As the engine is playing up, we had sails up most of the way, which meant that we probably added a few miles to trip by tacking. We did fall in some wind hole in the afternoon where nothing moved at all. When the wind came back it was extremely warm and dry, for the first time since we left I was able to forgo my jacket as the night fell. Wind tasted of desert and smelt of tagine, straight from Tunisia; did we hear the camels bleating?
I went to bed around midnight and still the wind was light, not much had happened during my shift. Ian got me up around 5 am with tales of wind picking up during the night up to 28 knots and him having to get the sails up and down size a few times… never heard a thing!
5th September
The sky was ablaze with fire and smoke, quite a scene from the afar. The hills were outlined by a red and orange glow for miles. It was really stunning but obviously a disturbing sight. The fire raged on all night and as day broke, the colours drained away but the plume of smoke drifted at sea for most of the morning before it dissipated. We spent the day relatively close to the shore, we could make out the mountains and some of the towns until we had to tack and move away further at sea. Again the wind dropped for a good chunk of the afternoon and we had to resort to the engine. It seemed to be ok a low revs but as soon as we increased the speed a worrying tremor shook the whole boat. Ian spent the day puzzling this out. It could be that the engine was coming loose from its setting , Ian managed to get a few turns on the bolts, or the propeller was not working properly, which we could not check, This on top of the leaking oil which we were still monitoring every 4 hours was not conducive to a restful trip.
My watch went smoothly still under engine as there was no wind, but I was woken up an hour in by Ian opening up the engine compartment. The engine was shaking more than ever and he decided to give it a rest for a while. This would have been fine even with no wind as we were experiencing apart from the fact that we were quite near a shipping lane and we had no steering at all with huge vessels going up and down not so far away from us. Some of these containers ships were definitely not keeping to the lanes either, we could hear the rambling of their engines creeping up on us and passing very near to us. It very much felt like sitting ducks game. Fortunately, the wind came back up with the sun and we were able to make progress under sail. We were nearing Cartagena and a bit closer to the coast, so we could admire the mountains. The wind was behind us now and we were going at a fair pace. Cartagena is a naval base and we were soon made aware that it must be a huge naval base given the size of the naval vessel around us… some with guns and some without. We entered the port under sail, surrounded by tall hills topped with fortification and defensive castles… quite a sight. The engine went on at the last minute so we could moor up. Much to our relief, there was loads of room on the town quay and we would not have to do the dreaded stern too thing… back to feeling competent again.