It’s not that easy to plan a cruise! If you have time and no pressure, you simply have too many alternatives. Admittedly – an absolute luxury problem!
After much thought, discussion and deliberation, we have decided not to set off for the Mediterranean this year as originally planned. Why? For several reasons. 1. the heat: In the Mediterranean, summer temperatures have been rising steadily for years. Temperatures of 45° C are no longer a rarity. Definitely too hot for us! 2. the weather: is of course becoming increasingly unstable all over the world due to climate change. In the Mediterranean, however, this has a very negative impact from our point of view, as the high water temperature and local wind effects cause high wind speeds to develop more frequently and quite spontaneously. Last year, these led to several extreme situations with 70 kn winds. We don’t want to experience that! In addition, there is extreme drought on the one hand, which leads to a high risk of forest fires, and extreme heavy rainfall on the other, which causes flooding and landslides. 3. overcrowding and prices: The marinas and anchorages in the Mediterranean are often completely overcrowded. Probably no more than along our route last year. But we don’t (yet) really see the point of having to pay even more money for a marina mooring and for the anchor.
So where will we be in 2025?
We will stay in the Algarve until the end of March to enjoy the beautiful landscape and welcome a few more visitors. From April onwards, we will return to Cabo Sao Vicente and head north along the Portuguese coast. We continue northwards to the Galician rías. We simply drove past them last year. Too bad really, so we’re looking forward to spending some time there this year. We’ll see whether we sail all the way to A Coruña or get stuck before then. A nice advantage of this route – we can still sail a little with our friend Jens from SV Marieke, who unfortunately has to sail back to Lübeck. Another advantage – we will hopefully meet up with our friend Guido from SV Playmobil somewhere in Galicia, who is on his way from Holland to the Algarve.
At some point, we’ll take the same route back south and return to the Algarve. However, we won’t be staying there, but sailing further east. From July, we have booked a permanent berth in the Marina del Odiel in Huelve. We will probably leave La Ola there to attend the wedding of my niece Katinka and Tom in Bonn at the beginning of July and the wedding of Axel’s goddaughter Laura and Lars in Hanover at the end of August. If we dawdle too much, it might be a bit later, in which case the flight to Cologne-Bonn will be from Lisbon. We’ll see, but in any case we’ll be heading back to the Algarve and Huelva in late summer and autumn.
In addition to the trips to Germany, we will be exploring the Spanish Atlantic coast around Huelva in the autumn. If it works out, we also want to pay a visit to Seville. Seville?! Yes, Seville isn’t really on the sea, but neither are Hamburg and Bremen. However, just like Bremen and Hamburg, Seville is on a river. The Río Guadalquivir can also be navigated by large ships and there is a nice marina in the centre of Seville. All that remains is to organise a berth there for a few days. If that doesn’t work out, we’ll just take a hire car. It’s not that far…
Maybe we’ll also make it to Gibraltar. If in doubt, the Monkey Rock and the view of Africa are also on the programme by car. We will then spend the winter more or less firmly back in Huelva, where we will not only enjoy the view of flamingos, but also one or two tapas bars.
We’ll continue in 2026 and will then decide at some point whether to turn off into the Mediterranean or head across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. It’s nice when you don’t have to plan everything in advance.
Our route for 2025