A while back I contacted Motril Marina to see if we could have a new life raft delivered there, they immediately said yes no problem so I arranged for it to be delivered from France. I had also booked a berth and had been tracking the life rafts progress, on route to the marina they whatsapped to confirmed that it had been delivered and were waiting for us. I had read good review about how helpful and friendly the staff were and we weren’t disappointed, it is the friendliest marina we have ever been to, it's also the first marina we have been in since we left Tunisia, so for us it makes a change to be tied to the shore. We soon had our new life raft on board and the marina agreed to take the old one off our hands to use for training purposes which saved us trying to get rid if it. We also caught up with friends Jutta and Leo who did the Suzie 2 rally with us in 2018/19, we haven’t seen them since 2019 and it was great to have a drink and catch up.

Their boat had been on the hard at the marina being repaired following an Orca incident  off Tangiers while sailing from the Canaries into the Med earlier this year, during the incident they lost the bottom third of their rudder but had managed to sail on to Motril. The Orcas have been damaging yacht rudders for about 3 years now and are a real worry for yachts sailing everywhere from Bay of Biscay to inside the Mediterranean, they move up and down the coast following the tuna and damaging boats as a side line - no one knows if it's a playful thing, teaching hunting skills or they are fed up of boats in their space? 

Jutta and Leos boat is now repaired and back in the water and they were leaving the next morning to head east further into the med so we helped them cast off before we set off ourselves on a mission to get to Gibraltar / la Linea before the wind turns and blows from the west.