And finally the sail day we’d been waiting for. The conditions just as forecast and in our favour.
We left Ceuta in beautiful early morning sunshine and said goodbye (for this time) to the other Hercules as we left the harbour.
We motored out into the edge of the straits, watching the traffic like queue of huge ships passing through and onwards towards the Atlantic.
The conditions were lovely and as soon as we’re were round Ceuta point we put the sails up and turned the engine off. We’re were sailing….and making amazing speeds too (up to 8 knots once or twice)
We spent a wonderful day and the conditions continued until about 15 nautical miles from our destination Fuengirola.
The last couple of hours we were motoring along and just looking forward to getting into the marina. The day had other ideas for us though, just as we were approaching the headland near the port a massive motor boat sped towards us from the distance. Skipper Nigel started moaning about “smokers” and how they always have to come too close. Til we realized it was the Guardia Civil and we were being approached!! Gulp! There followed a few minutes of them circling us, binoculars out, looking on our deck, waving at us, then shouting (yes they were close enough to shout!!) “Channel 72” We duly switched our radio onto said Channel and were asked where we had come from. Ceuta seemed to be an acceptable answer since they then thanked us and sped off into the distance to approach another unsuspecting yacht on the horizon.
After that episode all that remained was for us to navigate our way through loads of fishing nets and pots into the harbour. We finally arrived 12 hours after we’d left and got ourselves into berth since there was no marinero in sight! Luckily Barry the lovely American was back on his neighbouring boat and he jumped off and came to give us a hand. Phew, what a day!!
The Adventures of Gemini J 