Passage Update

We have arrived in Gib. Well, La Linea really of course but there is a dirty great big rock towering over me which kind of makes it Gibraltar for me. I have cracked open one of the Betty Stoggs and drunk it. Now, in honour of the other Iberian country we visited I am having a glass of a very nice Douro wine we acquired somewhere. As I approached the marina I saw a few boats anchored and was suddenly grabbed by the desire to spend a night at anchor so I will be going into the marina tomorrow. It feels very nice to be at anchor though it is also a bit odd to have finished the cruise. It will take a little while for all of that to resolve itself. I have no doubt though that planning future cruising will be a good antidote to any post cruise blues. As I approached the Bahia de Algecireas which is a better name than Bay of Gibraltar the Mediterranean was looking tantalising beyond Europa Point. It feels both great and rather strange to have finally finished. The inevitable question now is what next. We will have to decide what to do now but we can decide that over the next few months. The passage round from Barbate was a very long and tedious motor into the teeth of a very strong wind around Tarifa. The RCCPF guide says that it blows more than thirty knots of wind around Tarifa for 300 days of the year! I had a good thirty and for a while even thirty five which is technically gale force though it wasn't a gale as the wind was so localised. The seas did not build up much but there were unbelievably short and steep being almost less than a boatlength. This seriously slowed us up especially at first as we had a foul tide – I had allowed as much time as possible. The strangest thing was when we got past Isla de Tarifa. Two miles past, and the wind had dropped from a 7 gusting 8 to a force six. Five miles past and we had a force 3 and no wind at all in La Linea. It was a relief that I did not turn back as I did consider at one point.