Today was the day !! We had studied the weather forecast and studied it again. We were on !! We had decided to make the crossing to the continent of Africa (to Spanish Ceuta to be exact).
I headed to the office as soon as it opened to hand back our electricity converter plug and shower block key which were on deposit. This is something we do most days but this day I took Tines – she waited outside whilst I got our deposit back.
As we walked back past the boatyard we saw a boat named “Dorothy” being cleaned, since this was Grandma’s name I felt a smile come over my face, today will be a good day.
We headed out towards Gibraltar in calm conditions but we knew the wind was likely to pick up as we went out into the straits between Gibraltar and Ceuta.
We had fabulous views of Gibraltar rock as we motor sailed past.
We also got great views across to Africa which was surrounded in haze. It would have been nice to see it clearly but we could see the mountain tops clearly, rising out of the mist which seemed so close and yet so far away.
So, on this journey obviously we were crossing a major shipping lane. Which is always interesting.
As we were crossing we found the weather picking up. The swell was more or less as forecast and it was choppy rather than uncomfortable. Every so often a larger wave came upon us crashing against the bow (which Tines hates) in fact we ended up popping her down below as the wind picked up, and up !! Soon we were well over 20 knots and having to motor sail to crash through the chop. It was quite a challenge!
You can’t see 34 knots on a photo, in fact looking back at the shots we took it looks relatively calm but trust me it was a real adventure.
As we reached Ceuta we ended up slightly off the entrance to the marina – and unfortunately due to the tidal conditions it took us an hour longer to get in (but it felt like 3). It was quite a battle against the conditions but we made it to Africa – covered in salt but very happy
The Adventures of Gemini J 