Political Correctness

Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Mon 26 Oct 2009 09:46
Finally we are off from Gibraltar and today we are at position 34:07.16n 008:15.99W and have made just a little westing. The business matters and reports and telephone meetings are up to date and all is well. The boatbuilders have recieved cryptic information on producing magazine racks in cherry and racks in teak and all is organised for the Canary islands to do a few aftersales jobs. All our family and guests have departed and Angus Johnson has arrived from Shetland. We decided to spend the day finishing the stowing a bitmore provisioning and of the course the inevitable caving and potholing. Yes on Saturday afternoon not long after Angus arrived and Trish bought 12 litres of Gin for £40 we spent the savings on a trip into the lower caves below the incredible and very impressive St Michaels cave. While all of us know that Gibraltar is famous for its Barbary Apes who we found were a bunch of cheeky monkeys, some of you may not know that the Rock is full of tunnels and caves. There are the great siege tunnels of 1779 to 1783 built with picks and shovels and the odd chunk of dynamite when men were men and before the HSE got in the way of progress. These tunels run to thousands of metres and allow cannons to poke through the side of the rock converting the whole rock into an impregnible fortress.While visiting these tunnels and the moorinsh fortress from 1333 in seems to me that the attackers in all these various seiges of forts missed a trick. It always seems to me from reading all types of history over the years that invaders or attackers of one type or another could easily take the land all around strongholds where the army top brass or royalty or whoever would hole up. There then always seems to be fearsome battles to try and take the last 4 or 500 square metres surrounded by thick walls or rock in the case of Gibraltar in a desparate attempt to try and get at the "problematic" guys inside and sort them out. Now I think I am missing something and probably some Royal, high ranking general or psycopathic despot will tell me BUT why dont the invading force just throw a cordon round the place and keep them in and - WAIT and get on with living? Now take Afganistan ............. 
Anyway enough politics and history for the day. Tunnels: In addition to the great seige tunnels there are 56 km of tunnels in the rock built during the second world war where apparently many thousands of peole could survive for years without having to endure the excellent climate outside and where I believe Churchill and Montgomery visited and it is said the North African campaign was planned from there. All this is incredible and facinating but absolutely nothing compared to what mother nature has served up for us with St Michaels cave. This is simply one of the most dramatic naturall phenomenon I have ever seen and it seems to be marketed much lower key than the bloomin monkeys - maybe its me? Anyway forget all that we were going caving below this cave apparently to something more dramatic. It involved abseiling, climbing waking along ledges and generally crawling and slithering along on your backside. For this trip you need a special guide and we contacted super Mario from the Spanish army I think. After donning the hard hats and getting over the initial apprehension we slithered scrambled climbed and huffed our way to the very bowels of Gibraltar rock to come to the edge of a small emareld lake in the most dramatic chamber you can imagine. Well worth the change of underpants. Tattie Buy. 
 
No! - one more thing: an Englishman recently told me he was driving into Scotland from England and at the border he saw a sign which said "You are now entering Scotland - no salad for 200 miles!" Now I am a very proud Scot and of course there are somethings we need to get sorted out our health for one - but I found that hilarious. Now when you enter the Gibraltar straits on the Aftrican side there is a very large "sign" (writing in the mountainside)  I dont know what it said but my crew got out of control with ideas about what it said - and guess what? - I cant tell you any of them, because although hilarious it would be badly mis interpreted and we would be accused of things we are not - so have a go yourself but dont tell anybody or laugh out loud.