Sjoerd's visit

During our long stay last winter in Amsterdam, we made good friends with our harbormaster, Sjoerd, and we’ve managed to stay in touch via Facebook and Skype. While Amsterdam was having an even worse winter than the one we experienced, we reiterated an earlier invitation to come and visit us in Spain. Sjoerd, now an avid kite surfer and distributor for Blade Kites, asked me if there were any kite beaches in our area. After a quick search on Google, I replied that there was and sent him a link to kite-surfing site with more information. Soon we got a message that he had booked his flight. Hooray!

After our wet and cold winter and spring, I was concerned that the weather wouldn’t clear up in time for Sjoerd’s visit, but fortunately the days were all at least partially sunny and warm. After the requisite walk through old town Cartagena and visits to the ham departments of the local grocery stores, we started looking for beaches. Sjoerd had brought his kite-surfing gear with him and was ready to go.

We learned a lot about what makes a good kite-surfing beach during Sjoerd’s visit and got to see a lot of the surrounding area that was new to us. The first day we went to the end of La Manga on the Mar Menor and found the kite beaches there but no wind. The next day we visited the beach closest to Cartagena (which isn’t suitable for kiting) and took the scenic route through the petrochemical port with its refineries at Escombreras, the local landfill in an abandoned mining area at Gorguel, and finally to the El Lastre beach by Portmán. Sjoerd was quite taken with this beach, which has black sand, until he read somewhere online that it had been heavily polluted by the local mining operations.

Little beach closest to our marina

Old mine buildings on the way to Portmán

Tiny marina at Portmán

Sunday we went in the other direction and drove to Mazarrón and beyond. There was still no wind, but that was OK because the beaches were mostly rocky and not good for kiting. It was an awfully pretty drive, though.

The three of us on the way to Mazarrón

Beach near Mazarrón

Natural sandstone sculptures near Bolnuevo

Finally, on Monday we went to Cabo de Palos and Los Nietos. I knew there wouldn’t be kiting at Cabo de Palos, but I thought the fishing village there would be interesting. Los Nietos is the place we checked out on our train ride back in February. This time we turned toward the Viva Bar and Restaurant. We had wrongly assumed that it was closed in the winter, and, boy, did we ever miss out then. Viva is at the end of the beach, and they cater to the kite surfing crowd (when it’s there) as well as the expat community. There was a little wind, so Sjoerd decided to get his kite wet and see if the wind would pick up. It didn’t, but Sjoerd made a valiant attempt and then treated us to a steak dinner. Thanks, Sjoerd!

Cabo de Palos

Attempting kite surfing in light air

Despite the lack of wind this trip, Sjoerd liked the area enough that he’s talking about renting a place in or around Los Nietos for a month or two in the winter. And we had fun too!

Madrid trip and more

It’s been a quiet winter with unusually cold and wet weather, so we’re told. For the most part, we’ve just been hanging out on the boat with nothing much to write about. All of that changed in mid-March when our niece Jennifer and her significant other, John, came to Spain for their vacation. We rented a car and drove to Madrid to meet them, explore a little, and bring them back to Cartagena with us.

We had arranged to meet Jennifer and John at Taberna Almendro 13, which nephew Joel recommended, at 7 p.m. to begin our Saturday evening of tapas and wine tasting. When we got there and learned it didn’t open until 8 p.m., we agreed to make it our second stop. The area has lots of options, and we found a place with a table available that specialized in Canary-Islands-style tapas. There we discovered that Jennifer’s John does a great job of picking tapas, and we look forward to having the whole potatoes baked in salt that he chose again when we get to the Canary Islands.

Then it was back to Almendro 13 again where we lucked out to get a table and found that they don’t serve red wine (because we hadn’t read the above link in advance). We couldn’t figure out what the fried potatoes with ham were called but managed to order a delicious rosca to eat with our beer. We decided to try again another night for the potatoes (which we did), but to find a place with red wine next.

We had passed the stairs into the Plaza Mayor when we noticed what turned out to be my favorite stop, the Mercado de San Miguel. There we got glasses of wine and then looked for a bit of a table so that we would have somewhere to put dishes. Although we weren’t hungry by then, all the food looked wonderful, and we had to sample something. Once again we found a spot and enjoyed our wine and bite of food. It was by far our best tapas and wine evening.

The next day was Sunday and the museums were free. Jennifer and John had already been to the Prado, and we agreed to meet them at the Reina Sofia Museum, which houses Picasso’s “Guernica” among many other modern works. Some hours of art were followed by a walk through the Parque del Retiro for people watching. We were unsuccessful in our subsequent attempt to find the Mercado San Miguel again, but found sustenance somewhere else in the area around the Plaza Mayor before we split up for the evening. There are places to eat everywhere in the area. The trick is to find somewhere to sit.

Jennifer and John at the Reina Sofia Museum

Sunny afternoon at the Parque del Retiro

Monday morning John and I spent at the U.S. Embassy just a couple of blocks from our hotel because we discovered when we were packing for the trip that our passports were missing. Whether they’re lurking in some obscure corner of the boat or, more likely, were stolen at the local market, we needed to be sure that we would have valid passports when we leave the dock again. While it’s terrible to lose your passport, it happened under the best of circumstances since we were going to Madrid anyway. What a nightmare it would be to come into a strange port and not be able to find them.

In the afternoon John and I walked around on our own and saw the royal palace and the cathedral and many other beautiful buildings before trying the Mercado San Miguel again. We found it this time, but it was packed. John started feeling a bit the weather, but I went out to meet Jennifer and John again at Almandro 13 that evening.

Banco de España

Famous symbol of Madrid, the Bear and the Strawberry Tree statue

Royal palace

On the drive to Cartagena the next day we detoured to visit a winery, which we thought from its Web site would be open for tasting. It wasn’t. Lesson: call to be sure before you go. It isn’t like Oregon and California. The detour was interesting, though. There is a lot of empty country between Cartagena and Madrid. It was good to leave the excellent freeway system to see a bit more. When we reached Cartagena, we took a list of Jumilla area wineries to the marina office and asked them to call for us, so we had an appointment for the next time and wouldn’t be disappointed at the end of our drive.

In Cartagena I walked Jennifer and John all around town, but the highlight of that part of the visit was the getting caught up with each other and the winery visit. Julia in the marina office had made our appointment with Casa de la Ermita because she likes their wines, and it was an excellent choice. The winery has a beautiful view on a hill at the edge of a nature reserve, and the tour and tasting were informative and delicious, respectively. It’s amazing to us how rocky the soil is where they grow the grapes. It appears to be all rock and no soil. And rather than planting on the south-facing slopes as is common in Oregon, the vines are on the north slopes.

Good times aboard Solstice

Visit to winery and vineyard

A view of the countryside from the vineyard

All in all, we had a great time on our break from routine boat life. It’s always a treat to get to see a bit of the country, and we were very happy to have the family visit to give us an excuse.

New photos on the Web site

Yes, it's been a long time coming, but we have finally posted our first pictures from Spain (and Gibraltar) on the Web site. John says he's working on more pages, but for now you can see Rota and Gibraltar.

Train ride to the beach

The weather turned nice last week, so we decided it was time to go somewhere. There is no beach in Cartagena, just harbor frontage, but a narrow-gauge railway called Feve runs from Cartagena to Los Nietos on the Mar Menor. The Mar Menor (which means small sea) is a large, saltwater lagoon lined with resorts and beaches. One description I read of Los Nietos said that there was nothing there except the beach. Although it seemed unlikely that the train would go to nowhere, we decided to take the chance. After all, if nothing else, it would be a little adventure.

Satellite view of the area

There was a woman waiting for the train in Cartagena who was carrying a book that said “Spanish” on the front, so I decided to talk with her. It turns out that she’s a British ex-pat who lives in the small town of La Unión on the way to Los Nietos. The same website that said there was nothing at Los Nietos suggested a stop for lunch at La Unión, so I asked the woman about it. She was happy to tell us what to see in La Unión and said we could stop on our way back to Cartagena, but that we would have to buy another ticket after that. The train was only €2.30 each round trip and one-way was €1.20. That wasn’t going to break the budget, so we decided to stop on our return.

The train at the La Unión station

The final stop of Feve at Los Nietos is pretty close to nowhere. The station building is closed, whether that’s just because we’re off-season, we don’t know. The tracks run parallel to a major road, and across that is a subdivision that extends to the beach. We followed a street to the shore where we found an esplanade, just as the British woman said we would. Then we started walking back in the direction the train had brought us.

Mar Menor

It was really strange: there were no people and all of the buildings were closed up. John likened it to a Twilight Zone village, and I had to agree. In the distance we could see a marina, but until we got almost there, we only saw one guy walking his dog. About a block from the marina a group of old fishermen were talking with each other. And a couple rode past on their bikes. That was it. Pretty odd, we thought.

Los Nietos

About a block in from the beach we found signs of life. A bar was open on one corner. On another there was a pizza place with people in it, and the restaurant at the pescadaría (fish monger’s) was open although the pescadaría itself was closed. We found the train stop (not a station, just a stop), and there were people there, so we waited. We could see the train down at the last stop, so we knew it wouldn’t be long.

The train ride itself was interesting. Besides the old mines that are visible from the train, we saw quite a bit of agriculture. We couldn’t tell what was growing everywhere, but we did identify some people picking lettuce. And the view from the top of the hills as we approached the Mar Menor was spectacular.

Our stop at La Unión was enjoyable. It’s a former mining town, and you can see the old mines all around it. The mercado (market) building is very impressive, and it is evident that this was once a commercial center. On the other side of the mercado from the train station is the town square, and on the far side of that is the main commercial street. We walked from one end of that to the other before deciding to eat at a new pizza/kebab/roasted chicken restaurant. I wanted kebabs, but they and the chicken were apparently only on the sign out front, not on the menu, so we had hamburgers, which were pretty good.

Mercado

Fountain in the town square commemorating the mines

After that we got back on the train and went home to Cartagena, which seemed like a real city after our venture into the countryside. When the tourist bus and boat start running again later this month, we’re going to do the tourist thing here in town, and I should have more to blog about again.

Happy New Year!

Well, 2010 is still relatively new. ;)

While John has been busy exploring Spanish cuisine and blogging about it on his blog, Cooking in Spain, I’ve been entertaining myself working on Web site projects. One of the things I’d been planning to do for some time is convert some articles I wrote for the Seven Seas Cruising Association Commodores’ Bulletin to Web pages. I’m all caught up with that now, and the articles are available from the “Adventures” section of the “Words about our voyage” page on the Web site.

We’ve been lots of places that I haven’t written about except on the blog, and I have more articles planned for the SSCA about last cruising season, but it was time to get these three pieces from 2008 online. They are about our stop at Isla de Providencia in the Caribbean, our exploration of the Azores in the middle of the Atlantic, and our voyage from France to Holland in the English Channel and North Sea. Since they were written for an audience of sailors, cruisers, and cruiser-want-to-be’s, others will find that they include information you don’t care about and omit things you’d really like to know as tourists, like how to get there if you aren’t on a boat and where to stay if you don’t live aboard.

The weather here in Cartagena hasn’t been the best these last few weeks, but it’s probably been better than most of you are experiencing. We haven’t had any snow although it may have gotten down to freezing a couple of nights. Mostly it’s been chilly with lots of wind and some rain. Not what most people expect for the Mediterranean, but actually pretty normal we’re told.

And lest you think that all we do is sit around all day eating and staring at the computer, I want to assure you that we do get daily exercise. Mostly that consists of a walk to the store. Tonight, however, our walk was to a nice restaurant (El Barrio de San Roque) to celebrate John’s birthday.

John started a blog

John has started his own blog to document his adventures in learning to cook Spanish food in the galley of a sailboat. He calls it Cooking in Spain - Voyage of the Solstice. In case you can't remember all that, I've added a link to the right. You can also subscribe to his blog just as you can to this one.

Holiday greetings from Cartagena

Whatever holiday you’re celebrating at this time of year, we wish you a good one and a happy and prosperous new year.

We awoke this morning to rain, as forecast. We’re likely to have rain off and on from now until after Christmas. What really surprised us, though, was to see snow dusting the top of a nearby hill. It was gone again by early afternoon, but today is definitely one of the coldest days we’ve had here. One forecast even predicts that it will freeze overnight. W

The whole town is getting in the holiday spirit. The grocery stores are playing American Christmas music, which I usually don’t even notice until I find a song stuck in my head on the walk home. The streets are decorated, and there are free concerts most days between now and Epiphany, which more or less marks the end of the holidays here. Too bad the weather was so nasty today; we had planned to go to a concert, but it was supposed to be outdoors.

When we went for pizza Wednesday night, John brought the camera and we took a route through the center of town. Each street has different decorations.

Shopping under blue stars (Calle del Carmen)

Little boy fountain with Christmas trees (at Calle de Jabonerías)

Christmas bells (Calle del Duque)