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Gibraltar
28.06.99
29C little wind full sun
36 Deg 08.956 North 5deg21.236 West
We have been in Marina Bay, Gibraltar since Friday 25th June.
We needed to get a new Camping Gas cylinder and, as it's half the price in Spain, Fae and I walked over the border. At first it's strange crossing a major airport runway, which straddles the only way out and in by car or foot. About 2 flights a day seem to fly in and out but we have also had earsplitting visits by a pair of Tornado fighters. Next came the La Linea Customs post and then we walked past a line of cars taking an hour or so to get through the Spanish customs to Spain. Some days it's three hours others 5 mins, but for us on foot its straight through. I went to the Camping Gas companies shop but smiles turned to grim faces as they would not take my standard bottle with ENGLISH writing on it!! I then went to an ordinary hardware shop and now we have two Spanish bottles. La Linea bustles with activity under the towering Gibraltar Rock. We went to a Spanish upholsterers to buy material so that Fae could alter our sprayhood cover to include a bimini shade to keep off the mid-day sun. The shop was down a back street and luckily their son spoke a little English as the father looked on. I went back to La Linea the next day to the market and bought three of the most wonderful Tuna fillets cut straight from a huge fish. I flash "stir fried" them, wow I hope we catch one on our lures. Gibraltar is a great place to visit by boat and we are trying not to become Expats and stay! Many boats have been here for ages. Some are dreams, which have gone wrong, so there are some cheap boats here. Day to day it's very pleasant but we continue to work hard to do all the jobs we feel need doing after some 1500 miles in Spain and Portugal's sunnier climes. We have re-sited the watermaker and swapped charts with a boat going west (so we now have full charts for the Balearics). The Admiralty agency wanted £20 per chart, I swopped 7 of Spain to UK with "Jim" for Gib to Balearics and thus saved £140! I replaced bosons stores used on the way down, deck paint, brushes etc. I will be getting the broken running backstay mast strop replaced etc. In a few days we will be back to 100% and ready to re store with consumables, then a short holiday, then off again.
2.07.99
How the year is flying by! Malcolm, our much-valued extra crew, flew out last night and we were very sorry to see him go. He has been with us for 60 days (poor man!). We watched the aircraft taxi to the end of the runway right by the marina. A fire truck raced down to scare off some very retransient gulls and whoosh up up and way... The cars started crossing the runway the moment the jet went past the barrier. We won't hear his guitar in the warm evenings on deck anymore.. Still we had purchased a guitar for Tirla in Vigo. Malcolm has shown me 3 cords so who knows! Very humid today, yesterday the wind was blowing over the Rock and condensing into wispy white streams curling up and down the back of the high cliffs. I had the usual shower and noticed the sea glistening up the plughole! The showers are at the end of Marina Bay pier. I hope the loos are better provided for! Not so many jobs left but in the heat and pace of the Rock things take forever. A small replacement poppet valve for the watermaker, (we had previously used a spare from the service kit) was dealt with by " Yes sir we are the appointed main dealers, No we do not carry any spares, Yes we can get them sent, No you cannot buy only the little bits you need, you must order a new repair kit £30 +£30 P and P plus £25 BANK CHARGES ....." He lost me at that point, but as I'm now so laid back I laughed and emailed our daughter to bring some out when she came to see us in the Balearics. Another sign of my becoming part of the scenery was when the beggar with the straw hat at the frontier between Spain and the Rock pulled the hat smartly OUT of my way ... he must have thought I looked to be of the same financial / social standing as him and thus a threat rather than an opportunity! We are not too bothered working on the boat as the wind is still east and we are going east ... it might just change at the right time.
4.07.99
Wonderful weather, 36C yesterday. Good cool breezes. We continue to work on the boat doing the jobs we need to do to improve her or doing maintenance. I resealed the rubbing strake, re glued the outside table struts, Fae's working on the Bimini cover, I painted the dingy outboard motor engine cover white and "aged" it to reduce it's value if viewed as a target by thieves. I redid the topping lift to replace the worn rope etc. But we are well on now so if, as we hear, the wind will be remaining east against us on Tuesday then its "hollypogs" and off up and onto the Rock. We ate at the quayside restaurant, set menu, prawn cocktail then swordfish steaks, free wine ... £12.50 per night.
It's 02.30a.m. in the morning and it is still warm, people sitting outside, on their boats, talking. Several boats left and a few arrived. "Players Tobacco" boat, 150 countries in 170 days, was in. Superb racing type 60 footer, all hi-tec and huge winches. A vast Swedish yacht, some 120-ft, stayed a night, had a party and left! Some one has to do it!
We could not get tickets for the Gibraltar Orchestra concert, in St. Michael's cave inside the Rock, they sold out too quickly. The Gibraltans are multi lingual so its strange hearing a very British looking Bobby chatting away to someone in Spanish. Everyone takes Spanish money but ask the rate before you decide to buy because the rate seems to vary depending on your perceived need to purchase!
10.7.99
36 Deg 13.18 North 4 Deg 51.92 West
At sea heading for Formentera. Now left the Rock and at sea, so no time for "Rock" visits this time. I'm sitting under the new Bimini cover that Fae made in Gib. It's proving to be a real asset. We actually worked, yes worked quite hard all the time we were in port. I redesigned a fitting for the BBQ and had it made up in stainless steel. We did lots of "improvements". We now even have a houseplant! Anyway we said we would stay a week and today the forecast was variable winds likely to go West 2-3 so off we set. We ran both engines until clear of the influence of the Rock then raised one Yamaha and cruised off into the heat haze at 5 Knts. We hope to do the trip to Formentera/Ibiza non-stop but we will see. Its 16.30 and the wind is doing the usual trick of following the sun round, so I have 5 knts under one engine and 5 knts of west wind right behind me. Tarifa Radio has just given us a weather update and the wind strengths and directions mean we may be able to sail soon. Fae's dozing below as it is going to be a long trip doing 4 hours on 4 off in the daytime and 2 on 2 off at night. There are many large tankers and freighters around us, but our 36-mile radar is a great help.
22.00 hrs
36Deg 23.27 North 4 Deg 07.85 West
I'm back on watch, we have set the sleeping bag up on deck. Only the falling damps make the area a little wet! Still the wind is holding at 12 knots southerly.
We are beam reaching under Main and Genoa with only 60% of our plain sail area set. We are making 7.4 knts over the ground with a tide benefit of some 2 Knts. We are using our mast head navigation lights which are very bright. There are no ships or any land in sight. We are some 20 miles SSE of Malaga. Only 300 miles to go!
11.6.99
36 Deg 24.31 North 3 Deg 18.72 West
Slow going, little wind.
08.00
Interesting night. The wind died to 4 knts so we used one engine to do 4.75kns for a lot of the time. Used the radar when confronted with 6 ships of all types in one location. They included some novel lights i.e. a supertanker showing lights to inform all that she was making way but not under command. We are now under all plain sails main, mizzen and genoa with engines off. We saw many dolphin in phosphorescence and several shooting stars. We are amazed at the situation on the main calling channel of the VHF. From Cadiz onwards it's been plagued by whistling, music, swearwords and racist comments. Bearing in mind this blocks out safety information, and vital communications, it is a great shame. With so many ships passing through and several coastlines of different countries it must be impossible to stop. It is worse at night right up until dawn every night!
12.6.99
36Deg 59 North 1Deg 14 West.
08.00
Calm sea, forecast SW force six. We are drifting around having had one engine running since about midnight. We are now about 30 miles south of Cartagena and well over 200 miles from Gib. It's also good to have gone through the "wall", when ones sleep pattern recovers and you know you can go on the same watches indefinitely. I do get called awake if Fae has a difficult collision situation or some gear needs attending too which she has not used before. Collision situations are not rare in the shipping lanes or coastal paths. I had a situation last night which was a little unusual and took me about half an hour to realise what was going on. I saw a large well-lit ship ahead and tracked it on radar. It was moving at about 4 knots. We were doing 2.8 knots under main and genoa with 1.2 knots of tide. The vessel had all her deck lights and cabin lights on and flood lights blazing. Nav. lights could not be identified until I was closer. She was drifting in the tide in the coastal "path" of several large tankers etc. and she herself was a major size cargo boat of several thousand tons. My problem was I did not realise she was also spinning slowly and her aspect was changing, I almost sailed a circle, backing the main, and with the tide taking me towards her. In the end I dropped the main and motored around her. It was rather like parking a 41-ton truck in the motorway with the hand brake off on a slight slope!
Several vessels actually stopped until they sorted the situation out! This caused a traffic build up with us potentially the jam in the sandwich! Also, yesterday Fae tracked a container ship on radar for 12 miles as she closed us. We had right of way and thus stood on, the other vessel was not constrained by draught or anything else. In these circumstances if the ship i.e. us, with right of way changes course not in accordance with the shipping regulations you can actually cause the collision. So in broad daylight, on radar and good viz. we carried on until I knew the other vessel could not take avoiding action, we then made a 90 deg turn to get out of the way. Big is beautiful! As I write the day wind has arrived and we are now underway under sail with the sun beginning to blast out todays heat. Fae's new Bimini cover has made a huge difference to comfort at the wheel position.
We now sleep on deck when off watch as that allows Fae to get me up without going below! We do have a "third crewmember", "The Master", our Hydrovane steering system which currently has control of the helm. "He" is holding a difficult (for humans) down wind course with the main out one way and genoa the other. It must not be forgotten that it holds the boat relative to the wind and not on a compass course. A well known single hander wrecked one of Francis Chichester's X boats by setting a wind vane to go round a cape and sleeping below only to have the wind change and be duly sailed right onto the rocks. I took a whole length of trawler net off its rudder this morning! We are glad it missed the outboard prop as we had one engine lowered. The sea does have a lot of jetsam and flotsam, so at night you just zoom on in hope! Absolutely no land or ships in sight, are you all still out there?
13.00
hrs
Well the Spanish Airforce is, they flew a spotter aircraft just over the mast twice! Must have been Fae in her swimming costume that made them return. I was asleep below until the aircraft noise lifted me off the bunk. We must look good running under multicoloured coaster in 18 knts of wind, the sea is white capped and we are making 6 to 8 knts. Main and mizzen are down so we can run without too many steering complications. My GPS tells me at this speed we will be in Formentera tomorrow mid-day, we shall see.
16.00 hrs
As we were the closest we have been to Spain for some time, still some 12 miles off and no sight of land, I tried the email/portable phone, YES got a message off to our son and daughter to say we were still at sea and alive. Three emails from our son ... he is after a coffee table out of our house before we let the property! I just had a signal long enough to get message back telling him O.K. Gosh they can find you when they want something! (Don't really mean it). Also got several other messages so very worth while. 6 miles out from Formentera we passed two huge circles of Tuna who had encircled a shoal of smaller fish, they were coming up under them and leaping out of the water. I set a lure on the big fishing rod with 100lb breaking strain line etc. WHAM a large tuna, the line ran out on the clutch and Fae put Tirla into a stall to slow down. I got the large tuna along side, about 20lb fish, got the landing net over it's head and the water exploded as did the lure and off went my fish! Blast it, so near I could touch it.
13.6.99
17.00hrs
Moored Formentera Puerto De Sabina
38Deg 44.1 North 01Deg 25.2 EAST - (YES.. East of Greenwich longitude again)
I had phoned ahead to book a berth, after 68 hours at sea and 350 miles we wanted a peaceful night, yes a space, cost quoted £56 pounds a night! Checked bank balance and said yes! Water and electricity was extra! Beautiful low rise, laid back place. Went to restaurant on quay by boat, a great meal very good value for money. I had fish, and thought of the one that got away! After the meal we walked in the warm evening around the stalls selling batik sarongs and bought one with the local lizard design. Left next day and now anchored, in 4m, over ash blond sand in Puerto del Espalmador with 40 other yachts and a beautiful sheltered beach. The sea is 80 deg and azure blue. Tonight we can hear dolphin noises through the hull, like bat sonar. Tirla does not roll at anchor, it's fairly still, but the monohulls are all rocking heavily now and again. I'll put down the red cutter tomorrow and go sailing. Well we're here, we made it, and its better than expected .. so far so good. Went for a sulphurous mud bath but that is another story), swimming and snorkeling ...
Paradise at last!!!
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