Winter berthing at Alcaidesa Marina, La Linea

Oct 2019

Having made the decision to spend 2020 in the Mediterranean  we needed to find a winter berth for approx. 6 months.  We also decided it meant we could travel back to the UK and visit the family so our berth had to be near an airport - La Linea it was as it is so near Gibraltar and the daily berth fitted in with our daily budget too.

We sailed into the Gibraltar Straits with a pod of huge dolphins, the first we had seen since turning into The Algarve several weeks ago.  It was amazing.

We were lucky to get an outer finger berth at the marina, which means there is not a lot of walkers past the boat all the time.  The marina is only 500mtrs from the Gibraltar boarder, very large and accommodates a lot of boats getting prepared for their passage across the Atlantic.  It feels quite strange watching them preparing their boats because this is something that we would have been doing if were going this year, but this will be us in 12mths.  There are boats coming and going every day and a lot of them.

La Linea marina offers specials deals to catamaran's and there are a lot of them here.  Some people stay a while and some only overnight.

There is a set of container like homes as seen in the photo here that you are able to rent for about €100 per night and although very new they seem to be very busy.


We are using our bikes a lot to go shopping and site-see.  There are a lot of bike paths so it feels safe, especially after not riding a bike for 40yrs lol!  There is not a lot to do in La Linea and parts of it are quite run-down, however with a weekly market, being very near Gibraltar, a lovely beach and plenty of cycle paths, I think we will be fine until next year.

We have loads of jobs to finish before April next year and these need to be completed so that we don't have to go into a marina for water or food.  We will also need the water maker & freezer before we head for the Caribbean autumn 2020.

We returned to the UK in mid October for 2 wks and had a great time staying with Katrina in Southampton and Michael in Wattisham.  It was a great time to go as October half term meant we got to spend time with all the grandkiddies but boy did it feel compared to Spain.

I know leaving them all in the UK will be heart-breaking but all our children have said they will visit us next year somewhere in the Med, so we are really looking forward to that.