Monday - 3 September 2018

Caleta de Valezto Penon de las Caballas

Another shortish day today and it was nice to be able to wake up in a leisurely fashion and not feel the need to rush out of bed. It is so much easier to leave an anchorage than a harbour.  You have no check out formalities, no waiting for a marinero to return your deposit for a key.  We also have no fenders out, so the crew work of stowing them is much less as well.

As usual we got going and then got breakfast. This is also much easier with 3 than with 2, you don’t have to interrupt preparing or eating food quite so much when there is an extra pair of hands around.

Every hour or so for the last few days we have received a “Pan Pan” message, (a level or so below a “Mayday”) informing us that more inflatable boats have been spotted, with people on board (50 today), making their way from Morocco to Spain.  We are instructed to keep a look out, report any sightings to the coastguard, and offer help as appropriate.  I had thought that we had passed the busiest area for this, but there still seems to be a lot this side of Gibraltar. Fortunately, we have not seen any of these since Barbate, but it is still distressing to hear that more and more people are trying to cross.  The trafficers seem to care nothing for the lives of the people that they are transporting, sending them to sea in the cheapest “vessels” that they can obtain, knowing that the vessel will be lost on each trip one way or another.

We have now anchored in a beautiful and sheltered bay, with no swell(!!!).  We are close to the beach, and can see families enjoying themselves.  Our evening entertainment has been to watch the antics of some of the other boats. We have seen a couple in an inflatable nearly being blown out to sea, and we were considering whether we should go to rescue them. We have had other boats dragging their anchors or failing to anchor at all, it has been all go. Eventually there is just us an one other boat left, and all is peaceful.

Distance covered today	18	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	1552	nautical miles
Distance covered 2018	2272	nautical miles
Steve (and Tricia and Steve)