Friday 4^th, Saturday 5th, Sunday 6th & Monday 7^th September

Friday was altogether a rather more exciting day, firstly with the anticipation of the arrival of the Fleet Broadband kit. The TNT tracking had the parcel somewhere on route between here and Seville and a phone call to the local office ascertained that they were in a van parked in a compound on the Spanish side of the Gibraltar border. But they might as well have been on the moon!

TNT promised to let us know as soon as they arrived, but under pressure promised to call the driver for more information and let us know. Which they didn’t follow through.

We rang again at 12.00 and were told that nothing had changed but they expected the van to come through around 2.00 pm or a bit later. We pointed out that the Customs (like so many institutions here) closed at 2.30pm and given that it was Friday and they did not work weekends, we were going to be stuffed for another three days. We rang again at 12.45 and this time they announced that the van was on the move at which point Steve, who had gone through all this the day before with UPS, asked if it would help if we got down to customs ourselves and did all the paperwork ahead of the arrival of the goods. Yes, this was a good plan and so we jumped on our bikes and peddled for all we were worth across or rather around,  Gibraltar. Never did quite work out one of two of the road junctions as we ignored most signs and made our way directly to the border. For those of you who have never been here, the ‘Rock’ is separated from Spain by a narrow strip of land on which lies the airport; its runway stretches right across from sea to sea. As we approached the runway the lights turned to red and it looked like we were going to have to wait for a plane to land, however it turned out that they just have a traffic management system that stops waiting traffic building up across the runway and within a few minutes we were back on our way. It turns out that Steve did not have precise details of where we were headed, but in due course we made our way round a police barrier (“sorry, in a hurry!”) to the distant customs building. This is a two storey shed and downstairs are the handling agents, one of whom was going to help us. We found them eventually and were told that the packages had arrived and that all would be well once the paperwork was complete. They told us to go upstairs to the customs office and to complete a form there. Steve, who as, I said, was now a veteran of these things, suggested that we would just be sent back down by the customs to get the form completed by the agent and it would cost us £10. They agreed that this might be the case and so we just handed over the tenner and they filled in the form for us there and then. This took the nice lady less than 30 seconds and we were off again, this time to see the customs man. We queued for a while before we were dealt with and all went well. Back on the bikes again and now we had to cycle back across Gib, past the marina we are moored in to the far end where TNT have their office and depot. Finally arrived there, hot, sweaty and a little fraught. They were very pleasant and helpful and promised to drop the packages round in an hour or two. We must have looked a little desperate at this point as the manager had a rethink and asked if we wanted to take them with us now. I pointed out that we were on bikes and he made the best decision of the day when he got the packages put into an empty van, along with us and our bikes and so we made our triumphant return to the marina in the back of a battered transit van.

So all we had to do now was unwrap the stuff and install it.....  This required all sorts of other bits and pieces, some of which could not be bought until Monday and even then, Gibraltar has turned out not to be the place to buy much in the way of electrical kit! We did at least get the local stainless steel fabricator (Metal Mikey) to turn up on late Friday afternoon so he could see what needed to be done to mount the domes. He went off and suggested that he might have the work done on Saturday, but it sort of depended on whether or not he went to work on Saturday... He then went off and we found him a little later sitting in the Waterfront Cafe drinking coffee so clearly he felt no urgency in our case. However he did return the next day with the jobs done, mostly slightly wrong admittedly, but it was a start. He went away again suggesting that it should be possible to get it put right immediately, but we found him in the cafe again and the work was not corrected until Monday.

We had better luck with the firm that Steve contacted about crimping up the aerial cable end and their man arrived pretty much on time on Monday afternoon. (Steve bumped into him at lunchtime in the marina office around the time he was due, but he said he had to go to the waterfront cafe for a coffee first.)

A large part of Monday was spent cycling to and fro trying to buy small items like crimps and wire etc. but the availability of stuff and the vague opening hours makes it all very hard work. Part of the town follows the government offices example and work ‘Summer Hours’ which are 8.00am to 2.30pm. Others work normal hours and then there is the moving feast that is lunch. Either way I managed to arrive at the wrong places at the wrong times all afternoon. (It is a bit like Malta where Business to Business companies sort of keep normal office hours, whereas retail take a siesta. This means that some shops will stay open until 5pm where other only reopen at 4pm so if in doubt you get to rush around madly between 4 and 5 just in case.)

Finally got the sat phone installed and working on Monday night, but it was not until Tuesday morning that we were able to add the computer and email etc. to the list of jobs done.

In the meantime the weather has now set against us leaving for a few more days so we are likely to be here at least until Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.

Meanwhile Chris and Sarah have been haunting Morrisons (the so-called superstore, which in the UK would be an average type supermarket!) as they ponder purchases for the Atlantic crossing.   Sarah has braved the hairdressers here – weirdly, hairdressers as a breed only speak Gibraltese.   And the result was  an all time record so far:  £6 and 15 minutes including wash, and actually a very good cut whilst the stylist carried on a bellowed conversation with the whole salon!

We were joined here in the marina by Nimue with Mike and Anne on board. Nimue is a Contest 44 and is almost identical to Scott Free so there was lots of comparing going on with secret winners and losers on both sides I suspect. Nimue are also crossing the Atlantic at much the same time as us – sounds like it could even be described as busy – and are booked into the same marina as us in Lanzarote whilst we fly home in October. They left on Sunday just ahead of the weather change lucky things.