Sailing to Gibraltar

Benalmádena beach by the marina   

We had a busy morning washing down BV and working with the sailmaker to measure her for her new mainsail before leaving Benalmádena marina at 1235 on Monday 21 August for the 55 mile passage to Gibraltar.

Costa del Sol

Costa del Sol

Calm seas   

A flying fish    

Our route took us along the Costa del Sol with its busy beaches and high-rise holiday accommodation blocks. Sadly, this was a motoring passage with not a breath of wind blowing over the oily smooth sea.

Quite often during our passages in the Mediterranean we have disturbed flying fish which have shot away from BV flying just above the surface of the water for about 50 metres. We did the same during this passage but for the first time I actually had my camera in my hand and managed to get a photo of one of them. It’s not the best photo and quite grainy having been blown up but I was pleased to have finally got a shot of these elusive fast-moving targets!

(top) Punta de la Torre Nueva and (bottom) typical coastline with villas   

Ten miles down the coastline we passed Punta de la Torre Nueva and from here were able to set course directly for the southern tip of Gibraltar. The coastline view had changed slightly and it was now covered in villas rather than hotels and there also seemed to be a lot of golf courses. Heading directly to Gibraltar meant that the coast gradually diverged away from us and we lost the detail in the haze. We kept our fingers crossed for some wind but that looked less and less likely.

However, five and a half hours after we had left Benalmádena we were finally able to switch off the engine and, with the MPS hoisted, made good progress in the now 12 knot wind.

 

We were also going fast enough to provide some entertainment for a school of dolphins…

… which added to the fun of sailing!

Gibraltar appears from the haze ahead of us    

As the sun got lower in the sky the distinctive shape of ‘The Rock’ (capped by a cloud) appeared out of the haze and we started to pick up the mass of AIS signals from the ships anchored just to the east of Europa Point.

As we got closer, we picked a route through these anchored ships whilst watching the dramatic cloud formation capping and obscuring the peak. Looking ahead we could also see what looked like quite strong gusts of wind on the water to the south of the high ground. A cautious approach seemed prudent and so a mile or so away from this disturbed area we dropped the MPS and switched to white sails.

Passing Europa Point, the southern tip of Gibraltar   

Rounding Europa Point our caution proved well-founded. Not only did the wind increase as it was squeezed past the headland but it also changed direction dramatically. Just a few hundred metres north of Europa Point on the western side of Gibraltar there were some very strong downdraughts and thereafter we were sailing north on a steady course but with the wind moving round such that we experienced every point of sail from close hauled to a broad reach. We weren’t the only ones being affected; Gibraltar and Algeciras Bays were full of anchored ships all pointing in different directions because of the variable wind.

La Linea anchorage   

At the top of Gibraltar Bay, just north of the frontier, is the Spanish town of La Línea. There is a large sand bay there to the north of the marina and, provided that you keep well clear of the approaches to the marina, you are allowed to anchor. We crept into the anchorage and worked our way between the half a dozen other yachts there to find a good space. It always amazes us how many yachts choose not to show an anchor light and on this occasion 3 of the anchored yachts were showing no lights but at least they were all backdropped on the highly illuminated background. We crept past most of them and dropped the anchor in 5m, as close in as we really wanted to go. The log records that at 2200 we shut down the engine, our final passage in the Med for, we anticipate, quite some time complete.

Gibraltar