Chapter One: THE CLIMATE
Almerimar is conveniently situated on the Costa del Sol (sunny coast) which makes it an ideal place to overwinter if you like it warm. We do, and we had loads of sunny days, that is at least up until March when the heavens opened and also brought us not only one, but two sandstorms.
The coast was previously known as the Costa del Viento (windy coast), and this is a more suitable description of the conditions. The wind comes either from the SW (south-west) or the NE (north-east) and there seems to be no such thing as a “gentle breeze”. The word “windy” does not do it justice, “howling” would be more appropriate. Luckily, there are also plenty of windless days.
Chapter Two: THE FACILITIES
The harbour is divided into four dársenas (docks), some of which have an extension which can only be entered through a gate. Everyone else (including us) moors up stern or bow to directly to the town quay which features a narrow pavement with a corresponding road. Passers-by can look directly into your cockpit and into your boat if they’re nosey – and they are! Some even jump on your boat to take photos.
On the fourth dársena there is a boatyard with haul-out facilities and a company that can help with boat repairs. Just outside the yard are two chandleries that are serviced by staff with varying enthusiasm who sell various boating paraphernalia with the usual exorbitant prices. We were frequent investors in their merchandise.
There was also a stainless steel company which made solar frames and davits, so we were interested in having a bimini made. Only – they’d closed down! In the end we ordered a ready-made bimini online from a company in Barcelona in the specifications we gave them, and they delivered it to the capitanía (harbour office) within nine days for a very reasonable price. We were very impressed by their customer service as they also gave us regular progress updates.
Other items were more difficult to get hold of. With eBay being non-existent and Spanish online shops often demanding a National Insurance number before they’d sell you anything, we reverted to Amazon for our solar panels, and SVB in Germany and Accastillage in France for other bits and bobs. The items were sent by courier, so arrived within a decent time-frame, but any post from the UK (and Austria and Sweden for that matter) took about three weeks to reach us. Ingrid picked up all our deliveries from the capitanía, and Fumi and Silvia in the office soon got familiar with the address “Cordelia”.
There are a Mercadona and a Coviran supermarket for food, drink and toiletries, both of which are conveniently close for carrying any purchases back to the boat. There’s also a bakery for bread and cakes, a convenience store, a news agent, two Chinese bazars, a hardware store, banks and ATMs, restaurants and bars and six (!?!) hairdressers. We even managed to get a SIM/Data card for our phone and IPad.
Occasionally we’d take the bus up to El Ejído, the nearest town, and raid their Aldi, Lidl and Carrefour when we fancied a change in our diet. We found a place in Almería that would collect and service our life-raft, and they even brought it back to us themselves when the Spanish transport companies went on strike. In the end we got quite a few “presents” for our Cordelia and equipped her for the journey ahead.
Chapter Three: THE SURROUNDINGS
One half of Almerimar is surrounded by greenhouses, and the municipality of El Ejído is covered by over 13,000 hectares of these huge plastic tents. Half of Europe is supplied with vegetables and fruit from this region and everything is grown to order. People say you can see this (in)famous “Sea of Plastic” from space.
We were lucky to be given a guided tour through melon, pepper and gherkin plantations and were pleased to learn that instead of pesticides they tend to use little critters to keep the unwanted harmful bugs in check.
Within the plastic fields they’ve made room for some wildlife and created nature reserves where birds can nest and feed. One of these areas we dubbed “The Wild West”, and it led to a lake with flamingos. We enjoyed several walks there.
On two occasions we joined a guided group which gave us the opportunity to explore mountain villages further afield: once to Darrícal where after a two hour walk up and down the hill we were treated to lunch with local specialities.
The other time to Bérchules in the district of Granada where we strolled along the Sendero Junta de los Rios (path of the river joint) on the Rio Grande.
We also ventured out on our own above El Ejído to the villages of Dalías and Celín and into the hills, along the Sendero de las Palomas (pigeon path), followed the Ruta del Agua (water route), and even had a three day mountain tour in the Sierra Gádor over Easter (report at the end of this story). The scenery was always breathtaking with churches, water cisterns, ruins of farmhouses, canyons, caves, ravines and rugged hillsides to admire.
The other half of the surroundings consists of the coast. Almerimar has a nice paved esplanade along it and a beach either side of the harbour with pebbles and dark sand. We had our last swim in the sea just before Christmas before the water temperature got a little too refreshing for our likings.
We also cycled along the coastline on our foldable bikes, visited Matagordo and its Castillo de Guardias Viejos fortress, had lunches on the seafront of Balerma, and once made it all the way to Adra – a round tour of 34 miles (54km)!
Although the coast is windy Peter did not go windsurfing at all, but he did help Ingrid to get out on the water. This involved quite a bit of effort as we had to first empty the cabin to get access to our gear and then carry it all the distance from the boat to the beach and back. The wind from the SW was often quite strong and came with steep breaking waves – not something we’re used to as lake sailors.
When the wind was from the NE the sea was flat, but the gusts were horrendous. Nevertheless a few exciting sessions were enjoyed, and the only damage occurred to a mast – it broke in two on the lower section.
Chapter Four: THE SUMMARY
Almerimar was good to us. The harbour staff were friendly and the mariñeros efficient and helpful. The price for our stay was reasonable and included water and electricity. We managed to sort out the maintenance and upgrades for our Cordelia, albeit with a lot of research and ingenuity regarding the sourcing.
Shorts, T-shirts and sandals were our main wardrobe which was exactly what we had hoped for. We spent a sheltered and pleasant time in Almerimar, met fellow boaters and made friends. Now we were keen to move on and continue “Cordelia’s Travels”.
Easter Mountain Tour in the Sierra Gádor
15 April 2022 (Friday) – 17 April 2022 (Sunday):
On Bank Holiday Good Friday we boarded the number 21 bus which departed at 8.09am from the Mercadona supermarket. Half an hour later we arrived at the Estación de Autobuses (bus station) in El Ejído and from there took a taxi for around €20.00 to the outskirts of Celín. At 9.00am we started our walk. With rucksacks heavily laden with camping gear, i.e. tent, mats and sleeping bags, as well as cooking gear, food and 2.5 litres of water each we started off through a Nature Reserve and followed the route PR-A113 to the Cortijo Clavero farm.
When you start a mountain tour at around 600m the only way is up, and this was no exception. We were overtaken by two groups with no equipment and only one visible water bottle between the lot of them. We, however, carried on in our own plodding speed along the PR-A145, passed the ruins of Cortijo Chiclana, and when the path forked off back down to Celín we stayed to the right to get up higher. It had been a steep climb with a total of 1,289m of ascent and 263m of decent. The path had led us through forest, we saw the sign for the Fuente Vieja (old spring) though not the spring, encountered a couple of lizards, but had only covered 7.26 miles (11.7km). After an exhausting but pleasant eight hours of hiking we found a flat and sheltered place at around 1,600m to pitch our tent, make a brew, cook some soup and settle down for the night.
It was windy and cold but otherwise reasonably comfortable, and after a search for Peter’s misplaced jacket and long trousers in the morning we were grateful for a hot mug of peppermint tea and some muesli bars before we packed up and left at 9.00am. We passed the Refugio La Rotumba refuge shortly afterwards and were able to replenish our empty water bottles with the water they’d collected from the roof. We had brought along a filter for just this purpose, and it proved to have been a good investment as the water turned from cloudy to clear.
The path had dropped some height which we subsequently had to regain up to the U-turn bend below the Pico de la Estrella peak.
Further on we saw the ruins of mining buildings and even entered the Mina de Berja mine where they’d excavated for lead between 1797 and 1801.
We passed the round watering hole of Balsa del Sabinar, and collected some more refreshing cold water at the Cortijo La Montera along the track.
It still seemed a long way to the highpoint of our tour, but eventually at 4.30pm we set foot on Nuevo Mundo (2,119m), a peak whose antenna we could see all the way down from Almerimar and which had intrigued us all winter.
After a brief rest and the obligatory summit photos we found our way down the PR-A140 to the Cortijo de Fuente Alta (high spring).
There we discovered a water spout outside, and a table with chairs and a room with mattresses inside. After a ten hour day and 16.1 miles (26km) with 878m up and 754m down we made use of all these facilities and enjoyed our dinner (soup) and two mugs of tea each on the “terrace” outside the entrance door whilst watching several ibex grazing nearby.
We wore our Ronhill long trousers and Mountain Equipment jackets in bed and were quite toasty during the night. We still had the full moon up as well as daylight when we clambered out of our sleeping bags at 7.30am. We heard a rather persisting cuckoo in the distance, though not as persisting as the frog which had been croaking all night. Mind you, how do you get a mate at 1,740m and to that matter, how did he get there in the first place?
After a hearty breakfast (you guessed right: peppermint tea, a muesli bar and a strip of chocolate) we cleared up and at 8.30am were on our way down the dirt track. It meandered quite a lot around the mountainside and provided excellent opportunities for the mountain-bikers we encountered to have an easy-ish way up to the Cortijo. We had a brief stop at the Mirador del Palain viewpoint which overlooked the Sea of Plastic greenhouses. We then continued along the track towards Dalías but veered off to the left before we got there to pick up the path at around 680m along the Acequia de Fuente Nueva watercourse.
We finally made it back to the familiar grounds of the Sendero de las Palomas which we hurried down all the way to the bus station of El Ejído to catch the 4.27pm number 21 bus down home to Almerimar. We’d done 15.4 miles (24.8km), 142m uphill, 1,807m downhill and were shattered! Never had we been so thirsty before and only visions of an ice-cold drink at the end of our excursion kept us both going. So when we arrived back on Cordelia it was liquid, liquid, liquid. The pizza we had stored for our homecoming celebration together with the wine was left for another day, as we were rehydrating with soup, tea and more drink.
Despite being absolutely knackered we’d had three wonderful days in the Sierra Gádor with its ravines, ruins, forests and desert landscape. We were rather pleased with our achievement of nearly 39 miles (62.5km), of which 2,328m were uphill and 2,800m were downhill. Would we do it again? You bet we would, but let’s just have a little rest first!
Thanks Pete and Ingrid, enjoyed reading all about your winter adventures. Hope to catch up with you somewhere but you are moving targets now!