24 May – 29 May 2011
Our unplanned stop in
Marina del Este was only for 3 nights. The mechanics were fast and efficient and did an excellent job of removing the injectors and injector pump, sending the pump away for servicing, cleaned the injectors, put it all back together and had
Olive our Volvo running smoothly in record time. They were even kind enough to let us use their pool car to drive over the hill to
Herradura to make daily raids on the Cash Machine so we could pay them!
We left Marina del Este early afternoon and headed another 17 miles west, we were expecting to motor as there was no wind forecast, and thought it would be good to give the engine a good run. However we couldn’t resist sailing when a light easterly filled in, we just poled out both the headsails and had a lovely slow but comfortable trip along to our next marina stop at
Caleta de Velez.
We were pleased to be able to make it here by Saturday as Mark’s cousin Sally and her husband Graham were holidaying from England were and staying with their friends John and Barbara inland from Caleta de Velez and we had planned to rendezvous with them.
It was great to see Sally and Graham and to meet John and Barbara. John has built and owned wooden boats so he was very interested in looking through
Balvenie, and we are always happy to show her off! We found a great restaurant on the waterfront, jam packed with locals enjoying a long Saturday afternoon lunch. We joined in for an excellent “Menu del dia”, sat down in the shade - the Mediterranean just metres away and whiled away the afternoon eating, drinking and talking, very Spanish indeed!
Our visitors headed back to the hills early evening, it had been great to catch up. After a quick well earned siesta we hit the bars looking for a big screen to watch the final of the European Football Cup. Barcelona were playing Manchester United and we were absolutely amazed to find that every local was supporting Man U and not Barcelona. A couple of the locals that could speak some English explained that if we looked at the Barcelona supporters in the stand at Wembley you would be hard pushed to see a Spanish flag anywhere. They all either flew the Barcelona Club flag or the regional Catalonian flag, they did not see themselves as Spanish. We found this very interesting, we all have fierce rivalry within regions of our countries, but generally if we are playing away we will support the Kiwi team, from whatever region.
Cruising info for Marina del Este and Caleta de Velez – May 2011Marina del Este – 36 43.67N 03 43.57W
(We only came in here to undergo engine repairs) Approach to entrance totally exposed to the East, there is some surge inside as swells reflects off rocks, even in light easterlies and we met a boat that had left the marina after spending 2 nights in there with 30 knot easterlies as the surge was so bad (they went to windward in 30knots to get out!!) It is a small marina
, we ended up paying up for a longer berth just so we could manoeuvre into it. The 2 mooring lines that were pulled up were not attached to the bottom, the chain had worn through!! They did replace them first thing the following morning but this is a very expensive marina and should be maintained accordingly. The staff, however, were excellent, spoke good English, answered channel 09 on VHF and were ready to assist us when we were towed in. There is a fuel berth and waiting berth on the right on entering and room there for turning. Least depth seen 3.5m (on fuel berth). Clean
showers and toilets, free
wifi, small
minimarket, laundry (not self service), a few restaurants, and a couple of shops.
Mechanical repairs onsite, reasonable English spoken, €40 per hour.
Hard stand with large travel lift, . Very steep walk over hill to Herradura town. Cost
€55 per night plus power and water
Caleta de Velez – 36 44.85N 04 04.03W
Huge breakwater, entrance exposed to south. Very big fishing port with a lot of fishing boat traffic but marina is at far end so little noise or wash from the boats, does smell somewhat fishy. The waiting dock is on the left past the fuel dock, it has a huge sign on it, it is only about 15 metres long and is covered in seagull droppings – wear shoes!!! There was no one to take lines. Plenty of turning room, depth around 5 metres from memory. Clean
showers and toilets,
self service laundry €3,
free wifi but weak signal.
Cost €19 per night all included still low season until 31 May. Main road just behind marina has good
bakery, not so good
butcher and a couple of
supermarkets (more minimarkets) within a couple of minutes walk. there is also a
Saturday morning market on this road, mainly clothes but some produce.
Lidls Supermarket is about 10 minutes away, head right (east) on the walkway along the beach until you get to a pedestrian roundabout (cobbled pavement), there is a road roundabout with a boat on it and you can see Lidls just behind it.
Buses to/from Malaga leave from main road just by the hotel with the big green hotel sign on top. We caught one to Malaga at 12.35pm and back at 6.50pm €2.56 each one way about 1 1/4 hours there along the coast, 45 minutes back along the motorway.
The story of today is about replacing the smallest of the two black boxes. This is a replacement for the standard connector that attaches to the industry standard magnet. As you can see here it isn't much to look at. Instead of the normal connector which only contains a bit of plastic and some screws, this version contains a small electronic circuit that aims to reduce the power used by the magnet. The reasoning behind this product is that the current used by the solenoid to move the valve initially is much higher than the current required to keep the valve open. Since the standard coil is just a bit of wire it doesn't know how to do this. And that's where the Ecopilot comes in: it measures the current and reduces this to the point where the valve just stays open.
