Round the world ....... and back!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 26 Oct 2011 15:02
|
Wednesday 26 October 1418 UTC 1518
BST
Wind: Irrelevant...... COG...... northwards in the
next few days SOG Zero at the moment...
On a windless or very light following winds
yesterday for the first time in about six weeks Rhiann Marie shook off an
adverse current and the inflow combined with tide led us as if on air skates
coasting into the Gibraltar Straits. The traffic was quite heavy and there were
a lot of fishing boats around. Trish who is an excellent watch keeper releived
me at the back of midnight and took control until we entered the straights
at 0200, when she called me up to set our course to the south of the shipping
lanes heading east. She had been carried along at speeds up to 14 knots!
I then grabbed a couple more hours then but was
woken with a start by a heavy clunk from the prop. I guess we picked up a rope
and our spur cutter made fast work of it. Trish had been barreling along with
the powerful inflo to the Med carrying us on its liquid conveyor.
The Mediterranean has a constant net water inflow
at the straits. The Mediterranean known to the ancient Romans as Mare
Nostrum (Our Sea) is bound in the West by the fabled pillars of Hercules.
The Gibraltar Rock in Europe to the North and Jebel Mussa in Morocco in
Africa to the South.
In the darkness last night I remembered that the
west facing side of this mount had huge white Arabic letters declaring to us an
unknown message. Angus however when we initially approached two years ago
translated for us. He said it read "you are now entering Africa - please donate
generously!" I found this hilarious but of course is completely politically
uncorrect and all the PC brigade would interpret the humorous comment as being
racist or some such thing. It's for that reason that I am not going to mention
it........ and without anyone knowing what I was laughing at I had a wee giggle
to myself last night remebering the moment...
So along with 1 million cubic metres of water per
second we charged into the Mediterranean in the black of night last night. That
is a shoching amount of gas escaping into the atmospere and I am quite surprised
that a body such as SEPA is not doing something about it. Probably a good start
would be considered to have a conference in Monaco or somewhere to discuss the
"problem".....
We however were only going as far as La Linea at
Puerto Deportivo Alcaidesa. The water that came in along with us is mostly
destined for the skies again as it will replace two thirds of the evaporation
that continually takes place from the Mediterranean. The balance of
evaporation is made up from other water sources such as rivers of which there
are few significant ones, flowing into the Med.
Because of the Straits' constriction to the inflow
to the thirsty "middle sea" the water level is actually 1 metre higher at the
west side of the Med compared to the East side! Depths across the
Strait form a 300m deep cill between the Med and the Atlantic where
depths in the Easten Med are down to 5000metres!
So ....................... after relieving Trish of
her watch duties I crossed the shipping lanes which were not too busy and after
a few hours anchored up without waking her, inside the breakwater of the new
marina on the "Spanish side" and slept soundly till 1000 when we moved into the
marina. There we celebrated our journey's end by starting to scrub, the boat,
get the electricity connected tweak the lines and fenders for a prolonged stay,
did the paperwork and formalities at the marina. Bedding has to be aired and
packed washing to be done blogs and business e-mails to be written
and flights home by the weekend, to be organised.
I will offer some reflections and tell you a bit
about future plans over the coming weeks. First we have to "come down" and let
the reality and wonderous magnitude of our adventure over the past two years
sink in.
Talk
soon.....
|