Day 82, Tuesday 4th November 2003

Samsam
Wed 5 Nov 2003 18:01
From : Gibraltar            To : Casablanca

The night passes quietly. Camelia did the watch till 2 o'clock in the morning and I did it from than. We do all on engine as there is no wind at all. During Camelia's watch there were about 12 vessels and during my watch only 3. Either Camelia is keeping a much better watch or she is just unlucky. I think it is the second option. When it is getting light we can see how big the waves are. You do not notice it so much at night because the waves are very long. A Turkish vessel is passing us and when we see it coming, it disappears all the time behind the waves. When he is close, the first mate comes outside and waves at us. Very nice. How differently people behave out on the ocean.
We decide to go to Casablanca to visit Taoufik. He arranged our coming last week. When we arrive close to Casablanca we here on the vhf radio "Samsam, Samsam, Samsam for Casablanca port, Casablanca port". Initially we did not notice it. They ask our eta and to be standby on channel 14. When we arrive we have to report and the port control guides us into the port. We have to go to the end, to the fishingport next to a shipyard. There is a terrible smell from all the fishing boats. When we arrive there are a couple of people waiting for us. We have to berth on a high concrete wall. The wall is full of oil. To get off the boat, we need to climb on some fenders (big truck tyres) and than to climb on the quay.
In the evening we go to Taoufik to have diner. It was very nice, but as I did not sleep since 2 this morning, I was very tired. Around 8 we were back on the boat. The watchman was there and during the night he stayed outside on the boat. Before we go to sleep a custom officer comes to get some sigarets. We gave him a sigar. We were lucky that it was Ramadan, because otherwise we could expect a lot of drunk people at this place.