More Cartagena

On Tuesday evening we strolled through the town with our friends and found a great tapas bar. It was a really nice evening.

Did I mention I love balconies here?

On next days we did some boat projects, like cleaning the carburettor on our outboard, changing the pulleys in our boom where the reefing lines go through (two out of three broke, maybe because we use dyneema lines now that are not stretchy). But we also made a walk to the shop or through the town that day and also on next days.

Weather was pretty cloudy and windy and on night between Thursday and Friday we had so much rain it was unreal, combined with very strong wind. The papers called it record downpour with gale-force wind, apparently it was the most rain since it is recorded in this area of Spain. Unfortunately also six people died. On Heron it meant we were up at 2.30 in the night, and were putting down some pots and towels under leaking hatches. After some time we went back to bed, but it was difficult to sleep because all of the noise wind and rain made.

Friday was rainy and cloudy, but we all thought the worst was behind us. But in the night we got another surprise - the hale. It was luckily not big enough to make any damage to boat, hatches or even bimini, but again the noise it made kept us all awake.

Saturday was supposed to be sunny, but it wasn't. It was another grey day and we're slowly getting fed up with it. If it weren't for time spent with our friends and nice neighbours, there would be nothing to remember the day by. And we were hoping for a nice calm night, but there was some party in one of the bars nearby and they were making big noise till early in the morning.

On Sunday we thought the nice weather will finally arrive, but we had to wait until noon to see the sun and there was still very windy. Anyway we decide to see the fortress on the hill. We had a ticket for an elevator, but it was out of order, so we climbed up. It got hot and very humid, so we were quite glad there was still lots of wind. On the way we saw lots of mud and rocks that the rain washed from the hill.

I'm still impressed by the size of ficus trees here.

The view from the forth to the South over the marina and wave breakers to the sea.

These are remains of Roman amfitheatre, as I understand it was later used for bull fights.

In the fortress there are many artefacts on display, mainly from 15th to 17th century. There are some robes...

...even the wedding robes of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon (replicas of course).

They supported Cristopher Columbus financially in his expeditions to New World and this part was most interesting for me and probably also for Captain. These were the instruments the sailors used for navigation at that time.

It was all well worth seeing, not to mention the views from up there. To the West one could see Roman theatre next to the modern open theatre, and behind the part of the port occupied by Spanish navy.

Back at the marina I noticed several dragonflies flying around and although I only had my phone with me, tried to make some photos. Here there are two up against the sky...

...and this is the closest I got to one. Man they are fast!

In one of the many photos I made I was able to recognise a blue spot on their back and concluded they might have been the Vagrant Emperors (check the photo on this great site for dragonflies: http://dragonflypix.com/speciespages/anax_ephippiger_en.html#close )

In the evening we went into town again to eat some of the local dish called caldero, it is similar to paella, but Cartagena style. Restaurants usually have it only on weekends. First we didn't know that most of the tapas bars open their kitchen again at 7.30 or 8 in the evening, almost like in Italy, so we strolled the town for and hour and a half, before we found the place that had working kitchen, and that caldero is eaten for lunch, so in the evening they didn't have it any more. Anyway, we had a nice food and beers in our favourite tapas bar in town La Uva Jumillana.

Tomorrow we're moving on, probably to Garrucha, and then on Tuesday to Almerimar. Hope we have some wind in right direction and none of the rain. Although the weather forecast is not very good for this week either, we hope it will be better than what we just had.