In all we spent three nights at the Marina Botafoch in Ibiza. When we first thought about stopping at Ibiza again, the idea was that we would rent a car and see some of the island. Instead John had to work on the boat. It seems that the fuel that we had so much difficulty acquiring in Sicily was dirty. At least, somehow the fuel in our tanks became contaminated, and we assume the batch from Sicily was the culprit. Maybe that’s another reason no one was using that fuel dock. I won’t bore you with the details, but John spent a lot of time cleaning one tank and trying to clean the fuel in the other.
We thought we were good to go and filled the empty tank and set off for Cartagena Wednesday morning. However, the engine died just outside the entrance to the Ibiza harbor, and we couldn’t get it started again. There was no wind, and after many attempts to raise someone on the VHF radio, we finally got a tow back to the marina. There we called a mechanic who was recommended by the marina (a great guy by the name of Sosu). He discovered some small things that combined to prevent fuel from being delivered to the engine and fixed them in short order, and we were able to set off again in the morning.
It’s very nice to be back at Yacht Port Cartagena. We arrived on Friday, which was a local holiday celebrating the defeat of the Carthaginians by the Romans in 226 B.C. That meant that the office and stores were closed, but the marinaros were expecting us and had a place for us right across from our old spot. We expect to be here for a couple of weeks taking care of some things on the boat in preparation for our Atlantic crossing in December. What can’t be done here, we’ll take care of when we reach the Canary Islands. We’ll also use the time to visit the rest of the museums here that we missed the first time.
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