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The stay in Gibraltar
Dag 127 - 150 Gibraltar I stayed onboard the first two days when I was anchoring, since I do not have a dinghy which can bring me safe and dry ashore. My 25 years birthday where therefore celebrated quietly onboard September 5th. I didn’t feel alone though, because all my friends and family called me during the day. I was also called up by the local radio station which brought me warm greetings from home.
It was hard to find a suitable dinghy in Gibraltar, so I invested in something way cheaper and bought myself some frogman’s feet. Those who use dinghy ashore have problems with their dinghies getting stolen or exposed for vandalism. So my frogman’s feet have easily kept me away from such problems. With my waterproof bag containing dry clothes, I could get back and forth to the shore whenever I wanted. When you walk from La Linea on the Spanish side to Gibraltar you have to cross the border control. For those who pass by car the waiting time can get up to 2 hours. One of the reasons for that is that the road is going straight through the airport, so the traffic has to stop whenever there is a plane coming or going. For us who are just walking over, this will only cause a couple of minutes with watching a plane in action at only around 100 meters distance.
Down here the wind blows usually one week from the east and then one week from the west. It’s seldom totally cloudless, because the characteristic mountain The Rock in Gibraltar is a big producer of clouds. The horizon is also often covered with mist. The Spanish people live in a very comfortable rhythm. They work until 13.00, and then they take siesta and the most of the shops keep closed until 17.00. When the shops close again at 21.00 the restaurants fills up with hungry people. Sunday and Monday the most of the shops are closed. The day had arrived, September 19th Vidar arrived. Now we are two persons onboard who can lead the boat safely to the bottom of the sea :). He brought with him much electronics: satellite phone, emergency beacon, handheld VHF, GPS, camera and video camera. So even though it is a small boat, she is filled with stuff that will help us find all the beautiful islands the ocean can offer. Vidar arrived in a rental car, so we got a whole day were we could use it to explore. We drove Gibraltar from north to south and from top to bottom. We also drove along the Spanish coast to Benalmadena. The next days were spent on finding place onboard for all the equipment. We have to think about the weight distribution and the boat gets quickly a little heavy on the aft end and another challenge is that the most of the stowing compartments are on starboard side.
Saturday September 22nd was a day with a lot of exercise. We walked to Spain and then took a bus to a shopping mal where we could shop food for the trip to the Canary Islands. A big shop led to a lot of searching to get everything we needed. When we were finished we had 2 shopping carts filled with food and other stuff. We wanted to take a taxi down to the boat, but taxis were not allowed to cross the border, so it had to stop outside the border control. From there we had to carry all the bags through the customs. Vidar had to guard the bags on the Spanish side while I went into Gibraltar several times and then out through the other customs to get back to Spain. Our arms became very long, but we were still not finished. All the bags needed to be carried out of the customs building again and into a new taxi on the Gibraltar side. When we finally got all the things onboard we took a well deserved rest.
Now the boat is ready, the food is bought in and all the equipment has got a space. We are only waiting for the westerly wind to stop so it can start to blow from east again. Then we will set the sails and head towards Morocco and then Lanzarote. Pictures from this leg can be seen here. |
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