Portimao to Barbate
Altea
Fri 16 Aug 2013 15:08
15 August 2013
We upped anchor at 9 ish, and set off into a flat blue sea, with hardly wind, and had breakfast in the cockpit under-way. The sea felt more Mediterranean than Atlantic.
We were bound for Gibraltar and decided to sail over night, as the forecast showed increasing Easterly winds if we left it much longer. The forecast was not great for sailing as there would be periods of less than 5 kn and no settled direction, but it would be better than trying to make headway against 20 kn Easterlies in a few days, and we planned to get to Ibiza before the end of the month.
After breakfast we set about trying to solve the problem we had experienced with the Genaker the last time we tried it, on the way to Arrifana, when it had not rolled the snuffer to the top of the halyard.
We lay the 75ft or so of sail sausage around the deck, and straightened everything out. There were a few twists to sort out. Then we hoist it in about 9 kn of wind, and it unfurled beautifully, gradually pushing the last few feet out as the wind filled it.
We then had a very relaxing afternoon of downwind sailing. We had not put up the main for our experiment, so we were not as fast as we could have been, but managed a very steady 6 kn or so until we doused the sail just before sunset, and put up our easy going night time rig for down wind sailing, of just the Genoa.
The afternoon was made all the more enjoyable by a visit from a pod of about 15 bottle nose dolphins who stayed with us for about 30 mins, riding the bow wave, swimming upside down and generally messing about.
I caught our first fish, using Jonny's hand line. A small mackerel, which made a tasty starter for tea. The excitement was much greater when just before dusk L shouted out, and I thought we were going to hit something given the urgency of the commotion, but she had seen that I had caught a huge fish. I came up out of the companion way, interrupting my mackerel cooking, to see a sail fish of at least 3-4 feet, complete with long "sword" and raised dorsal fin leap across the wake a good few feet in the air. A shake of its head was enough to break the line, as I had not yet managed to get the line into my hands, where I may have been able to cushion the force. If only I had caught it on the rod....
The tally so far is Jonny's 12 Euro hand line 3 fish, my £..... fishing tackle, zilch.
J and L on first watch. S and I did 1 til 5, saw the moon turn red as it set and then tried to identify the constellations to pass the time. We were motoring by then as the wind had begun to flop.
I was back up at 9 for my watch and the girls had hoist full sail and we were making very good progress, but within an hour we were in a very confused and steep sea which just kept killing our speed. Just not quite enough wind for us to maintain momentum. So back to motoring.
At last the wind picked up, but dead on the nose and rising to 20kn. Tarifa was ahead, and is notorious from wind surfing days as a very windy spot, reputed to have more than 30 kn on more than 300 days a year. So we headed off to Barbate, the last refuge before Gib.
The marina had plenty of room, but was a long hike past the bleak industrial port into town. Without mich expectation we went into a pizza place, and the good news was that it had a terrace on the promenade and we were rewarded with a very enjoyable evening walking up and down the prom which was very busy and lively with north African traders selling their wares, and Spanish families enjoying their annual hols. Africa was visible across the straits, mountains looming in the distance. Ice cream and a taxi ride back to the marina for a good night's sleep.