Today was fabulous – we’ve made it into the Mediterranean! Having waited in Cadiz for an Easterly storm to pass, we departed from Barbate early this morning hoping for fair winds rounding Tarifa and fair tides along the Gibraltar Strait. Our only other concern was that we might be attacked by Orcas. We had been warned about this by several sailors we’ve met along the way. There have been a number of reports of juvenile male Orcas surrounding sailing boats, diving and ‘nudging’ the hulls and causing a lot of damage including broken rudders. It sounds terrifying! Coastguard advice is to stop engines, drop sails and remain as quiet as possible, sending out a request for assistance. We didn’t really think that this would be a possibility for us until we spoke to a French sailor in Barbate Marina – his boat had been surrounded by Orcas on the route we were taking and he had had to be rescued as his rudder was damaged. Whilst it would be wonderful to see these magnificent creatures, we were hoping that they might have a day off!
Fortunately the day was brilliant. The strong Easterly current in the Strait carried us towards Tarifa at more than seven knots and, as the wind picked up to 25 knots around the headland, we were sailing down wind under just a Genoa at over nine knots! We shot past Tarifa, the most southerly city of mainland Europe, and across only eight miles of water from Africa. The rock of Gibraltar emerged from the haze and soon we were in the bay, flying along, and surrounded by a huge amount of shipping, fast ferries and a submarine.
In no time we had rounded Europa point and were in the Med with no untoward incidents en route. A few hours of sailing northwards took us to the lovely marina at Puerto Duquesa where we celebrated with a glass of Cava. We’ve made a short video to commemorate the trip.
