La Linea, Spain (Gibraltar)

Position:   36:09.27N 5:21.32W

La Linea, Spain.

September 18th, 2013

There was just one hope left before we would have to think about anchoring until space opened up. La Linea.

The marina in La Linea is on the Spanish side of the border, next to Gibraltar. Les asked over the radio if they could berth us???

“Yes we have a berth.”  Came the reply.

There were huge sighs of relief. Having sailed for 8 days and almost 1000 miles we really didn’t want to anchor! 
What a gem of a marina it turned out to be, it’s new, deep and they employ friendly caring staff who spoke really good English. We were given a super uncluttered berth. We moored bows in.

The highlight though?
When we sat in our cockpit we would look directly at the rock! ..with nothing in front to spoil the view. Much much better than one of the berths in the Gibraltar marinas!

We were so pleased we were given such strong “Negatives!”

The first job was to clean the boat.

Our next job was to access the damage to the boat.
The companion doorway was making a horrible noise when opened.

The satellite phone wasn’t working

The satellite data connection had failed.

There was a diesel leak on the starboard tank that needed to have its flange changed.

The main bilge needed to be washed of diesel spillage.

The 110 Volt system had packed up.

There was seawater inside the salon area on the shelf, which had discolored it.

Both lazarette bilge alarms were going crazy.

The jib sail was chaffed from the genoa sheets.

Over the next few days ceiling panels were taken down, floorboards taken up, Bob sprayed water on all the windows while John watched for leaking.  Nothing.

The 110Volt invertor had shorted due to the water leak getting into the plug on the shelf. John found the fault dried everything took a plug from our bedroom to replace the shorted one. 

The marina was excellent and very safe. 
Our plan was to stay a few days and to see Gibraltar, Seville and Grenada, then, sail on tot Rabat on the west coast of Morocco. Rabat is a tricky entrance, because the marina requires entry only at high tide over a sandbank - and following a RIB. If the swell was to large entry then entry is not possible.  There was another problem. The wind for the next 7 days were forecast to be blowing from the west making the journey out of the straight very difficult. Potentially wind and current against us.
We decided that as this marina was comfortable, secure and safe we could make a trip to Morocco by ferry from Tariffa and enter Morocco at Tangiers, then take a train around the most important sights in Morocco.

Bob & Cathy went off to find a travel agent and see what we could achieve.
We had 3 weeks before we had to arrive in Madeira for Bob & Cathy’s flight back to Canada.  The sail from Gibraltar to Madeira would take 4 to 5 days depending on the wind.  We had lots of time.
We managed to get a fun trip planned. An overnight train to Marrakech and spend four nights sightseeing from a hotel in Marrakech. When we returned we still had time to visit Grenada and Seville!

Over the weekend John worked all the boat issues out and ordered parts.  Bob & Cathy popped into Gibraltar to tour the Rock (which John & I had done last September). 

The next few evenings we walked into La Linea, what a delightful town.

Very Spanish non-touristic and the BEST Tapa bars in Spain!  We were really enjoying the wonderful food and wine in town.

Four meals, three bottles of wine and a cost of 40 Euros.

Would we ever leave here!