Gibraltar to Puerto Banus - 11th July 2009

After 10 days at home, we flew back to Gib and the heat! Despite all the promises that the various maintenance and repair jobs would be completed before we were back on board, next to nothing had been done - hardly surprising when we checked with the marina office and discovered that the engineer had only come on board the day before our return, not worked throughout the 10 days as promised. Fortunately, none of the tasks were particularly urgent, but it was niggling to know they still needed fixing. What was more annoying was the fact that someone had allowed the electricity to run out and the contents of the freezer had all defrosted, leaving a smelly mess in the bottom which had then refrozen.
We spent another 3 nights in Gib before refuelling at a mere 56p per litre (compared to 90+ in Spain and Portugal and more than one euro in France)and then heading along the coast to Puerto Banus. What a gorgeous port! Typical white Spanish houses with their pinky-brown terracotta tiles surrounded the harbour, with designer stores and restaurants all along the front. There was a price to pay for all this luxury - of course - the marina fees were ten times those of Gib!
After a lovely meal on Saturday evening, we retired to Zaffina for a night of being bitten to bits by mosquitoes! Their irritating buzzing continually woke us and we spent an age searching the cabin for the little blighters. Eventually we fell back asleep but a short while later I was woken by an unwelcome noise - footsteps. I went up to the saloon and realised we had company on board, so woke Frank and we went to confront the intruders. A couple of strangers descended from the flybridge as I opened the saloon doors and when confronted claimed they thought it was "my dad's boat". I insisted they give us some ID before we let them leave; there was no damage and we'll never know whether their story was true or not.
Adrian joined us again on Sunday with Dominic and Chantal, and we spent another couple of nights in Puerto Banus counting the Ferraris and feeling very small among the mega-mega yachts which live there year round.