Dead Calm
So much for the good wind yesterday – by mid-afternoon
it had eased significantly, stopping us in our tracks, and by nightfall it
completely died. As we didn’t want
to enter Mohammedia in darkness we opted to sit it out. There was not a breath of wind, the
water was oily flat and the large, lazy swell continued to roll in making for a
very uncomfortable night. It was
eerily calm and quiet, so much so that we almost expected to see Nicole Kidman
and Sam Neill appear. At least
there was a wonderful full moon….so the odd Moroccan in an unlit fishing boat
was easy to spot.
We are now sitting in Mohammedia Marina – a misnomer if
ever there was one. It’s simply a
floating pontoon with a handful of boats on it surrounded by big, smelly, dirty
fishing boats to the NW, a rusting hulk of a barge to the east and huge bulk
carriers noisily loading to the north.
We’ve just had two friendly French speaking custom officials on board
(out comes the schoolgirl French), then two even more friendly immigration
officials and are now waiting Moroccan for coastguard, police, harbour
master….think that’s it. The All
Blacks winning the World Cup has helped – all those who’ve come on board have
mentioned it…one even showed us his version of the haka! Luckily we had a few All Black pens to
give away.
Once officialdom is dealt with we will explore the town
and tomorrow get up to Rabat and maybe even Fez or Marrakesh.
