Passage to Gibraltar - 28 September
Dearloves
Wed 28 Sep 2005 15:35
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We have covered a total of 1584 miles over two
months, and, having started from Italy, are now in Gibraltar. We saw
some wonderful sights on the way here from Mallorca, including more
whales:
  A very tired house martin flew into the saloon for
a few hours sleep (and left us some "lucky")
  Sunset over the Costa del
Sol
We had nearly two hours of dolphins playing
around the boat at night - we could see them because of the
phosphoresence. They looked as though they were wearing a flourescent
green veil all over their bodies, and left behind them a green wake. They
kept diving beneath the cockpit and coming up on the other side of the
boat. When they surfaced it looked like sparks coming off their
fins. Awesome but impossible to photograph!
On Monday night it got quite rough, with the
easterly wind against the prevailing current coming in from the
Atlantic. Poor Alice was seasick, but she was extremely brave and did not
complain.
We saw more dolphins as we were closing on
Gibraltar. We think there were twelve or so of them and the acrobatics
were stunning:
     Children on bow looking at
dolphins. Gibraltar is just visible in the distance (around 15 miles
away)
 When I took this picture I stood on the transom,
and the waves washed over my feet. I noticed the sea was
much colder - the Med has been 30 degrees C for most of the summer (it dropped
to around 27 recently) but here it is 21 degrees!
On our approach to Gib some soldiers came up to us
in a high speed rib. They said there was about to be a parachute air
drop and asked us to get out of the way.
  As we entered the lea of Gibraltar
there was a beautiful sunset
We have had difficulty getting hold of the
Navionics GPS card that we need for the Canaries - might have to go back to old
fashioned navigation! Alternatively we may spend a few extra days in
Gibraltar while one is sent over from England. We spent last night in
the anchorage - there was lots to see as we were right next to one end of
the runway! Fortunately the planes are relatively few and don't land or
take off at night. We are now in the Queensway Quay marina,
where we have a berth for two nights.
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