Daily life

It’s beginning to feel like home here at the marina in Cartagena, The time is flying by as we settle into a daily routine which goes a little something like this…
The alarm goes off and the coffee goes on - just like home.
The four of us then head out for our daily exercise. We usually jog along the promenade and over the road to and public exercise space where we do some ‘tough grunts’. We take it in turns to call out an exercise and then practice our Spanish by counting the reps en Espanol . It’s a terrible moment when you can’t remember the next number in the middle of mountain climbers. Everyone has to keep on climbing until you remember it. Needless to say we have all got very fast at our numbers.
Next its showers in the Marina bathrooms and back to the boat for porridge.
School starts with maths and continues on until about one or two with varying degrees of interest, enthusiasm and frustration from all four of us.
We have a tourist ticket for these two weeks that we sometimes use in the afternoons to visit some of Cartagena.
On one of the days we hop on the tourist bus, listen to some history through headphones and then hop off at the beach for a few hours of sunshine, swimming and a picnic. While we are there the Salvamento Rescue boat comes into the bay and manoeuvres in close to the beach and sounds his horn - rescue drills we surmise. Soon we see a waiter from the beach bar jog towards the water holding a package. He gives it to a girl who then swims out to the boat and hands the package to the crew. The Salvamentos are just here to collect their take away lunch.

When we aren’t doing the tourist thing, Ruby and Colm spend the afternoons on their scooters zooming around the Sub Aqua Museum building with their pals.
There is a bit of a turn over with friends as many boats are still on the move. Several of the boat kids we meet are destined for the Caribbean.
The British live-a-boards we meet who are staying in the Mediterranean also can’t hang around for too long. As a consequence of Brexit they cannot stay in Europe for more than 90 days out of every 180. Some we meet, who have followed the dream of selling up and sailing now have to fly back to Britain and rent an apartment for 90 days. We are sorry when the crew of Alchemy leave as James’s was a good pal of Colm and Ruby’s and we had several lovely evenings with his parents Alex and Tom. There is a nice sociability on the marina and people often stop by the boat and chat and there are invitations to coffee or drinks or dinner. It’s so interesting meeting people from every corner and hearing how they have come to be here.
We are all excited when we see a Japanese flag flying on yacht on the marina- we don’t get to meet them but I do get a smile and a bow as they walk past.
Evening time on board Régal is just like home - Dinner and wash up followed by negotiations about screen time and bed time.Read more