Gibraltar Landfall

Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sat 3 Oct 2009 12:01
Arrived at Gibraltar 36:08.14N 005:21.322W at 2000hrs on Thursday 1st October after being carried through the straits with Africa on Starboard and Spain to Port, at upto 12knots SOG and motor sailing at 2400rpm. We barely arrived into the marina and the owner and crew of Kalandia a Discovery 55 whom we had met while doing sea survival training in Southampton, were shouting greetings to us. We shared a meal that night and we had a good nights sleep so that we could get on with the outstanding jobs list. One of these jobs was to re-establish satellite e-mail communications which we had found excellent for weather grib files and sending and recieving e-mails. That however was a very frustrating and unsuccessful exercise and one which shall have to sorted by the boat builders.
 
We dug out the folding mountain bikes and did a bit of exploration of the town and later went shopping with bikes and rucksacks on - this may be a taste of things to come and it was a very successful excercise and with rucksacks full of liquid we came back to the boat and then out for a Tapas dinner and a reasonably early night.
 
I visited the Marina Bay marina and found Blue Majic another Discovery 55 there and left an invite for the owners to meet us later. I also priced fuel which ranged between 58p and 40p per litre. I am glad I checked as we need to take over 2000 liters. We will also fill large containers to take with us at these prices. 
 
The weather is very hot at approx 30 degrees and a very pleasant 20degrees in the evening.
 
Jobs over, we will take a day off and do some touristy things tomorrow and go see the apes.