Sailing Red Rooster

Back to Blighty

We are going to leave Red Rooster in the marina in Almerimar for a few months to catch up with friends and family over the winter. It will be the first time that we have left our floating home for more than a night or two since we stepped aboard all those months ago in Tollesbury, Essex to set off on our adventures.

Claire was having a real struggle packing for the 3 month trip we had planned starting with a flight out of Malaga. I stayed out of the way as she packed and re packed everything several times. The allocation of 20kg in her bag just wasn’t enough!! Of course this meant that a large portion of her stuff found its way into my bag and all of the heavier items subsequently moved into the carry on flight bags!! I have always thought it odd that these aren’t weighed as well! Ours were so heavy I struggled to lift them as I manhandled our gear off the boat on the morning of the 26th December.

We had arranged for Elizabeth, a local woman who runs a one car cab service to take us to Malaga Airport. We were waiting on the dock for her at about 08.15 when Jayne and Graeme appeared carrying mugs of tea and coffee with two bacon roll’s ahhhh that’s friends for you.

Elizabeth was on time and as we were loading our stuff into her battered old Peugeot 206 when Alan and Bijuca appeared to say goodbye to. We left happy in the knowledge that these two lovely couples would be keeping an eye on our boat whilst we were away.

We set off with Elizabeth wiggling her way through the marina and out onto the duel carriageway. I found myself gripping the door handle as we accelerated onto the motorway towards Malaga. Talk about driving fast, I am sure she would have given Stirling Moss a run for his money. She never stopped talking and when she told me her age, 72!!!! I wished I had sat in the back with Claire! She drove about 115 miles in just under 1hr 40 minutes. It was unbelievable. When we had got our stuff out and I had paid her I asked if she was going to have a coffee or something before setting off for home ‘Oh no’ she said ‘I need to dash as I have someone coming over for lunch’ Oh that poor, poor car!

The first part of our trip was to meet my daughter Grace and a few friends skiing in Switzerland. We flew to Zurich on a Swiss airlines flight, which was great. The cheap airlines are good, and our flight wasn’t that expensive but it was so much better, free food and drink whilst sitting on leather seats. When we landed we jumped on a train, to Chur, then another to Arosa where we would all meet up for a week’s skiing.

Most of the group were already at the hotel when we got there and it was really, really good to see them all. Grace my daughter and her boyfriend Ash were the last to arrive and we went out to help them unload the car as they had bought out our ski gear with them. Claire, nearly a year ago had packed a large hold-all with all of our ski clothing, boots, salopettes, helmet, gloves etc. This we left at Claire’s mums. A week or two before Grace left for Switzerland Wendy, Claire’s Mum dropped the bag off to Grace for her and Ash to put it in the car when they were leaving. After most of the car was unloaded I asked ‘where is our bag?’ Grace and Ash looked at each other and at that moment I knew that all of our ski gear was still in the bag in Essex!!! Bugger.

Everything turned out OK though, we had to hire ski’s and poles anyway so we added boots and a helmet to the list. Our friends rallied round and before the night was out we had enough clothing and equipment to allow us to enjoy a fantastic weeks skiing including a brilliant New Year’s Eve fireworks display over the frozen lake in the centre of town.