Gibralter-Teneriffe 10/11/2014 34.40:282N 9:53.564W

Kealoha 8
David Holliday/Jay Faulkner
Mon 10 Nov 2014 15:55
So we're underway again - thrashing our way from Gibraltar to Tenerife. We
arrived in Gibraltar on Monday the 3rd after a very sedate, mainly motoring
passage down from Palma. We did have a session of about 5 hours when we had
some good wind and with Louise on the helm managed to reach 10.4 knots -
other than that we were reliant on our trusty "donkey" Throughout the last
night we were accompanied by lots of dolphins presumably from the breeding
grounds in that area but who (unusually in my experience) kept surfacing to
say hello during our night watches. Quite eerie hearing them as they swam
next to the cockpit listening to our conversations! Arrival in Gibraltar
saw a frantic day of refuelling (accompanied by Bev's enormous English
Breakfast) and then berthing in Queensway Marina and getting the boat
cleaned up. Having 4 eager sets of hands to wash K8 made it the fastest
washdown in history!
We then occupied the rest of the week until the next crew change with
completing the maintenance tasks on board and a little sightseeing. Certain
members of the crew who shall remain nameless took on the slightly onerous
but nevertheless important task of sampling and comparing the various
tipples on offer in Gibraltar's pubs - I believe they will be submitting
their report to CAMRA shortly -:). I took advantage of Gibraltar's tax free
shopping to invest in a GoPro camera so hope to include some "action shots"
in future blogs - once I've mastered its menus! We also helped Bev to fill
5 enormous trollies at the Morrison's supermarket - ensuring we will be well
stocked for weeks to come. At the end of the week Daniel and Louise left us
and James North arrived to complete the crew for the next leg. Then to avoid
some unpleasant weather we decided to spend another day in Gibraltar on the
Saturday and took the opportunity to take a tour both around the Rock and
into the Rock - both the huge natural underground amphitheatre that is St
Michaels Cave and then the myriad of tunnels excavated during the 18th
century siege and then massively extended during the Second World War. To
say the rock is riddled like a Swiss cheese is an understatement - something
like 34 miles of documented tunnels exist within the territory. The view
from the top of the island was also enhanced by the arrival of the what is
now the biggest superyacht in the world "Azzam" on her maiden voyage from
the builders in Germany and dwarfing many of the commercial ships in the
port.
Finally we left early on Sunday the 10th November and are now zigzagging
down the eastern Atlantic towards Tenerife trying to avoid weather systems
and the various underwater "seamounts" created by the ancient volcanic
activity in this area that will turn the normal Atlantic rollers into fairly
unpleasant sea conditions.