Closing on Gibraltar

Current Location: 70 miles east of Europa Point which is at the entrance to Gibraltar.

We spent last night in Adra Marina on the southern Spanish coast. This is the first marina we have stayed in since leaving Kas in Turkey. Easterly winds were forecast and all the poor anchorages along this coast are exposed to the south and east. We motored in at around 12 noon after a cracking latter half to the passage in flat seas and no wind. We were a few hours ahead of plan as we had picked up strong west going currents taking our speed up to almost 8 knots. This was especially good as the current here is normally east going - that is against us.

Entry to marinas is always stressful for us and this one had a really tight little entrance with some shallows reported. We nudged in and there in front of us was a marina with just one boat in it. We were able to tie up easily alongside. A few minutes later a security guy arrived and I filled in a form for the police - usual stuff including boat details and passport info. He told us that as it was Saturday someone would come round later for payment.

The girls then went off for a coffee and to explore the town (nothing special) while I washed the boat down with free water. Then we did some passage planning trying to tie in the best of the remaining easterlies with the complex currents around Gibraltar. The outcome was we needed to leave this morning to get to Gibraltar tomorrow afternoon.

This morning the wind was as predicted and we rolled out of Adra at around 10.30 after trying unsuccessfully to find someone to pay. Before we could get fenders and warps away we were being bounced about and we wished we had put our harnesses on. Still, no problem, we finally got everything stowed and set off in a rapidly freshening breeze. Before long we were in big seas and the wind was constantly around 30 knots (max spotted was 40 knots but that was as we rolled to one side). Combine that with our downwind speed of 6 knots and we were in gale conditions for three or four hours. Petronella loved it as we watched big rolling 3m+ waves come bowling along to us from almost behind and lift us up to wait for the next one. It was pretty hard to do much but watch it all unfold and try to keep our feet dry as water popped up to join us in the cockpit. We zoomed along the coast which is covered in greenhouses and not very attractive before the wind gradually died to 6 or 7 knots leaving a nasty sloppy swell. We tried everything to sail but in the end the engine came back on. So now we are closing on Gib and I'll post this as soon as we are back in range of the coast again.

Nearly there!