We did end up getting stuck in Gibraltar / the med for more time than we planned, but that did end up leaving us with lots of time to take pictures of monkeys.
We spent 2 days tacking into the med, and by time we wanted to leave the wind had switched and we spent multiple days in short hops a with some multi-day stops to get back out again.
10/10 though, Gibraltar is lovely.
#monkey #gibraltar #sunset #sailinghannahpenn #liveaboardlife #liveaboard
The marina we chose was the last resort after trying the other marinas first who said they were full for our chosen days, to our surprise though it was the best marina we’ve ever been to! And what really did make it awesome was the bathrooms, it’s funny how you take something so mundane for granted when you live in a house. Well, this marina had home-from-home private bathrooms with his and hers double sinks, waterfall showers and two even had huge bathtubs, which we obviously made the most of! We didn’t get a perfect picture of the baths, but you can see a screenshot from a video to the right.
The staff were great, and the marina was all being fully renovated with new pontoons installed in 2020, so it was all very shmancy but also surprisingly cheap.
You can read our full review on Navily.
We had a bit of confusion booking, we both emailed but got no reply (our email went to spam) and called, but got not email confirmation after. Upon arriving we had 2 bookings! Luckily we only paid for 1 😉
On approach to the marina be carefull not to stray into the runway approach as the port channel markers are not currently in the water. The satalite view on maps show this as Mediterranean moorings, however we were alongside a pontoon, and other around us had fingers. We were right outside reception.
The marina is well located, a middle sized supermarket selling Tesco products open every day, and a 15 minuite walk away a giant Morrisons. Water and electricity is included in the mooring fee, and for a 11.5m monohull we paid £28 a night for 5 nights. There is construction work going on around but we didn’t find it annoying. Lots of restaurants and places to have a drink. Shepard’s chandelry is awesome, we went there at least 5 times while doing various boat jobs. The staff are very helpful. There are laundry facilities in the building next to reception. £4.50 for washing, £1.50 for drying. Also a vending machine with some cold drinks.
Fuel was cheap at £1.19 /L for Diesel from Gib oil a few meters from the marina reception. We got some as we left the marina. As everyone else said the bathrooms are great, make use of the baths!!! (In Alpha and Beta). 10/10, would head there again
While in Gibraltar we took some time restocking our dry goods and tin collection from the nearby Morrisons, this included some home comforts from the UK 🙂
At the same time, we took an inventory of all food aboard, ready for some longer crossings and to avoid needing to dig around to find things in the various storage compartments.
So many tins! We think we could probably live quite happily for a few months with this stockpile and also not get scurvy.
On top of this, we have a few KGs of pasta, rice, couscous, lentils, quinoa, noodles etc.
We spent a little time doing boat jobs.
On our last voyage into Gibraltar the bolts that hold our wind turbine in place had once again come undone despite having sent Andrew up the mast a few weeks back to do them up very tight. Our bolts went overboard this time, so we needed to locate some new bolts, and locking washers to try to keep the wind turbine attached to its mount.
We spent some time going along the steering shaft oiling and greasing all of the appropriate parts. This shaft runs from the wheel in the cockpit, down the port side of the boat through various compartments, bearings and angeled joints to the rudder stock.
Here you can see part of the shaft closest to the wheel with the autopilot in view, and the chain that allows it to steer the boat. (Perhaps we should do an autopilot tour soon)
Of course, a marina trip wouldn’t be complete without some land exploration and good food.
We ate out a few nights of our overall 5-night stay having some tasty Italian, fajitas, cocktails, fish and chips, meat skewers, burgers etc.
This included a hop back into Spain where we caught a bus all the way to Marbella which is slightly further east into the Mediterranean, to make use of a voucher at a restaurant that Adam had acquired.
We also headed up “the rock” to take in some amazing views and to watch the monkeys at sunset.
Andrew left the boat heading to Lisbon airport on the morning of day 79.
The marina had a quite noisy collection of little crabs that seemed to come out as the tide dropped. They would just sit on the rocks, clicking their little claws together, we assume eating things.
We spent the rest of the morning restocking the boat from a nearby supermarket, doing some last-minute laundry, general cleaning and unexpected boat maintenance (the shower pump out pump ceased up and we needed to take it apart).
Wanting to get out of the marina to avoid spending too much more money, but also not wanting to make our next hop down the coast any longer we decided to head back to Cascais.
The sail was in familiar water and rather short, with only the initial exit out of the river mouth leading us into some slightly lumpy more unprotected water.
We were once again a boat of 2 and spent some time relaxing in the quiet, with no real pressure to be getting anywhere on a timeline (at least not a timeline of a few weeks).
We had been talking of making pastel de natas aboard at some point and decided to give it a go (despite not having any sort of try that would make them pastel de nata sized.
We mostly followed a recipe from wetravelportugal.com, but opted for a rather large dish and made something like a pastel de nata tart.
With the burnt bits trimmed off, and a nice background in place, it looked and tasted delicious!
From Cascais it was only a 5nm sail to our chosen marina near Lisbon, we hoisted the mainsail whilst still at anchor and sailed like a pro out through the other anchored boats quickly unfurling the genoa too
The sea and sky were kind and with lake-like seas, we sped toward Lisbon, this was Andrews’s final day of sailing and it was going to be a fun one, early that morning we had seen a pirate ship approach our anchorage and drop the hook a little way offshore, the ship was huge and could have easily been taken right out of Pirates of the Caribbean! We looked it up online to find that it likely had around 75 people on board, what was funny was that it also had two washing machines and dryers on board too, the luxuries of pirate living!
As we sailed out towards it we tried to get as close as possible to get a good look at it and take some pictures, we waved at everyone on deck.. sadly not a single one waved back!
But anyway we did get some great pics of it
As we carried on we decided the conditions were perfect for Andrew to do some single-handed sailing, with and without the use of the autopilot, so first I demonstrated how to tack the boat and change the sails without using the autopilot to hold the wheel and then we handed the boat over to Andrew to have a go doing everything himself, he did a very good job at being quick enough to not let the boat tack back again after transferring the headsail to the other side whilst not holding the wheel!
We also tried to sail a circle which obviously had some tacking included but really not a bad effort! You can look at our track on the map
After we had had enough of that Andrew announced that he hadn’t been in the water the entire time he’d been on board!! A whole month on board and he hadn’t dipped his toes in! We had completely forgotten about that as the water before this point had been pretty cold oh and he did get covid for a little bit too :0, so we sailed a little further from shore and decided to ‘heave to’ (stall the boat under sail, like anchoring with no anchor) and drift whilst we all had fun jumping in.
However, not long before we were going to jump in we spotted something in the water that stopped any of us from getting in the water!.. jellyfish and lots of them.
I wanted to get a good picture of the interestingly shaped jellyfish so I jumped in the dinghy with the underwater camera and snapped a few of these, apparently, this is a very common jellyfish found off the coast of Portugal with a moderate sting. We think it is a Catostylus tagi.
We probably spent 40mins admiring the jellyfish before we stopped seeing them.. no time like the present we thought so got into a swimming costume and we all jumped in the sea, Adam and I even tried to halyard swing into the water with some pretty funny results… (you can judge who is best)
So 11.5nm later we arrived at the marina, radioed in, and got a space, luckily the conditions were good as the space they had given us was very tight! With lots of fenders out on both sides, we edged our way into the slip and had a nice little relax before going to check in and find the shower block!
We headed into Lisbon via taxi in the evening to have a final meal with Andrew.
On the way back, we did some much-needed exercise after a big meal and lots to drink!
It was a slow start this morning, we tried to leave our anchorage early to make use of the morning sea breeze as there was very little wind forecast, a sea breeze is when the land and the sea are different temperatures, in the mornings the sea is warmer than the land so the cold air is drawn off the land and over the warm sea as that air rises.. well that’s the idea anyway.
The sea breeze sailing didn’t really go to plan so we very slowly sailed down the coast till we lost the wind completely, sadly having to motor for a little while.
Eventually, we got the wind back and were able to pole out the Genoa with the reaching strut to sail directly downwind
We had had the fishing rods out for the whole day again not getting a nibble.. till we had the awkward poled-out sail and then we got a bite! Just our luck!
Adam grabbed the rod whilst I (Kathryn) furled the sail got the engine going and turned so we could bring the fish alongside, ready with the landing net and bucket we brought it closer, excited to see what we had caught!
It came into view but was not the sort of fish we were expecting, we debated letting it go for a moment but decided to give it go and bring it aboard. It turned out to be a 1.3lb Needlefish otherwise called a Garfish which has a greeny blue tint to its flesh.
So with the fish excitement over we were approaching our chosen anchorage, just in time for the wind to pick up and we had a quick beam reach into the bay just as the sun was setting.
But the day wasn’t over yet when I heard a big breath of air right next to the boat, of course, it was dolphins escorting us in! They stayed with us for over 45mins! The pod was quite large with what looked like a number of generations, mum and baby and a very large older-looking one with a white speckled fin and tail. I actually think these were porpoises, not dolphins as they have a much stubbier nose.
Definitely the best end to a very long day of sailing.
As I’m finishing typing up this Adam is filleting the fish… I’m sure you’ll find out tomorrow how we cook it and how good it was when we eat it for lunch tomorrow 😛
The marina that we moored at when arriving in Brest gave us a free ticket to Oceanopolis, a nearby Aquarium.
We took this opportunity to have a day out on land.
The aquarium was about an hours walk from the marina, so we stocked up on icey cold water, and started walking amidst a bit of a heat wave (around 30 degrees Celcius).
Our walk took us along the rest of Brest harbour, then along a busy-ish road with a cycle path, and eventually through an industrial area until finally reaching Oceanopolis.
The aquarium is split up into 3 main different zones. Tropical, Polar and a zone for the local area.
There were penguins.
Lots and lots of penguins.
Seals.
The cutest of sea otters.
And of course, small fish pretending to be Nemo.
While browsing the shop we found a very cute seal which is now part of team Hannah Penn (also known as Team Saily Mc Sail Face).
Keep an eye out for this cute one in photos to come.
On the way back we tried out a french bike rental app called Donkey republic.
Not many bikes available that worked, most parking places would generally have 5 or so bikes, but only one that wasn’t broken / that you could unlock.
This shortened the trip back quite a bit. Very glad the bike was electric assist.
Tresco is one of the many islands that make up the Isles of Scilly. On Day 21 we anchored up just north of Tresco in St Helens Pool.
Heading to shore, we landed the dinghy on the northeastern side at Old Grimsby.
The first thing on our minds was a spot of lunch, and the closest place (also quite expensive) was Ruin Beach Cafe, very yummy. We ended up having a full 3-course meal for lunch, see our deserts to the right.
We started exploring and headed for a big walk counter-clockwise around the island without much planning about what to see, except for some greenery and the open ocean on the far side.
There is lots of green space on the northern side, with great views of the open ocean, and views of the other Isles.
As you make your way around to the western side you find a couple of castles / forts providing a little history lesson and some more good views, such as New Grimsby.
We stopped off at the supermarket in the middle of the island for some icecreams and drinks because it was around 28 degrees C.
Continuing south, we planned on visiting Tresco Gardens, but unfortunately due to our late planning, they were closed. Nonetheless, our adventure to the south let us relax while watching lots of rabbits and pheasants frolick in the grass.
It was low tide when we got back to Old Grimsby where we had left the dinghy.
We spent a little time in Ruin Beach Cafe once again making full use of their WiFi to download the latest Stranger Things season, as well as updates to our navigational charts.
Finally, it was time to carry the dinghy, engine and all, back down to the water (now quite the trek).
On Day 20 we arrived in the Isles of Scilly, amidst the Eastern Isles, right next to Great Ganilly.
We were only a short distance from Great Ganilly Island, so figured we had better replace our outboard engine oil (a job we had been putting off), and explore the island!
We took the dinghy a short distance to shore and carried it over a bit of rocky ground so it wouldn’t drift away as the tide rose.
Heading counter-clockwise around the island we first found ourselves on a little beach with a webcam (we guess for seals).
There was quite a bit of fishing tackle, ropes and things caught in rocks and on the beach, including this box that said Lowestoft! It’s a small world, as Lowestoft is Kathryn’s mums home town.
The island had a few paths carved out from where people had visited before. But the main inhabitants seemed to be hundreds of sea birds, all of which were flying around keeping an eye on what we were doing…
As we came back around to the western side of the island we got the opportunity to take some nice pictures of Hannah from the shore.
We weren’t ready to head back to the boat, so we relaxed on the beach until sunset.
From the beach, we could see a rock that looked a lot like what Grace described as a giant slug, but we were thinking of a crocodile. So of course, I (Adam) had to go and see what it would look like if I tried to ride it.
Meanwhile, Kathryn was once again getting artsy in the sand.
On the way back to the boat, we could mostly have the dinghy engine off and drift downwind, which was perfect as the seals were out and about.