Gibraltar - Change of Plan & whales

Renegade
Tony Porter
Thu 9 Jul 2009 08:37
After a quick trip home from Gib to address some concerns with my aged parents, (Easy Jet daily service to Gatwick North), unfortunately I have concluded we are having to terminate our sailing adventure here.  Arrangements have been made for a delivery skipper & crew to take Renegade home to Brighton.
 
On a more positive note Teresa joined us here in Gib and on a day sail yesterday to Sotogrande we encountered two pods of dolphins and then to our surprise a large whosh of spray behind the dolphins (~100metres of the boat) up came two beautiful whales swimming close together and heading West for the straits and the Atlantic!! they surfaced twice giving us a magnificant view of their backs & tails, they had the shape of the humpback about 1.5 times the length of our boat!!.....Teresa took a quick camera shot and having blown up the image Yes! she managed to get them, this will go on the blog later.......Teresa said it would be nice if they had came closer...personaly with them being so much bigger than the boat I was quite happy with their collision avoidance distance!!!
On the way back we had the white water of Europa Point with 28knots of wind over overfalls & tide!!!.......an interesting 20 minutes for our new crew member!!....we put into Queensway breakwater to safely get sail down...recommended as out of the Western swell....3 big cruise liners in so had dinner onboard.
 
For now our trip is suspended, but who knows maybe further next year? finally some classic pics of Gib, Teresa, John & the apes atttached (no relation!!)
 
Many thanks to all the crew, family & friends who made this trip possible and apologies for having to terminate our dreams here for the moment.
 
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