Fog and apes

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 10 Jul 2008 19:23

Wednesday 9th & Thursday 10th  July 2008

 

Moved yesterday to Queensway Quay Marina which is soooo much nicer and far more secure (Marina Bay had no security at all, allowing any Tom, Dick or Harry to mooch along the pontoons), it even puts up a boom across the entrance to the marina at night.   Perhaps this is also to deter non-payers escaping in the early hours?   But like the majority of Gib, it is also a building site.   Water is metered here as it is de-salinated for the Rock, so Serafina is likely to stay dusty until we move on now.   She is now sporting a well-laundered, polished and re-inflated set of fenders which took hours!

 

We have also decided that we are not going to view the fleshpots at Puerto Banus.   The pilot book implied it was a fairly cheap stop (which did seem unlikely);  it would probably cost £200 for a night’s berth!   We have been working out the next few stops, particularly in the light of height of the season prices and reckon we can get to Palma for the Mastervolt engineer in 8/9 days, and possibly to Sicily within a fortnight, winds allowing.

 

We have also decided that Gib is not as bad as we first reported:  we took the bus (very small mini-bus) up to the World War 2 tunnels.   Normal buses/coaches cannot get up the Rock and, as a lady on the bus pointed out, if you can drive in Gib you can drive anywhere!   The roads are really narrow, parking is at a premium so cars are abandoned anywhere and everywhere, masses of suicidal scooters;  but there is a lot of evidence of some less than successful drivers around.   The narrow streets up the Rock are often very picturesque and the views are unbelievable, particularly today when there has been fog covering the lower levels and the sea, with the occasional mast or crane sticking up out of the fog.   In fact we wondered whether Cathy and Richard’s plane would be able to land (it did).   The fog was announced very early by incessant fog horns from the harbour at 3 am onwards!

 

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Localised fog

 

We didn’t do the whole tourist experience;  it either involved a lot of hot walking or a very expensive  taxi trip (£65), but went for our own personal guided tour (nobody else turned up) into the WWII tunnels which were extraordinary and beautifully cool.   Drilled out by 5000 troops between July 1940 and November 1943, there are some 33 miles of tunnels which housed all the troops, 3 hospitals (treating casualties from N Africa), fuel water and RAF personnel in a small city underground (or rather halfway up the Rock).   The men worked 3, eight hour shift systems, hot bedding with 2 others and for 6 days out of 7 never came into daylight!   Incredibly the Germans didn’t find out about it.   And we saw a Barbary ape at the entrance accepting peanuts from the taxi drivers, standard routine by all accounts.

 

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Barbary ape

 

Rob has treated himself to a smart new (duty free) camera to increase the likelihood of wildlife photos, probably just as the sightings become fewer as we leave the Atlantic, but spurred on by the whale spotting and me, once he gets to work out how to use it!.   

                                                                                                                                                                                            

He also invested in a personal mosi repeller.   Much to his great disgust, after 28 years of relying on his own decoy (me), he has become delectable to mosquitoes.   And I am happy to report that I haven’t been bitten yet.   Is this the best side effect yet of HRT?!