The Rock
andromeda of plymouth
Susan and Andrew Wilson
Wed 12 May 2010 19:35
05:21.262W
I was asleep when it first hove into view because Andrew decided not to
wake me up as I needed some more beauty sleep obviously....... either that
or I look really cute asleep - though my colleagues from school would
reckon he just wanted some more peace and quiet. So there I was in the
land of nod when suddenly Andromeda seemed to be bucking and diving about,
we had hit a patch of turbulent water as we approached the bay. I had
managed to stay awake past windy Tafira (not today it wasn't) and was just
having forty winks really...
We left lovely Barbate at 9.30 in a very controlled manor (we are getting
very good at this when there is hardly any wind to make Andromeda want to
do her own thing) and we motored out past the vast tuna nets just outside
the harbour. The wind again was right behind us and so we had a boom
preventor on and picked up a bit of speed against the tide on the way down
the coast. Amazingly we got all our sums right and on queue the tide went
slack and we picked up the south going current and once the tide turned in
our favour we were whizzing along with a good 2 and a half knots lift from
the tide.
Gibraltar bay is very big and wide and there is an awful lot of shipping
traffic about, not as bad as the channel, but still we had to do a fair
bit of dodging about with tankers, cargo boats and ferries all seeming to
want to go exactly where we were headed, the alarm on the chart plotter
was going demented at one time because of the amount of ships anchored
that we were passing fairly close to.
The Rock itself is quite impressive and we are looking forward to
exploring and taking some photos whilst we are here and will post them
later. The marina is very near town and has a very different feel to the
ones in Spain and Portugal and we are once again moored on a lazy line and
have to go ashore from Andromeda over the bows,not how she was designed
for boarding. Its a bit tricky and scary as you have to hang on to the
pulpit whilst the other person pulls Andromeda nearer the jetty and then
you step off before inertia and the tide pulls her away again, if we were
doing a lot of this there would definitely be a need for a passarelle.
Anyway once we had berthed, checked in and put everything to rights on
Andromeda we went for a short stroll in town and found Morrisons.....
Tomorrow its the other shops( oh no says Andrew, oh yes says Susan) and
some more exploring to do.
We'll update you again soon............
Susan and Andrew
S/v Andromeda