Ship watching refined

This morning it was a few degrees warmer than it has been lately, so I did some washing, and it dried much quicker than usual. I walked out to the bridge over the rio Aguas before lunch to try a powerful telescope for bird watching I've been loaned. Powerful indeed, but it needed its tripod stand provided for stability, and this wasn't practicable in the open air. I'll have to try on a table out on the balcony and see what results I can get. There are plenty of birds in our neighbourhood. On the way out, I saw a pair of white wagtails for the first time here.

While I was photographing birds on the bridge, I saw another large bulk carrier heading out to sea after leaving Puerto Garrucha. This one had the words 'Pacific Basin' on the side in large letters. Later I googled this and found that the Pacific Basin Shipping Limited is another global shipping company. Looking on the Marine Traffic website's Garrucha page, I learned it's named 'Alex A' and that tonight it's anchored off Gibraltar. 

When out walking in the afternoon, I saw another smaller cargo ship heading out, similar to the one I spotted yesterday, but with the letters ISB on the side, and close enough to reveal that it was named the Christina. Another google search revealed this to be one of the International Shipping Bureau's fleet. The name speaks for itself. It's fascinating to realise the variety of foreign companies operating cargo ships using Puerto Garrucha. Even so, 51% of reported maritime traffic is local fishing boats, to be seen and heard early morning and afternoons, coming and going. Such a wealth of up to date information freely available on-line to anyone who is curious enough, like me, to bother to look.

Sister in law Ann emailed me to say that a neighbour had seen pictures of Eddie on Google Street View of all places, so I tracked them down and sent her the screen shots that I retrieved. They were dated August 2011. Funnily enough, I remember Eddie mentioning that he'd seen the camera car pass through the village. I wonder if he knew he was caught on camera chatting to a neighbour?

       

Side roads in Valle Almanzora

On the basis of the directions I received yesterday, I drove to Arboleas, but couldn't find a sign that directed my to Los Corrascos. I knew it was on the south side of the town, out past the Municipal Thanatorio, but how far I wasn't sure. I did a tour of part of the town due to a missed turning, but second time around, found the Thanatoro, predictably, next to the cemetery, took the wrong turning but quickly realised my error. The correct turning took me a couple of kilometres out of town over a hill and into a valley parallel to Valle Almanzora. There was no sign for the village I was looking for until I reached the sign announcing that I had arrived.  

I drove through Los Corrascos wondering where my right turning would be, and spotted a rather worn Correos posting box on a right hand corner, which I'd noticed in the Google Street View photo that didn't reveal the extent of the street beyond. I turned, and then immediately before me saw the shiny new street name plate I was looking for. Apparently this housing area acquired street name plates for the first time only recently, after a wait of more than a dozen years. No doubt Google Maps will catch up in due course.

After an hour of planning funeral service arrangements for Wednesday, I headed back down the Valle Almanzora, but instead of taking the autovia, I followed the winding country road east, on the opposite side of the valley leading to Zurgena. The road climbs up and out of the valley through a gap in the south side of the valley. Zurgena's houses are distributed on the slopes and floor of this gap, and is in effect a hill village. I didn't want to stop, as I was determined to return and complete my preparation for the funeral while my memory was still fresh, as I was asked deliver a tribute. The drive through, showed me that it's worth stopping to take a look around next time.

The road ascends from the village on to a rolling plain, green with citrous orchards, and ringed by jagged peaks formed by volcanic action and soil erosion. So the pale yellow soil is rich and fertile in what can be grown there with suitable modern irrigation techniques. In fact, it's surprising just how much green is visible in an area of very low rainfall.

The road from Zurgena looks relatively new, and was probably built or upgraded to provide a direct link to the A7 autovia. It runs outside rather than through Concepción, the next village on a ridge overlooking Valle Almanzora. From there, it's just a couple of kilometres to the next junction down from where I usually turn off the A7 to drive to Aljambra and Llanos. On the last stretch to the coast, I diverted to do some shopping to the large Mercadona just off the road at the edge of an urbanizacion a  couple of kilometres outside the coastal resort of Puerto Rey, in between Playa Vera and Garrucha. I must make an effort to drive north and explore the coast road. It has an industrial history due to mining before modern tourism made its mark.

In the afternoon, I completed preparations for Wednesday's service, and only after supper, when it was dark did I go out for a walk, and phoned Clare and Rhiannon, who's staying with her for half term, from the sea shore, so they could hear the sound of the waves and the tree frogs chirping in the moist warm night air. Tomorrow promises to be warmer.

   

Street view navigation

Today's Bible Sunday service took me again to Llanos where there were over thirty people for the Eucharist. Many regulars are away at this time, I understand. The weather was comfortably mild, even with a wind, much to the relief of many present, as it was unnecessary to use fans to keep cool. We began the service, in consequence, with a few minutes of delicious silence. I told a little of the story of the Bible Society's world wide work, and afterwards found there were some who are familiar with it. I felt a little like I did back in to eighties when I was often out and about preaching 'world mission' sermons and telling stories about the work of church agencies at home and abroad.

While I was just about to eat lunch on returning, I had the exchange of calls about the funeral on Wednesday which I'd been expecting last night, and then made arrangements to visit the widow, who lives just up the valley from Arboleas. She gave me clear instructions, which I tried to follow on Google maps with little success. Putting the address into the search bar produced nothing. So I tried using Microsoft's Bing map search engine. That produced no result and the area map was far inferior. Using Google Street View again, as I did yesterday, I followed the main road towards the house to the point at which there was meant to be a right turn. Indeed there was, but there was no view of a street, only a view of tarmac'd stretch of road without houses. This convinced me that neither map nor Street View have been recently updated.

It's not uncommon here for streets in new housing developments to remain un-named for several years after houses are built and occupied - they are simply known by the original developer's plot numbers. Keeping street maps up to date is by no means an easy task when there are so many new developments to cover all over the world. 

When Street View was first came to Cardiff city centre, it showed pictures of the redevelopment work well in progress, from late 2008. Earlier still, Google Earth had shown aerial photos of the city centre dated October 2006, the week when demolition began. You could even see a huge yellow machine that eats old buildings parked on a flattened site. It would be another five years before this aerial view was updated. I lost track of when Street View caught up with the place transformed, but do know it was a year or so after the work was completed in summer 2009. I pitied foreign visitors using these services, having heard about the wonders of the new shopping centre and finding images of a building site instead. Not good for tourism! My protests yielded nothing, but that was in the days before I could complain publicly on Twitter.

A couple of weeks ago, I broke my HSBC code generating device, used for CBS business internet banking. I didn't feel I could throw it away intact, so I reduced it to pieces to throw away, and extracted the tiny lithium battery for safe disposal. It's always a challenge to find a battery disposal unit at home and abroad. Here in Mojacar however, there's a collection point facility I've not seen elsewhere. There are tall advertising panels at certain points along the street, and built in to the base of some is a safe disposal unit. Ingenious. I must have walked past one nearest to the apartment a dozen times without remembering to drop off the battery. Tonight, on my evening paseo, I finally remembered, musing to myself that sometimes you can overlook doing the right thing, even when it's possible and right in front of you.