Gibraltar, at last!

Once in Almerimar, the trip to Gibraltar, the door to the Atlantic, was supposed to be of only 24 hours… no bros, it took us 6 days!!!
With the wind on the nose, and no need to rush anyway, we chose to sail instead of motoring… I am now a specialist of tacking, believe me! 2 hours after leaving the port, and enjoying sailing, we realized the breakwater of Almerimar was… not that far from us…! We did sail many miles but just not in the right direction! Anyway, the rest of the week has been roughly the same, sailing 25 miles a day instead of the 100 we could have done! Far from getting bored, it’s been a perfect experience to learn more, how to tack, trim the sails according the wind direction and strength, and we had some good nights anchored in different places along the coast, tied to a fishing dock with the nice smell of fish close by (!), anchored in an industrial port, or in marinas with delicious hot showers!

On Thursday the 22nd, a serious safety incident occurred… fortunately enough, nobody was hurt and we did have a great laugh after the surprise passed… the pressure cooker imploded, throwing rice all over the place inside the boat! The seal of the lid was not perfectly put and while we were talking before diner, we suddenly heard a massive noise with the pressure going out of the cooker! We all jumped and it took us a few seconds to understand what had happened. The only victim was the one responsible for the mess, George who is now tattooed with two rice beans marks on her forehead! Amazing how rice beans were thrown everywhere, on the bunks on our sleeping bags, on the computer and chart table, inside the fruits and veggies box, dishes, cupboards… all nice and sticky… Michel, who can be a really grumpy guy and gets easily angry (!) was really laid back on that one and cracked up…

Another major event: the change of crew. Jerome did not make it. Even with a patch, he was still sea sick and got off the boat at Gibraltar. We were all sorry for him, but at least he tried, and still had good fun with us. He took the bus back to Marseille to fly later on on to Martinique. Good luck to him, he is a really nice guy.
Life is definitively amazing sometimes. As there was now a place aboard, Mike, George’s boyfriend, who had come to Gibraltar to say good bye to her… finally jumped aboard to sail with us!!! He’s 36 yrs old and English… nobody’s perfect!

Arrived on Saturday morning at Gibraltar, we had a terrible day, with rain, wind and got socked, before enjoying an awesome sunny Sunday. We walked to the Upper rock, the most famous place in Gibraltar, and like 2 years ago when I got off the boat after crossing the Atlantic, I was attacked by monkeys, twice this time! These damned monkeys really don’t like me… or maybe they love me too much…. Actually, what they were interested in was my backpack. The first jumped on it, and fortunately, a guy pushed it away. I was less fortunate with the second one, who saw me opening my backpack, ran towards me and jumped on me! I freaked out, really! Jerome saved me from this going further… and we had a great laugh afterwards… I wish somebody else from the crew would have been the victim so that I could see how it looked like! We saw another guy just going out of the cafeteria who did not have time to take a step further before the monkey grabbed the chocolate bar he was holding in his hands! We had a great day and fun, lots of babies around, playing hard out, jumping everywhere, monkeys preening each other, and we also had the privilege to attend some interesting shagging sessions! Damned monkeys have really quickies! It just began that it’s already over!!!

Anchored on the Spanish side, really less expensive, we enjoyed some tapas, and for Sophie, two yummy ricard (!)… before going back to sailing on Tuesday the 25th of November, heading for the Canary Islands.