Dead Calm

Bandit
David Morgan and Brenda Webb
Fri 11 Nov 2011 10:05
 

 

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.