Monday 25 October 2010          

Spent the morning dealing with paperwork in Algeciras, then motored over to Gibraltar and took on 143 litres of diesel at 60p per litre at the fuel dock, then over to Queensway Quay Marina in windy and choppy conditions with Tzigane, a Turkish 38 footer we had seen in Ceuta. They were about to leave for Las Palmas to do the 2010 ARC (race/rally to St Lucia). Another fore-aft mooring, we went bow first as it was a dicey manoeuvre with the cross wind. We were beside Annie Laurie, a Warrior 40, with very helpful Cruising Association members who had spotted our CA pennant. They literally knew the ropes about mooring gear as QQ can, surprisingly, be very rough. Two years ago they had two metre waves in the marina with a lot of damage to those moored.

Expedition to Morrisons supermarket where 98% of everything sold is as in the UK. There were masses of brightly coloured, no doubt tasteless, tomatoes all greenhouse grown in Holland. An employee looked at me when I took a photo of them and I said there were far better tomatoes locally in Spain. He replied that Morocco was full of produce that they could not sell because of quotas. All this in Spanish. On the bright side, they had English milk, although we have since had no problem finding good fresh milk in larger Spanish supermarkets.