Gibraltar Straits
Malua
Harry Watson Smith
Thu 13 Sep 2012 15:39
Gibraltar stands on the northern side of the straits on what is known as the Pillars of Hercules. He sure had a hold on us as we tried to sail out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic. We left La Linia, an anchorage just opposite Gibraltar just after the sun came up and motored out with no wind. just as we turned the corner at Cape Carnero the wind came up, westerly right on the nose. By the time we were at Tarifa which get 300 days of wind over 30 knots we were experiencing 32 knots of wind and we were tacking back and forth through the straits. The tide then turned and we started to go nowhere. We were travelling at 6.5 knots through the water but our speed over the ground was only 1.2 knots. The sea with the current and wind was like in a washing machine. It was terrible. We were lucky there was no fog.
One could see the up welling of the water as it flowed from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean and hit the shallow water. Not a nice experience.
This continued for five hour battling the current going 2 to 3 knots towards our destination. Only when the channel opened up between Africa and Europe did the current slow.
We finally arrived at our destination of Barbate as the sun set and anchored outside the harbour next to some friends who had left at least an hour after us but decided to motor earlier and take a route very close to the shore over the shallows. They had also experienced the current but also the counter current along the shore and arrived almost two hour before us.
The next day we left early and only experienced 1 knot of current with us as we passed Cadiz on our starboard bow.