Tarifa ; 36.00N,005.36W

Island Wanderer
Peter and Avril Brookes
Mon 9 Aug 2010 21:34
This morning we drove from Puerta Sherry to Gibraltar to drop Vicky off at the airport. We had a really pleasant drive through the countryside, and it was great to see Spain from ashore for a change.

We encountered a huge number of wind farms, all being driven strongly by the Easterly Levanter that kept us in harbour. We also saw a huge solar panel array taking up acrea of a hillside.

On our return we set sail for Tarifa, the southernmost part of Spain at the start of the Gibraltar strait.

We encountered big seas at Cabo de Trafalgar, and a wind over tide situation with 28 knots of wind - it made for a bit of a wet trip. We had to motorsail into the Easterly wind, but with the large seas we were not making much speed through the water, but fortunately the tide was with us.

We are currently anchored to the West side of Tarifa, protected from the swell. However the wind which had dropped to 12 knots on our approach has again increased to nearly 30, so I have let out nearly 10:1 scope of anchor chain.

The forecast is for the wind to ease soon. We certainly hope so before heading into the strait tomorrow!

Peter.