Almeria, Spain

Med Moored at Club de Mar Almeria
Almeria
Spain
Mediterranean Sea
36'49.8N/2'27.6W
(click on photo to enlarge)

Since our arrival we have been enjoying marina living with all we can use power, high speed WiFi Internet, and hot showers. We now have a new U.S. phone number. So if you would like, give us a call at 317-608-2844.

Almeria is a city and is quite busy during the day, and at night there are restaurants and bars full of people everywhere. Several nights ago ‘Team Sandpiper’ decided to hit the town and see what happens during the evening hours. One great thing we discovered about ordering beers in Spain is ‘tapas’. Every time we ordered a beer we got a small plate of food from the bar. We were going to go out for dinner, but figured that we would just keep going to different bars, ordering beer, and by the time we were full of beer we would be full of dinner. There are many small bars all over this city all down different small alleys.

By midnight we were full of ‘dinner’ and decided to see what else was around. One thing about being in Europe is that people do not come out till late in the evening for dinner. If one walks around at 9pm there are no people anywhere. But at midnight, every business is packed. We stopped in one bar that had a very good price for ½ liter of beer in a plastic cup. Everyone was in black Metallica t-shirts and very young. I fit right in as everyone was in his or her early 20’s and  smoking cigarettes and I am in my 40’s wearing my best white Mexican shirt. It was like drinking at somebody’s keg party back home in a dark basement.

After that, there were more stops at some very crowded bars, and one last stop at a bar that was full of hundreds of people all dancing to some very loud music. By the time we decided that is was time to head back to the boat it was 5 am and the skies were starting to lighten up. Once we stepped outside we saw a huge line of people waiting to get in... AT 5 AM!!

One reason we stayed here for the weekend was that we dropped off laundry to be washed on Friday and they were closed on Monday for a holiday. So we could not leave without our clothes. Also, we have had a few boat projects to complete before leaving.

We had a refrigeration technician visit and look at our system that has been giving us much drama. He figured the control unit was bad and that the unit needed more coolant added. Just like when we were in Turkey, this tech added too much coolant, and once he left after two hundred dollars out of our pockets the refer completely freaked out. Anyway, since I have been staring at this system for hours every day I figured out what was wrong as soon as he left. Since then we have been slowly bleeding the system back down and think that it is working once again! This means ice for our cocktails, cold beer, and food that we can keep cold on our Atlantic crossing.

I also had Amy haul me up the mast with some epoxy to secure Sandpiper’s lightning rod that had come loose on our last trip.

The weather here has been horrible since our arrival from Malta. We were very lucky that we were not a day later on our arrival as the last system that blew through last Friday was so strong it blew a ship off Gibraltar onto the rocks where it broke in half. The crew had to be rescued by helicopters.

We were going to leave this morning, but decided to put it off for one more day thankfully. Check out the video that blew through the marina on our You-Tube channel. The weather for the next 3 days is predicted to be very mild, so tomorrow morning we are heading west to Gibraltar, and we are hoping will do this all in one hop. It is 160nm to Gibraltar and seeing that the weather is going to be so mild we will probably be motoring the whole way. Check us out as we should be posting updates, Sailmail permitting.

Tom and Amy