We slipped our mooring at 1300 as planned but had to make an unscheduled detour to a different marina to fill the water tanks. A digger had gone through the water pipes in our marina and the fuel dock supply was apparently contaminated. Best laid plans.
As expected the Straits of Gibraltar are pretty lively with strong currents, tide going one way, wind going another and a lot of shipping all getting through quite a bottleneck. The weather was good though, we had done our calculations to get the best of the conditions and we enjoyed the ride.
Any queasiness was well controlled by the fantastic Scopolamine patches so a full catering service was possible. Cream for the banoffee pie being whipped on deck so as not to miss the transit past the Tarifa lighthouse.
Starting as we mean to go on and therefore imposing strict ships discipline Happy Hour commenced as soon as the sun was over the yard arm. We are at sea so some concessions have to be made however. The Campari and orange juice is served in a plastic tumbler....
And the wine comes out of a plastic bag..... 
Dinner is served in plastic bowls and pans are allowed on the table. Well, only when serving seconds of course. |
Seafaring Gnomey has pride of place and supervises everything. |
The weather was great and the winds were with us for most of the time although we needed to use the engine on the last couple of days. We had a tremendous dolphin sighting. Partly because there were so many of them and partly because the day was overcast which meant much less reflection off the water so they were much easier to see clearly under the water as well as on it. |
The biggest treat of all though was seeing three Bottlenose whales gently swimming alongside us. Difficult to get good photographs but here is the evidence... |
We had a really good five days, so a great start and introduction to The Atlantic. We made landfall on the island of Porto Santo just north of Madeira (624 nautical miles). |
