Cadiz to Gibraltar
Posted at 1:04 AM, Sep. 13, 2005
After staying the night on the check in pontoon at Puerto Sherry ( the office was closed when we arrived - so we did have a free nights berthage) and listened to the noise of a dredge working about 50 meters away from us all night we were pleased to be able to get onto a paying berth and hence away from the noise.
Thursday 8th yet another hot day and clear skies again, Everything seemed pretty quiet around the marina no shops were open and we eventually found it was a religious holiday for the towns in the area (but not across the bay in Cadiz). We got a taxi into the nearby town of Santa Maria and Pam and I did a tour through the Terry sherry caves. Not a name I had heard of but one of the two majors in the area – the other being Osbourne which we would have preferred but it was closed for the day. We did contemplate a bus trip to Jerez de la Fontera to visit Tio Pepe which I last visited 33 years ago but that got to hard. This is sherry country and the locals are not happy at the use of the word by the pretenders in other parts of the world like NZ and Australia – they reckon that action should be taken as was the case with champagne where the use of the word is prohibited unless the wine is produced from the champagne region.
Tried a local café (?) for lunch and had the local seafood. Pam and I caught the ferry for the 10k trip to Cadiz and met up with Jason and Emma. Cadiz a city of some 155,000 people and reputedly the oldest city in Europe (according to there literature) founded in 1150 BC. The city is on a peninsular and only takes about 15 minutes to walk the breadth and 30 minutes the length. Small narrow winding one-way street, fast motor scooters and many churches and statues. Siesta territory well and truly with the shops closing at 1300hrs and re-opening at 1800 hrs.
Friday 9th headed off quite early at about 0830 hrs for the 80 mile sail to Gibraltar. Got the main up and with the wind right astern motor sailed the 25 miles to Cabo (Cape ) Roche. After a while the breeze moved and we were able to get the genaker up which we carried all the way into the entrance to the Straits. After Cabo Roche the next cape was Cabo Trafalgar which is the area that hosted the famous battle and saw the demise of Lord Nelson who now resides in St Paul’s Cathedral. The remainder of those killed are buried in the Trafalgar Cemetery at the end of the main street in Gibraltar. Off the cape which featured quite an overfall and so was quite rough I noticed from the chartplotter that we were headed into a shallow patch down to 1.6 metres so it was a quick hardening up and a move out to sea.
A while later after a quick snooze I checked on proceedings and noticed we were only doing 5.5 knots in about 13 knots – something was not right and an inspection over the stern saw a fisherman’s unwanted (from our perspective) line dragging off the rudder. So down came the genaker, \headed upwind and tried to sail backwards to drop off the unwanted guest gear. All successfully achieved and up went the genaker again and off we went at over 8 knots – much more respectable.
We then had a good 30 mile sail across the next bay to the Spanish town of Terifa which is the southern most town in Europe. It is also home to the 44 metre high lighthouse that marks the northern side of the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar. At this point the Straits are only 14.5 k’s wide across to Morocco and this is the busiest shipping lane in the world. With the tide under us at 2.5 knots and the westerly wind up to 20 knots (behind us) we were making in excess of 10 knots all the way with the main up. Pam at this stage was constantly on the phone trying to get a marina berth for the night as they are very short of berthage in Gib. We finally secured the last berth at Queensway Quay Marina right in the centre of the town which was great and also pretty cheap! Some big Med cruisers here – the first we have come across so far but no doubt the sign of things to come.
The sight of the Rock coming into view over the headland was impressive as was the view of the Atlas mountains in Morocco only a short distance away. A busy harbour and not what we were expecting but once we got into the marina and settled into the local scene it got better. We found that it was the national day the following day and everything was going to be closed so it was off for a major provisioning trip to the nearby supermarket. So much for the other things we were planning to purchase at the chandlers, bike shop etc etc.
It didn’;t take long to decide that we needed another day here to take in the sights.
Cheers
Keith