Africa on our port bow..

Gibraltar on our starboard

27 knots on the nose at one point in rather large swells.

Playing Tag Rugby In Gibraltar. I was really glad when the girls took my place in the game… Thanks John and Theo for the invite.

This year has been a really uneventful time so far. We left Cartagena in May and soon had the usual issues with the boat after thinking everything was fine. Having sorted the various issues we moved onto Almerimar to stock up on our now dwindling spares!.

The windlass, having been a sturdy work horse for the whole of last year was now needing a couple of new oil seals and you guessed it, they are no longer made by the company who produced it! It’s so old it’s now obsolete and the only spares available for it was a new gypsy which we luckily don’t need (yet). So once again we search the Internet for what we require but it opens up a whole new world…..suffice to say, we dig out the old seal rendering the windlass useless completely now and take its remains to a chandlery. They say they can get one in for us the following day so huge sighs of relief all round. A new windlass to replace the current one would set us back another €1500 plus vat so a couple of new seals at €30.00 total was much better for morale. All fitted and overhauled and another sigh of relief that it was an easier fix than having to fit a whole new unit.

We await weather window to get us up to Gibraltar and see that we can get going in a few days time. Away we go, hoping to do it in 2 longish jumps of 70 miles a day. The sea state is lumpy and soon 3 of the crew are looking less than happy and a rather dull shade of green. Luckily no one succumbed to the motion but morale was a little flat and I asked how they thought they would manage in the Atlantic with the motion the same for days and weeks on end, all positive replies came back but it’s a real concern for me. Being the only one that seems to have an iron constitution in any sea state I wonder how forcing children to eat and drink whilst being ill would work long term. Most of our friends say it takes 3 days to get into the swing of the routine and to get over the sickness BUT if it’s not gone after those 3 days then it’s with you for the whole trip. As an adult you know you need to eat and drink and that you have to do it no matter how rough you feel but as a child it’s really hard to force them to do it. The consequences of not being able to make them do those things is dehydration, having had that myself I know it’s a really debilitating problem and one that is extremely hard to conquer on land let alone miles out to sea. I leave that thought for another day…..

Eventually we settle down and everyone manages to eat something and keep it in place! Phew. We anchor outside Caleta De Valez and settle down for the night.

Morning arrives and we up anchor and head off to Gibraltar again. As predicted the wind picks up steadily as we approach the straits until we have a force 7 (28knts +)  on our nose and a sea that is now crashing over the bow and causing the drainage holes to work hard for once. The anchor rocks in its cradle and Jessica becomes avid at ensuring it is still in place every time we burrow into the sea. We make very slow progress so decide to try to ease off a direct route and use the wind to our advantage instead. It takes us way off course but we get a much calmer ride. At least we aren’t in difficulty like a German boat ahead. He is calling a mayday saying he has engine trouble…..he has sails so not sure why it’s a mayday. I would say it’s because he came tanking passed us on route with his engine on going way over 7.5 knots, so think he is likely to be out of fuel! He gets a tow in from the salvamento boat which is going to be rather expensive, no free rides here.

We drop into the bay off Gibraltar and reflect on the passage. Another successful trip with no mishaps.

We awake to our friends in the bay and have joyous reunions before saying long goodbyes to them too. They are both heading back to their homelands, Maritha and Rainer our companions since Benodet in 2016 are heading back to Sweden and Duncan and Pat who we sailed with lots in 2017 are going back to the Uk. Strong friendships that will not be broken because of distance but will be enhanced for waiting to be reunited again in the future, in who knows where.

One reason for us to come into Gibraltar was to get the life raft serviced. We book it with a company and head into a Marina for them to collect it. They return the next day with my life jacket, which needed a new gas canister but no life raft. Not a good sign. It did not stay up for the time it was supposed to so we need a new one. Great. We do some research and are disappointed to note that considering how we are in such a major port that there is not really an array of products to choose from. All require waiting for an order. We place it and are told it will be 2-3 weeks. So we drop out to anchor again and wait. We school the children and enjoy the location although the water is sub zero even though the sun is out. It is nowhere near the lovely temperature we had last year in the Balearic Islands. It soon becomes a bit boring. We swap off anchor into a Marina for a few days then come back out again, just to give us a different experience.

The anchorage is rather busy, especially at night. It’s on a major route for smugglers. We are awoken on more than one occasion to a rib right by the side of the boat with men in as well as cargo. You can hear their radio chattering as well as their voices jabbering away in Spanish. They use the boat to hide from the radar of customs and police. I get fed up when they get Olivia scared and ask Howard if I can beam them with our spotlight. He says to leave well alone as we are a bit vulnerable here on anchor. It goes on for hours and our sleep is broken and erratic. On the second busy night, we hear the same engine noise as the previous night and know it’s going to be another long broken night again. There is even more traffic tonight but then we hear larger engines. This means customs or guardia are out too and suddenly we hear shots being fired. 5 or 6 shots ring out above the noise of the outboards, then all goes quiet. You see boats up on the beach dropping off cargo then a mad dash back to whence they came. 2 days later a body washes up on the beach…..whose side was it from? We don’t know. It is rather worrying to think we are innocent bystanders in a huge net of corruption sitting here in this bay. Although we are Kevlar reinforced that only goes as far as the cockpit so the aft cabin is vulnerable to shots should they go astray. Never did I think we would be having to worry about such a thing in this part of the EU.

The life raft is still not here. The grab bag has arrived with the food etc but not the raft. We await news to see what has happened but it’s not looking good. They cannot find the raft so another needs to be sent. We ask if this means another 3 weeks as we are itching to get on. Howard says that if it is not here by Friday then we shall cancel the order and get another from somewhere else. As much as we believe in destiny, it’s really rather boring having been here for well over a month and a half now. Please let it arrive…

We have made a decision though. We shall not be doing the Atlantic this year, we are heading back into the med and have booked into Sicily for winter. Once this decision had been reached we all felt a huge relief. We had discussed it on numerous occasions and although most were willing in spirit the consensus was to leave it another year and to get some long passages under our belts  to see if the Atlantic was ever going to be in our grasp. The longest we have managed was crossing biscay for us. So….

We are going to try to do the North African coast, see some of Morocco and its culture then head straight onto Ibiza. That’s about a 350 mile sail. We thought we would do some long hops as we have done the Balearics already. From there onto Sardinia, another 350 odd miles then drop into Trapani and on to see the aeolian islands. Jessica would like to see them for her birthday in  mid August so we have to get our act together. We shall then be heading into Licata for winter. All of these plans are subject to weather, boat behaving, life raft arriving and our health being with us. Fingers crossed all of them remain good, if not then as a very good friend of ours says “a sailors life is written in sand. With the next wave it is all gone and you re-evaluate”.

 

Fathers Day breakfast…thank you girls..

 

The decks getting a bit warm…