It´s the end of day one and I´ve been bombarded all day with reasons why the Med is the only place to keep your boat.
Well, it´s the end of my first day here in the Med and after some icky weather last night (first rain in August for 50 years apparently – the Kate effect) it has been boiling. Of course, all the Med veterans I´ve bumped into assure me that 32 degrees is nothing.
Sotogrande was an eye-opener after the high rises all along the N340 from Malaga. If architects could dream up places as beautiful as this in the 70s, what´s with all the rest of the concrete coastline? Met up with Alan and Will at Top Boats who gave me the lowdown on the situation in the Med at the moment. Basically, no free berths = rapidaly rising prices (although I´m sure that any Med boater reading this will be only too aware of how much their key to the showers has shot up in price, let alone the cost of their mooring).
But with 160,000 people waiting for a berth to become available, it seems that no one´s being put off.
Also met Tony and his two glamorous daughters, who is loving his Med lifestyle and keeps his Sunseeker Superhawk in Soto. Talk about jet-setting – he´s out here for one week every three – he´s now planning to take a new boat all the round the Med. Sounds exhausting. Anyway, he can´t seem to understand why anybody would want to use their boats in the UK when it´s so easy to get out here. And after drinking a cold coke in Ke Bar, watching a huge, shiny megayacht pottering about the marina, I can see where he´s coming from.
Went up the coast to Duquesa and met Clive and Phil at Sun Coast. Bit more Énglish´here, but pretty and very friendly. If you think Clive´s chatty on the forums, you should meet him in person – he never stops talking! Anyway, he was full of the joys of the Med and it´s easy to see why, especially when he was originally thinking of setting up a sea school on the Medway. Bit different. He and Phil think that Duquesa is the best place to keep your boat in Spain, but I have a funny feeling that I´ll be hearing that about a lot of places in the next week…
Had another Coke at Nikki Beach – really cool. Think my teeth might fall out after all this Coke though.
Popped into Banus of course. Never been before and not sure I´ll be going again. Paid 13 euros for a hamburger, watched someone prang their bright yellow E-Type and saw alot of Russians, otherwise no big deal. Apologies to anyone if this is their idea of boating heaven!
Am continuing up the coast tomorrow. Keep your suggestions coming in…
p.s. have taken lots of piccies, but need to work out how to upload them. Watch this space.
