Sailing....

Well that was unexpected. We left a warm, sunny Manchester only to wake up in Alicante to find strong cold winds, rain and lightening. I am seriously worried that I haven't brought enough warm clothes for the trip! I had my one and only thermal jumper on, a t-shirt and my thick sailing jacket, all this underneath a full set of oilskins.

That was yesterday, today is another day; t-shirts and shorts, light winds and sunshine. The only downside is there isn't enough wind to sail. However we had our spirits raised when 3 dolphins came to play in our bow waves today; with the autohelm on, all 4 of us could race to the bows to watch them, leaving the boat to steer itself. A bonus of a catamaran is the netting strung across the front where you can stand and watch the dolphins beneath your feet. What fantastic creatures; I always have time to watch and wonder at dolphins.

Calm seas on the way to Gibraltar

Later that day I was heading off-watch, going below for some down time when an alarm sounded. I headed back up to find the boat stopped with a huge chunk of fishing net wrapped around the port propeller. Another advantage of a catamaran is that they have two engines, only one of ours was stuck at this moment. It stil needed sorting. Luckily I am not the skipper on this boat so I could watch as Simon donned his wetsuit and dived under to free the net. The boat knife was not enough for the job in hand so we used the specialist tool with a serated edge, the bread knife. Suddenly Simon gasped and squealed; there was a dead fish still in the net! Net cleared, Simon back on board, we got on our way again.

Whilst discussing the lack of fuel on-board, (hoping we wouldn't need to refuel until tax-free Gibraltar), the winds picked up and we hoisted the sails. Well this is one way to save fuel. As often seems to be the way, the wind shifted and blew from where we wanted to go. This resulted in us having to tack into the wind, increasing both distance and time. We continued on through the night, Andy completing his first solo watch and continuous journey through the night. I had an interesting moment as the give way vessel to a 600 foot cruise ship a mile and a half away. Even with all of its lights on it was not easy to spot against the lights of Almeria in the background.

So following a lovely sunset, moonrise and sunrise we awoke to another day. We did have to refuel in Motril and unfortunately we continue to motor, rather than sail, towards Gibraltar. The weather is perfect, just not for sailing. More dolphins today, some choosing to play at our bows, others leaping right out of the water and some choosing just to let us pass.

And yet more dolphins; however many we see I never tire of them. The sun set as we glimpsed the hils of the Morroccan coast ahead of us. The coast around the Mediterranean is closing in; the airwaves are getting busy with all sorts of radio traffic, not least a safety announcement to look out for a rubber dinghy with 11 migrants on board. I noted the position and we were relieved to work out that it was over 10 miles from us. It makes the news real. I hope they were able to appreciate the calm seas and numerous dolphins before they were picked up and taken to safety. Hopefully we will have successfully negotiated our way through the busy shipping lanes around Gibraltar, avoided the tidal races around the rock and safely landed by sunrise tomorrow.