Wander Lost

Month: February 2023

  • Two Years Living on Lady Cindy

    It’s been two years now since I moved aboard my 32 foot sail boat. I have had good times, bad times great times, sad times but I know it was the best decision I have ever made for myself.

    In that time I have travelled to West Wales and back, crossed the English Channel and Biscay alone, sailed with crew, sailed with friends, met new friends, seen hundreds of Dolphins, dodged Orcas, been frustrated, happy, sad, excited, proud, ashamed and every other emotion. But I feel alive, I am enjoying life, I like me.

    My journey so far

    So what’s next? I will continue up the Spanish coast over the next week or so then cross to Ibiza. Plans are underway for a friend to join me there to sail to Alcudia in Majorca. I will be spending up to two months there working on another boat before sailing to Corsica, Sardinia and the Italian West Coast. I then hope to sail all the way around Italy to Venis over the Summer. I have no definite plans for beyond that.

  • Motril to Garrucha

    A cold Mistral wind has been prevailing along this coast all week and is set to continue for another week. It has meant tacking into strong headwinds with 1-2 meter waves and rolly anchorages. I am sheltering in a marina at Garrucha.

    While anchored I had a visit from the National police to inspect the boat and check my documents. They went away happy 🤗 My Facebook post at the time was..

    Lady Cindy has been violated!!!
    A big boat came alongside while we are anchored, it’s night and the first I knew was flashing torches at the window. Their boat had no lights on 😳. Two boarded my boat Lady Cindy and one searched inside, the other got his pen and pad and demanded my documents 😳😳 I handed them over…. Two forms later, they were satisfied and called back their ship.. which bumped into mine quite hard 😳😳😳 the two men jumped over and they were gone. The Spanish police are actually really friendly 🤣🤣🤗🤗

    As soon as I get a weather window I plan to day sail to Aguilas where there is a week long festival of carnivals starting on the 16th.

  • Motril

    I spent about a week in Motril, it’s a lovely place and a refreshing change from the other Costas towns. The people are friendly, the views of the mountains stunning and I got a lot of boat maintenance done.

    First job when I arrived was to got to a local vets to get Dotty a European pet passport. Up till now she has been travelling on a UK issued animal health certificate which has expired. The pet passport allows lifetime travel throughout Europe and simplifies entry into a lot of non EU countries. Dotty is officially a European 🙂

    Then boat maintenance started. The most important was to pay somebody to go up the mast to install a new light. It’s a combined navigation and anchor light and led. He was up there for nearly 4 hours, it should have taken 1 hour tops but it was uncomfortable up there so I am sure the problems he had were genuine. I rewired down below and it all works great.

    Other jobs included a new stern navigation light, fixing the transom toe rail that broke a few weeks ago, new gearbox oil, new mast steaming light bulb plus a few other minor jobs.

    I am now making my way West then North toward Valencia.

  • A day in Motril