in a marina for the night so continued to Garrucha. We had a great sail for the majority but by the time we were making our approach to the marina (at 7.40pm), we were experiencing gusts of 29kts with a steady 25kts. We had made the right decision. Safely tied up for the night we took a walk around the town and then joined Eva & Hakan for wine and tapas before retiring to bed. It had been a long day.
Early the following day we checked the weather and left for Cartagena.
Sally at Sunrise
Our arrival in Cartagena was masked in fog, the first we had encountered since leaving the UK. At times we were even unable to make out Sally who was sailing only a few hundred yards to our starboard side.
Cartagena is one of the most important naval ports in Spain having been the capital of the Spanish Navy’s Maritime Department of the Mediterranean since the 18th Century. We spent a day visiting the Naval Museum and exploring the town. There are a number of interesting Roman ruins including a theatre. Whilst at the Museum we visited the submarine Peral. Housed in its own separate building, Peral was the first electric battery powered submarine and was built by the Spanish engineer Isaac Peral for the Spanish Navy. Amazingly she was launched on 8 September 1888 and she had one torpedo tube plus an air regeneration system.
We cycled out to the lighthouse at the entrance to the Port passing the Navantia boatyard on our way. The Boatyard had a number of large yachts in for refits including ‘Yacht A’, built for a Russian and launched in 2015. She is a sail assisted vessel and can reach 21 knots (38km/h) She weighs 12,558 tonnes, is 142.81 m (468.5ft) long & 24.8 m (81.4ft) wide and was delivered to her owner in February of 2017 before final sea trials and fit-out in Cartagena that year. She was apparently there for a ‘refit’! One of the other motor yachts having work carried out in the yard was Le Grand Bleu. At 113m long, she has two additional vessels on individual cranes that she carries onboard – one is a 22m (73ft) sailboat and the other a 21m(68ft) powerboat! She was owned y Roman Abramovich but was given to his business partner, Eugene Shvidler in a gamble.
This enormous bronze statue on the waterfront at Cartagena was commisioned to remember the victims of terrorist attacks.