Happy New Year dear reader and thank you for your support. I have mused over a memoirs section for some time now; I don’t think I have led a particularly interesting life per se, however looking back there are many events and stories that people may find very interesting. So I wrote them down. Without embellishments and am considering releasing them… maybe. OK let’s take you to Gibraltar with this episode called Apes, Anchors and Anxiety.

Now, memory is a stubborn anchor. It holds fast to the seabed of the past whether you want it to or not. Arriving back in Cartagena, I felt its familiar grip. The same engineers passed by with the same purposeful strides. I offered a knowing smile, a kindly nod. I was home, in a way. Pookie, my own personal Tripitaka, was less at ease. Her mind was still half in a UK television studio she had to get to.

Our good ship Sawasdeekat, our steed, a 2003 St Francis 48 with the soul of a seasoned traveller and the maintenance needs of a high-strung racehorse, was in for some surgery. Steve’s quick addition of batteries needed a permanent fix on the MPPT controllers. Then, the shipwrights performed what I can only describe as architectural orthodontics on the stern. They welded a new diagonal arm on each side, a stainless-steel brace that made the whole structure gloriously, reassuringly solid.

This new framework became our technological totem pole. On one vertical arm, we mounted a Vevor wind turbine, (collected from Steve’s house), a whirring beast designed to harangue the Atlantic breezes into giving us power. On the other, we fixed a Starlink dish, a white lotus flower pointing to the heavens, our fragile link to the digital world. It was a perfect balance of the primal and the profound, a setup fit for an ocean crossing (we even had space for a real flag pole and also now a clothes line).

I had been a benevolent, if persistent, taskmaster with the team at Ascar’s. My emails were models of clarity. Our arrival time, the job list, our non-negotiable departure date. They had four days. To their credit, they met the challenge with Spanish pragmatism, completing most of the list. They pleaded for more time for the seating and a final engine check but I stood firm. The monkey does not wait. The tide, and my resolve, would not be delayed.

Five days later, the travel lift carefully cradled Sawasdeekat and lowered her back into her true element with a grateful sigh. We were waterborne again. We set off immediately and made good time, skimming along the coast to a place called Calle De Invencible near Almeria. The name, meaning "Invincible Street," felt like a good omen. A few days later, in the less-confidently named Aquadulce, Pookie made her escape. Chef duties called her back to the drizzle and drama of British reality TV.

This left me with a catamaran and what felt like a continent between me and Gibraltar. The prospect of single-handing a 48-foot catamaran through the Alboran Sea, with its notorious winds funneling through the Strait, was a daunting one. I needed a first mate. More than that, I needed a rock.

Enter Paul. Not a sailor, but something far more valuable: my best friend of forty years.

What possesses a man from Coventry to exchange a sturdy terrestrial life for a floating box of potential chaos with a novice sailor? I’d like to think it was my eloquent, heartfelt pleading. He insists it was a "crazy curiosity." The truth, I suspect, lies in the unspoken code of a friendship forged over four decades. We have been the constant in each other's stories since our teens. We grew up together, two kids dreaming of adventures that stretched much further than the Coventry ring road.

Our first great shared passion was cycling.  For years, we were training partners in a very serious, very amateur way. We motivated each other through rain, hills, and the soul-crushing final miles of a century ride with nothing left in the legs but stubbornness. The promise wasn't glory; it was the warm, steamy sanctuary of a cafe, a toasted teacake, and the easy, exhausted laughter that follows shared suffering. We've done more workouts, more life, together than I can count. We have been each other's sounding board through career changes, family dramas, and all the quiet victories and subtle heartbreaks that adulthood brings. He is the person I can depend on absolutely. Without speaking for weeks, we can catch up as though we'd only seen each other the day before. He is my Gibraltar; the steadfast rock in my life.

When I called with this mad proposal, his initial nervousness was about getting seasick or, as he put it, "drowning in the Med," was genuine. But it was outweighed by that old, reliable currency: loyalty. So there he was, bright and cheerful at the marina in Almeria, his land-lubber's heart signing up for a thrashing out of pure camaraderie.

I gave him the abbreviated tour of Sawasdeekat. This is the winch, it pulls things. This is the helm, it steers things. This is the lifejacket, it saves things - primarily you. If he was nervous, it didn't show. He had the steady demeanour of the man I'd always known

For reasons that now seem plucked from a dream, we decided a 4:30 am departure was a capital idea. The Mediterranean, still cloaked in indigo, met us with a headwind that would be our stubborn, unyielding companion for days. We motored 68 miles that first day, the engine a steady drone against the wind's whine, finally finding an acceptable anchorage off Punta de Maona in 15 metres of clear, dark water.

The next day, after a mercifully short 38-mile hop, we pointed our dinghy towards the storied coast of Malaga. A fun fact for you: Picasso was born here. I wonder if his cubist period was inspired by trying to find an affordable marina berth for a 48-foot catamaran. The city, for all its artistic charm, seems to harbour a deep-seated suspicion of boats my size. The anchorages are mythical, and the marinas are priced for oligarchs.

We found a marina, begged permission to land our dinghy, and spent four pleasant hours walking the sun-drenched streets. The return, however, was an unplanned lesson in international diplomacy. The marina guard, a man whose job security clearly depended on the rigorous exclusion of dinghy-owning vagabonds, refused us entry. Our pleas, our keys, our very existence were not enough. After a pantomime of gestures and fractured Spanish, he relented and let us in, doubtless to be rid of us. We collected our dinghy and fled.

The wind was a constant head-butting. But the next day was the main event. We reached Puerto Banus. Say the name quietly, for it is a temple of excess. This is where superyachts go to gossip and where every Lamborghini is sprinkled with what I can only assume is Swarovski cocaine. There were no anchorages, only a €280 bite out of our savings for a single night. We swallowed hard and paid.

Now €280 is the most expensive night I have ever paid for in a marina, but it’s not uncommon for superyachts to pay over €10,000 per night to berth there. Rich people mixed with tourists. The true mark of the ultra-rich and famous in Puerto Banus however is that you don't see them. The most exclusive clubs and berths are designed for maximum privacy. The real A-listers apparently arrive by the underground car park directly into their VIP areas, completely bypassing the gawping crowds on the pavement. The people parading are the ones who want to be seen; the truly powerful are invisible.

Now, Paul had been a champion. He had avoided the siren call of seasickness and had proven a capable, if novice, first mate. But nothing could have prepared him, or me, for the ballet of terror that was our berthing.

We were given a slot. I will have to post pictures, for words can only do so much. Imagine a narrow channel. On the left, a row of gleaming, billion-dollar motor-yachts. On the right, another row, culminating in a motor-yacht, then a gap, a large catamaran, a double gap, and a millionaire's speedboat at the end. Our destination was the first of the double gaps, right after the catamaran. The wind, a malicious and invisible giant, was (as my good teacher Jim used to say) blowing a hooley directly from the left.

My plan was elegant in its theory. I would drive past the catamaran, swing up near the speedboat, and reverse gracefully into my spot. The wind, however, is no respecter of plans. It picked up Sawasdeekat and slammed her towards the pontoon. I powered up to avoid impact, but not enough. The wind shoved us sideways, directly towards the millionaire's speedboat.

What followed was not my finest hour as a captain. It was a symphony of panic, conducted by me with a frantic baton. My voice, pitched several octaves higher than its design specification, ricocheted around the cockpit. "FENDERS! PAUL, MORE FENDERS ON THE STARBOARD SIDE! THE BIG ONES! NO, THE OTHER BIG ONES! THE ROPE, GRAB THE ROPE, BUT DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING YET!" I was issuing commands that contradicted the laws of physics and common sense, a desperate litany against the inevitable.

Through this maelstrom of my own making, Paul was an absolute rock. But this wasn't just luck or a calm disposition. This was forty years of implicit trust and non-verbal communication manifesting on a heaving deck. He didn't freeze. He didn't argue. He became a whirlwind of calm, purposeful action, scrambling to deploy fenders like a soldier building a barricade under fire, instinctively understanding which of my frantic shouts were priority. He never once got angry. He never once shot me a look that said, "You have doomed us both, you maniac." He was just there, a steadfast presence in the eye of my self-created hurricane – exactly as he had always been.

I heard a soft, expensive ‘thump’…. And were it not for those comically oversized, guilt-absorbing fenders, and Paul’s swift work, I would now be working as a dishwasher in that very marina to pay off the debt.

I extricated ourselves, my heart hammering a rhythm of pure panic. New plan. Drive into the wind in front of the catamaran and turn in from there. The wind, sensing my desperation, doubled its efforts. It blew so hard that our stub keel became intimately entangled with the catamaran's right bow (slime) line. We were caught, a fish on a very costly hook.

Fearing I would snap something vital, I applied power. The wind redoubled its own efforts, blowing us mercilessly towards the catamaran's sharp, pointy fronts. I had no choice. I slammed the throttles forward and tried to turn into the wind. We did not go right and away. We shot forward, more across the front of the catamaran at a terrifying speed. Whereupon my port rudder, with a sense of dramatic timing, grabbed the catamaran's other bow slime line.

The world stopped.

The line went taut. Sawasdeekat shuddered to a dead stop and then, with the physics of a nightmare, began to swing like a pendulum.

The stern swung left, directly towards the multi-million euro motor-yacht next door. I still, to this day, do not know how we missed it. The gap must have been measured in molecules. But swing we did, and miss it we did, and before my brain could process the sequence of certain disasters we had just avoided, we found ourselves parked. Perfectly. In an impossibly tight space. Without a scratch.

The marina staff, who had probably missed the chance to win a viral video prize, shouted for lines. They scrambled aboard the catamaran, freed our rudder, and secured us with enough ropes to restrain a rogue elephant. It was decided, very wisely, that this berth would do. No more moving.

When we were finally, miraculously, secured without a scratch, I turned to Paul, my hands still shaking on the wheel. He was breathing heavily, a sweaty forehead, but he offered a small, shaky grin. "Well," he said, "that was different!"

In that moment, it wasn't just relief I felt. It was a profound gratitude. Paul, if you're reading this (and I know you barely go online, you luddite), this is for you. You didn't just help me park a boat. You sailed into a situation far outside your comfort zone because I asked you to. You saved my bacon, my boat, and possibly my sanity. You were the star of that entire debacle. That day in Puerto Banus didn't make you a friend for life; it was simply the latest, most dramatic proof that you already were.

I (we?) genuinely needed a drink. I believe the term is "a stiff one." We went to a pub in Puerto Banus, a place where people with more money than sense parade in a slow-moving car show of obscene wealth. We pretended to be one of them for an evening, clinking our reasonably priced beers in a toast to survival, quietly acknowledging that we were just two blokes who had very nearly broken the bank.

The next morning, the winds had softened, chastened by our victory. With a prayer on my lips, we reversed out of our impossibly narrow berth without incident and motored the final stretch to Gibraltar.

We anchored on the Spanish side, outside La Linea. Here I was hoping to share my knowledge of a lovely tapas bar there, a place of simple perfection. But customs were strict, operating under the assumption that every dinghy carried a Colombian cartel’s monthly output. The local rumour mill also suggested we’d be lucky to find our dinghy upon our return, as the actual drug dealers apparently have a fondness for them. We decided a home-cooked meal on board was the wiser, if less glamorous, option.

The following day, we went into a marina and checked into the "real" Gibraltar. It is a fascinating, slightly surreal piece of Britain perched on the end of Spain. Apes rule the rock, red post boxes stand sentry, and the history is as layered as the limestone. Another fun fact: Gibraltar's airport is one of the most extraordinary in the world. The runway, built during WWII, intersects directly with what was until recently the busiest road into Gibraltar, Winston Churchill Avenue. Every time a plane lands or takes off, traffic barriers descend and the road closes, creating a surreal scene of mainly pedestrians waiting for an aircraft to pass. It’s the ultimate "flight delay" excuse for locals: "Sorry I'm late, a 747 blocked my way."

Paul and I spent a couple of days being tourists, our feet on solid, famous ground before he had to fly home. Join us next time, dear reader, when we make a quick detour. I return to the UK and fly to Thailand for a Halloween, Bangkok-style, with Pookie’s family. We will recharge, we will feast, and we will prepare for the greatest leg of our journey so far.

Until then, don’t forget to subscribe to our little mailing list. It’s just a weekly nudge to remind you of the delightful chaos unfolding over here. The list grows steadily, with more and more readers reaching out to ask not if we’ll survive, but how we’ve managed it this long.