22) Almeria, Spain

Puerto de Aguadulce, Spain 36° 49N 2° 34W

Puerto de Almeria, Spain 36° 49’.6N 2° 27’.8W

So, the sun is going down, we got some great low-angle-light shots at the castle and it’s time to start heading back to the bus station.  But, we wanted to stop at a little corner pub that we saw on our way to the castle.  The only problem was that on our way back thru the streets we missed it because we took a different way.  We doubled back, found it and it was closed.  The way businesses are run here in the Med is a mystery.  Now, bummed out we start looking for another place to get beer and food.  More importantly, beer.  It just so happens that on our way in we saw an olive oil museum and Alan wanted to see it on our way out and low and behold there it was.  We figure what the heck.  So, we go in, Alan gets a headset for a self-guided tour and John and I do the quickie walk-thru and in the back what do we see?  What’s this?  A wall of wine bottles… two beer taps!!  You’ve got to be kidding!  Sure enough, there was someone behind the bar and we ordered beer and tapas.  This was an oil tasting area with tables, chairs and all kinds of oils and foods and wine.  We were in heaven.  We didn’t tell Alan and watched him cruise the whole room of displays until he saw us.  He is not much of a beer drinker and well…  This place was beautiful.  The workmanship, the woodwork, everything was clean and top notch.

    

The bartender proceeded to bring us a non-stop selection of snacks; French bread, parmesan cheese, some weird seafood thing like squid but not squid and like conch but not conch, sliced ham, stewed pork and many Cruzcampo’s.  Alan joined up with us when he made his way to the rear of the building.  John bought some wine and sweet-talked 2 free beer glasses for our souvenirs.  They talked about so much stuff and she was really nice.  John makes friends everywhere.

     

We walked thru downtown retracing our steps back to the bus station and the moment we hit the strip it looked like everyone else did too.  We passed thru there during siesta and it was very quiet and now at night it was so busy and crowded.  They come out at night for late dinners and shopping and socializing.  Even the traffic was crazy.  They drive so fast and there was so much it was amazing. 

We found the bus station easily and the bus left 10 minutes later.  That was really good timing.  After we got back to Aguadulce we all wanted to go to the Internet café near the boat and of course it was closed.  The only day it was closed was Wednesday and yes it was Wednesday. 

Back at the boat we got an unpleasant surprise.  In the morning John was working on the center clear window panel of the dodger before we left for Almeria.  The dodger is the stainless tube framed canvas covered cockpit enclosure.  It keeps the rain out, cold wind and/or the sun in the tropics.  So, when that window is out the air goes right thru the cockpit.  Kinda need this panel for a comfortable ride in the cockpit.  Well, he put it on  top of the dodger before we left and got distracted and it was there when we left and gone when we got back.  We were leaving the next morning.  We were leaving no matter what in order to get somewhat back on schedule. 

Needless to say, it was a windy, sometimes cold ride to Gibraltar.  The good thing about this boat is that you can hide below, look at the radar, look out the windows and watch the nav screen.  I put on a lot of clothes, ducked under a large blanket, put on an audio book and rode it out.  It was not too cold and almost tolerable.

On John’s 9-12am watch he had to replace a primary fuel filter.  That’s a tough job and he did it without interrupting the running engine.  On a diesel boat there is a primary fuel filter that fuel goes thru first from the fuel tank.  Then, there is a secondary filter bolted to the engine and needs to be replaced about every 100 hours.  That is a hard messy job.  The primary filter is in a clear housing bolted to the hull or bulkhead somewhere near the engine.  These filters get dirty and clog up regularly and have to be replaced often, like every 20 hours or so.  Diesel is notorious for being dirty due to the delivery systems at the fuel docks and shaking up a fuel tank at sea dislodges sediment.  You remove the top of the clear canister, remove the filter, drain the water thru the petcock in the bottom, put in another filter and top it off with diesel to get all the air out.  Air in the lines is the enemy of a diesel.  It will kill it on the spot.  This sounds easy enough to do on land now think about doing it on a boat at sea.  Not a fun job but necessary.