Archiv

CW37 2001

09.09.2001 - 15.09.2001

Today is Sunday, September 9 and we're still at the Costa del Sol in a bay before La Herradura. After a relatively quiet night we take it slowly today. We've been trying to decide, how our route should continue, should we go to Marbella or not. We've considered and reconsidered. But for a good dive we can skip Marbella, can't we? We already noticed yesterday, that there ought to be a good dive spot nearby, since one rubber dinghy after the other passed us to drop off divers about 500m away from us.
Boats manned with more than 20 divers. There's something going on there!
We wait till noon and it really calms down around the dive spot. That's our clue. Into the dinghy and off we go.
We go on a beautiful half-hour dive. We see big shells and an extremely large starfish and loads of beautiful, colourful fish that come very close to us and swim along with us.
That was really nice! Back aboard we rinse and dry our diving equipment and put it away. Not much more happening today.
In the evening, about 7 p.m. there's a roar in the bay and a rather big ship comes towards us, kind of looks like the navy. They pass us rather closely but then disappear behind the next cape. Less than 30 minutes later a rubber dinghy comes speeding towards us. There are 4 men on board and they do want to see us. By the time we made them out they already went alongside and two of them are aboard. Friendly but firm they tell us that they are custom officials and want to check our ship.
Well, lets get started. Passports, ships papers, where we come from, where we're going to, etc. etc. One of them walks all around our ship then they thank us quite friendly for our co-operation and take off again.
We take a deep breath. A rather weird feeling when 4 armed men race towards you and come aboard. Well, it probably wasn't the last time. But as a reward we get a beautiful sunset.

Today, Monday, we want to tackle a longer leg, so at 8am we weigh anchor and take off. We set sail and that really gives us one knot extra speed. But hardly 10 minutes later the wind dies away again. So we bring the sail in and the fishing rod out. Apparently there are willing fish here. The bait hasn't been in the water for quite half an hour and already a fish bit. Not exactly a big one, but with another one of this size it'll be enough for a dinner for two. And therefore the rod immediately goes out again. I know, this sounds as if I were making it up, but in less then another half-hour the next fish is hooked. Bringing in the line we realise that this one is one of the smaller ones and since it's till pretty alive it can go back into the water. And we do have another fish in the freezer, so that will also do.

And, what is the nicest thing one can encounter while sailing? Exactly, dolphin. And there they are again. We haven't seen in any for quite a while. First there are only two, then there are more. They come from all directions. We count 10 that actually really swim with the ship. Between the hulls, next to the hulls and beneath the hulls. They jump out of the water and are back besides the ship in no time! These beautiful animals swim with us for 15 minutes, until they hear a fishing boat roar along behind us. And since dolphins are known to be very intelligent they seem to understand that this noise can mean danger to them and they disappear.
These fishermen work with long drag-nets and those can be dangerous to dolphins.
It's already after 12 o'clock as we slow down so we can finally have some breakfast without the coffee spilling all over us, because once again we've got the wind coming directly towards us and an unpleasant swell. So we do get rocked around quite a bit. Same for the next 15 N.M. before we get to Torremolinos where we try to anchor, after all we're fighting against 25 knots of wind from in front of us, and that's really no fun. But here at Torremolinos doesn't seem to be a good spot to drop anchor, so we drive on for a while till we get to Benalmadena. There we make our way through the countless and useless buoys alongside the bay and finally drop anchor in the Northeast of Benalmadenas harbour.
The anchor holds and it's somewhat protected. Towards the evening, after all the jet-skis and other loud stuff have disappeared, it finally does calm down. 11pm, time to go to bed. Actually!
But unfortunately not for us. The wind has turned completely and is getting stronger all the time. For us that means that we can't stay. So we weigh anchor and leave. Which means travelling through the night and that straight to Gibraltar.


Tuesday morning, 1.20 a.m. The moon rises and Thomas hits the bed for a few short hours. Since the moon is unfortunately very small it's pretty dark today and there's hardly anyone around. A freighter appears far away and later a sailing boat, but that's it. The nice thing is, we're sailing. Only the fock is set so we sail along doing about 6 knots. Since the wind is getting stronger we have to make the fock smaller which means that poor Thomas can't sleep through. After that he gets another hour of sleep and at 3.30 am he's back.
Later I'm also aloud to get some sleep. At 7am Thomas can lie down again, but an hour later he wakes up because I start the engine. Absolutely no wind any more and the sail is collapsing. In no time and then the wind turns again completely and the sun rises behind us.
4 hours later we reach the Europe Point of Gibraltar and an hour later we moored alongside the Queensway Quay Marina.
We made it!
In the afternoon we find out where we can do our laundry, go shopping and then we also need a few new sea maps, so we make our way to town.
But what we learn there is terrible.
In the TV sets in pubs and shops we see the horrifying news on the attack of the World Trade Center in America. Terrible!


Wednesday morning and the flags everywhere at halt-mast and yet, life goes on, and it must, but the situation is scary. There is only one topic, the terrible attack.
We also carry on. The ship needs to be cleaned, the laundry done etc. Then we go back to town to order the necessary maps, so we can pick them up tomorrow.


We're having visitors today. It's Thursday and Andreas Müller (Andi) from Germany is arriving.
Andi will accompany us for the next two weeks and he's coming aboard today.
Since we only got few updates on news and since they don't have German newspapers here and the English ones are mostly rather bad, more like the German "Bildzeitung", and the reception of the "Deutsche Welle" (a German radio program) is really bad, Andi is, so to say, also bringing the latest news.
It's obvious that the whole thing isn't over yet, but what will come?
In the afternoon we take off to pick up our maps and inspect the vegetable market, so we'll know where to shop tomorrow.
We all have a few errands to run before we go out for dinner together in the evening. Here, in the British part of Gibraltar the clocks tick differently form what we got used to in Spain. The shops close at 6pm and the restaurants serve food till 10pm and drinks till 11pm and then it's all over.
We had an excellent dinner in a restaurant right next to the marina, only 5 steps from the ship.
The restaurant is called Waterfront and can be strongly recommended. Great!

Friday is shopping-day! But first we go on the big rock-tour. That's what they call the tourist attraction in Gibraltar. A tour with a bus or taxi to the top of the mountain of Gibraltar. There we visit St. Michaels Cave, the Europe Point, drive all the way to the top where mountain monkeys live in freedom and take a few steps into a tunnel that was manually dug out of the rock here some years ago - which took the workers 1 year. There are old cannons, pointing in all directions, placed in this tunnel. If you look down the mountain from in front of the tunnel you see rather new cannons though, and that does give one a strange feeling.

Raising your gaze again you can look straight across into Spain. Gibraltar's airport and then already the boarder with Spain. St. Michaels is huge stalactites cavern with stalactites a few meters long and stalagmites a few metres high. One of the stalagmites fell over and its cross-section can be viewed. It's amazing what nature creates in a few million years. Back at the starting point of our tour we go back aboard for a short while and then off to the supermarket. There's only one thing to say about shopping in Gibraltar: expensive! After the shopping comes the usual cleaning up and putting away and then the day is almost over. In the evening we take a little snack and that's it.

Speaking of snacks: it's time for our culinary expedition.
Not a snack, but a tasty ayurvedic recipe:

Rigatoni with spinach

Today no measurements are given, this meal can be cooked as needed and to taste.
- rigatoni noodles cooked (al dente) and set aside
- heat a pan with olive oil,
add pepper and garlic (slices),
a rasped apple and
spinach leaves
cook till the spinach collapses,
roast pine seeds in a second pan,
add the rigatoni and enjoy the pine seeds melting into the noodles.
Enjoy!


Today is Saturday, September 15, and actually we wanted to leave today, but unfortunately the weather is against us. There's a storm with wind force 8 going on in the Straight of Gibraltar and the hurricane Felix is heading for the Azores. So we stay in the marina for another day and wait for better weather. We use this day to do a few jobs on the ship.
In the late afternoon we get ready and go to Spain. As I mentioned before, Spain, the city La Linia, is right behind Gibraltar's airport.
The beginning of our walk takes us through the streets of Gibraltar and then we continue right across the airports landing runway . The (only) street leading to Spain also goes right across the airports landing runway and every time a plane lands or takes off the street gets shut down completely.
Funny. We've just arrived on the other side of the runway as a signal sounds and the barriers close. A plane is landing. Wow!
The last picture above gives an overview of the airport, the street, the border and La Linia!
The traffic on the airports left and right stands still and plenty of pedestrians, like us, stand behind the barriers and watch the plane land on the actually rather short runway. A real experience!
The signal sounds again, the barriers rise and the traffic starts rolling again.
We also continue our walk and, like good children, show our passports at the border. You know, that's really quite amazing: we do have a European Union and both the Spanish and the British belong to the EU, yet we still have to show our passports. Spain wants it that way!
So, now we're in La Linia. And where are we going to go now? We're not going anywhere, we're driving. Right in front of our noses stands one of those miniature locomotives with 4 wagons and tourists from a tour bus are getting on. So we smuggle ourselves into the group and also get onto the mini-train, and off we go. The trip through La Linia is a little over-dramatised, but also amusing. It seems that this is a new attraction here since the locals in the streets shout and wave at us and seem to be really enjoying this.
Back at the tour bus everybody gets on and we disappear and make our way back to Gibraltar on foot. To strengthen us we take a nice cappuccino in the no-traffic zone and then we go back to Gibraltar, crossing the border and the landing runway.
Today a rock concert is given on a square on the main street and that's where we go. We're quite surprised as we arrive. A stage, a band and actually six people standing in front of them. In the cafes and restaurants there are a few more people, but apparently this concert doesn't interest anybody, weather young or old. Actually a pity.
So we also go and get some food and then we make our way back to the boat. For, if we're lucky, and the weather gets better we can leave for the Canaries tomorrow, meaning travelling for 5 days and nights.
So we say bye for today and this week.

To see what the next week has brought us...... see us here next week, same place same wave!

So long