Emergency shelter at Costa Del Sol

Oksy-gebroksky: We left Tunisia with moderate wind in our faces, engine running so we could make some progress and just maybe reach Gibraltar before the next storm would hit. HAHAHA

So, we've spent one (half) night sailing without the engine running, the rest has been spent motoring in dead calmsOr beating up against the windSomeone told us that Algeria was a sweet spot to hang out, the trick was apparantly to get yourself arrested in the right place. Sidi Ferruch was such a place, and since we were going close by anyhow, we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately they just gave us plenty of polite hassle, told us the harbour was to shallow to enter and sent us packing after 20 minutes. A brief, brief visit to Algeria....

Unfortunately the polite Algerians sent us packing straight into an approaching weatherfront that had us fighting for the best part of one day. Our windmeter maxed out on 60 knots, but it's broken. However we know it shows approximately twice as much as it actually blows, so it was blowing somewhere over 30 knots for the whole day. Interesting sensation when the front passed, tried to drown us in rain and then started blowing 30 knots from the opposite direction. One hour later the (big-big-big) waves started coming from not one but all directions, and 20 minutes after that it just stopped blowing, leaving us bobbing uselessly and helplessly around in swells from aaaaaaaaaaalllll directions. Ahhh, the joy...
I just checked my nag-list, and it appears I forgot to nag about currents. Appearantly the currents are all against us. We spent 60 hours covering 100 miles out from Sidi Ferruch. 100 miles is normally an ok 24 hrs run...

All in all we've been moving agonizingly slow. Howevever we hoped to reach Gibraltar by the beginning of the next big blow. We're 100 miles away now, and according to the forecast we should be able to make it. Just. Unfortunately the in-the-face-winds started blowing hard again this morning. We quickly decided for the first time actually double back and then zoomed downwind for about ten miles and ended up here: Adra, on Costa del Sol. Now, maybe we will have time to do some crucial repairs, god knows its needed. Actually we could make a whole blogpost about everything that's broken on board. We just want to patch everything up good enough to make it home. ...preferably in one - or at least not too many - piece(s).