36:10.998N 005:55.447W
SV Eleonora
Michael A. Andronov
Sat 1 Sep 2018 11:20
On anchor in Barbate.
You may ask, ‘What are you doing there for so long?! Should you be in Gibraltar, or the Med by now ?’
The right answer is ‘yes’! But…
Have you ever been caught in the ‘transient airport’, when, because of the weather, all your possible flights are cancelled ?
That is me today…
I made a ’ jump’ from the Lagos, Portugal, to Barbate, Spain…. With the main purpose to accelerate my progress…. In retrospect, on arrival to Barbate, I should had kept going towards Tarifa…
But I was tired after the night crossing… ( I read too much horror stories about the tuna nets, and I was terrified all night watching for them… Saw only one, in front of Barbate, during the full Sun and day light… )
Another stories were about the 30+ knots during the 300 days of the year around Tarifa…
And Barbate — was strongly advised by the guide as a pit stop, for re-assessing the situation around Tarifa and the Gibraltar, before actually moving further…
( The guides approach — the nice marketing trick to bring more visitors to Barbate! And a good teaching point — that planning ahead is a paramount if you would like to make the fast progress during the cruising… ).
I have arrived under the nice midday Sun, with nearly no wind… which was slowly diminishing… Now I know — it was preparing to switch from the ‘right direction’ ( SW), to the ‘wrong one’ — East. And indeed, twelve hours later — the Easterlies started to blow… The only good part about it — the wind is correlating with the .grib weather files I’m getting… According to them — the next ‘window’ to keep going — starting late Sunday evening…. We will see…
So, I’m on anchor, in front of the Barbate beach… I have warm weather, nice steady 20+ kts wind exactly from the point where I should go… I have about 4-5 ft choppy swell, built across the bay… And I’m crossing my fingers, that the wind and the swell directions keep aligned… No so much people on the beach today… A good indication that probably the wind will pick up even more…. ( Yesterday, there were some… and the observation is — shortly after the people start to appear —the wind went down… Probably there is some local station around with a good real-time forecast…;-)).
Frankly, the condition to go — ‘doable’. It is possible to reach Tarifa, and — according to the forecast — there is less wind between Tarifa and the Gibraltar…
And the ‘itching’ feeling to pick up the anchor and to go — is crossing my mind periodically… But yesterday, when I was nearly ready to do it… I saw the boat grossing the bay… A tiny main — second or third (?) reef — plus long way to go, at a speed she was going… plus not so pleasant conditions, based on the angle and bouncing… I looked, I scratched my head… and I decided I would wait… What is the point to rush ? ;-). There are plenty of things to do and to keep myself busy with….
Besides the weather — there is another ‘feature’ of the current position, Barbate anchorage… The amount of the radio traffic… And mostly, the amount of ‘pan-pan’, associated with the inflatable boats, carrying the illegal immigrants… One thing — to read about it, and to hear about it in the news… Another — to be on the ’scene’, where the action(s) are taking place…
— The amount of the boats and attempts is incredible. Only here it is becoming pretty obvious that the smuggling is built and ’speeded up’ to the production level; Based on the amount off radio transmissions, it seems that the boats are leaving the Morocco coast with a well defined schedule, as the ferries…
— I have seen the ‘coast guard Patrol boat’, who picked up the group of people… They were sitting in front of the boat, some with the blankets, some were laying on the deck, covered with the thermal blankets, probably recovering from the hypothermia…. Young and not so young men and women… tired…
I’ve seen the persons on the boat, who was dealing with them…. The ‘response’ is also put ’to production level’ — the personnel is covered in special ‘full cover suits’, gloves, some kind of ‘kits’ were being distributed between the people picked-up…
Those people, who were picked up… They have probably the reason why they are doing that… They are probably looking for the better life…
The question which is stunning me… and to which I could not find the answer….
Two coasts, separated by the narrow straight of water… Historically, it was crossed by people in both directions… Some times for good, as trade… some times — for not so good, as gaining more territory, bringing war and chaos… Probably, historically, on both sides of the straight — are the same people… from the same origin… Then, why are they so different?! What is the actual origin of that difference ? The straight of water of the couple of miles ? Which has been crossable for centuries anyway?
Is it only me, who is puzzled with that ? And the actual answer is well known, and ’smart people’ are working on the solution, to put the end of that ’trafficking’…
That would be really nice.
Since otherwise, there is a bigger problem on the hands… May be too cynical, but ‘processing speed’ of ‘receiving’ people on the European side seems to be much slower then the ’speed of supply’ on African side… It means that the ‘pipe’ will be jammed, the ‘pressure’ — whatever it means — will be built up… And when such ‘pressure’ is built up — historically, there is no good outcome…
— Meantime… The ‘pan-pan’ announcements are ending by asking to have the sharp view around… And soon enough, the sailing vessel reported the ’submerged inflatable, with a lot of life jackets around floating, no bodies…’. Is it a cover up after ’successful’ landing on the European coast? Or is it an indication of the tragedy on on the water ? No answer for that….
— The ‘pan-pan’ calls appear, reports on them progressing, then some announced closed… and the next day — the new calls appear on the radio…
My hat is off for all people, who are actually dealing with the situation ‘in the field’… If they are the ’21 century version’ of those, who were ‘defending and expending’ the castles, similar to one I visited in Sesimbra… then they would have probably deserved the ’21 century incentives’, compared by ones or should I say ’scaled from ones’, described in 1201 Portugal charter, which is quoted in Sesimbra castle…
My heart — with the people in the boat… May be because many Moons ago… I myself left Russia to Canada? ( Not in the boat, obviously… but similar situation… )
The information about those ‘pan-pans’ is ‘Integrated somewhere…’, going up into the ‘authority levels’, and further away from the field…, becoming more abstract… And we can hear the debates, about money spent ( and usually spending are progressively being cut off ), the quotes distributed… And we can read the newspapers articles on the subject… interestingly enough cross-connected with the geopolitics, conspiracy theories of some ‘bad political leaders’ against ‘good political leaders’… Then the subject becoming ‘boring’ and the newspapers drop it all together… And we do not know, where actually the reports of the ‘pan-pan’ calls are accumulated now…
And what left…
The people in the inflatable boats, trying to cross the Gibraltar… people in the authoritative vessels, intercepting and processing them… money making machines and associative ‘economies’ on both sides…
I wonder, are we actually different from the 12th century, or times, when it all has started ?!
Meantime, as I was typing — the wind is consistently topping 30 kts in the bay… Making the sailing instruments reports the alarm… Feeling the boat with the other ‘beeps’…
But we are OK, we are holding so far… and ‘keeping the eyes on the horizon! ‘.
Talk to you soon,
M.