Passing
through the Straits is one of those mythical navigational feats that leaves its
mark on you. When we bought Mareda, our
plan was to go to the Med via the French canals, saving time and stress. A friend tsk-tsk-tsk’d at our plans, saying
that we had an excellent boat, that we were both good sailors, and that it would
be a real shame to miss out on sailing around the Iberian Peninsula and through
the Straits. That remark planted a seed
(fertilized by equal parts ambition and shame) that led to our decision to take
the long / hard route around Spain and Portugal.
There are
entire books dedicated to strategies for passing through the Straits with a
lightly-motored sail boat. I somehow
missed this in my research for our trip this past winter, but thanks to other
bloggers, I managed to find the most important information to help us plan the
least painful passage possible.
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| Patrick thought it would be funny to have a picture of the French flag flying over Cape Trafalgar, but the flag wasn't as enthused as he was. |
Because of
the busy shipping lanes, the capricious and often ferocious winds, and strong
currents, the Straits has a reputation for being a place where sailboats
can get into trouble quickly. Our first
task was to find a weather window with westerly winds to push us to
Gibraltar. In September, the climatology
tells us that 60% of the winds are northeasterly, and those westerly windows
have been few and far between over the last few weeks. We finally found a 3-day period with light
westerly winds and started looking at the currents.
It turns
out that we are close to the neap tides (lowest tidal coefficients of the
year). The current normally flows from
east to west starting at 3 hours before high-water in Gibraltar, but during the
neap tides, they turn even earlier, starting between 4 or 5 hours before high
water. This is great news as it gives
you an even larger time slot for planning your passage. The currents are also weaker at this period
of time. Extracts from the Straits
Handbook say you can expect 1.5 knots at neap tides, and we had up to 2 knots a
few days before neap tides set in.
According
to friend-of-friends Nick Ellis who posted his passage notes on Noonsite, there
are 2 major pieces of advice to follow: 1) from Barbate to Gibraltar, stay
in-shore of the banks. The currents and
swell are much less confused here and the passage smoother; and 2) take
whatever local weather forecast you trust (we, like he, used wind guru) and
double the forecast for winds at Tarifa; and whatever wind speed you actually have
at Tarifa, double those for the winds you will have leaving the Straits and
rounding up into the Algeciras bay.
Our weather
window of interest gave us light winds (westerly 8 – 10 knots) and eastward
flowing tides over a large range of hours. The last piece of the puzzle was
sunrise and sunset. This is where everything broke down. There was no way to coincide the current
without either leaving in the dark or arriving at dark. Because of the fishing nets and crab pots in
the area and because we didn’t want to miss the beautiful scenery, we worked to
find a solution for day-time sailing only.
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| If you don't put a wind generator park here, you may as well not put one anywhere. 300 days per year of over 30 knots. |
Patrick (he
wants it to be known) came up with the following plan: Cadiz to Barbate, 40 miles of daylight
sailing arriving with a favorable current; Barbate to the anchorage of Isla
Tarifa, 20 miles, all daylight, all favorable current, arriving at sunset and
leaving at sunrise; then about 18 miles from Tarifa to Gibraltar, from sunrise
to around noon, all light, all favorable current.
I would
highly recommend this strategy except for one caveat: the anchorage at Tarifa is uncomfortable even
in good conditions. You have to anchor
far enough into the bay that you don’t disturb the high-speed ferry
traffic. A pilot boat comes out every hour
to secure the zone for the ferries, and apparently we were deemed inoffensive
since they left us alone (a relief after our experiences in Rota). We arrived half-an-hour before sunset and
left before sunrise. The holding is
excellent but we rolled all night long.
That, combined with the anxiety of the coming passage, led to a
mostly-sleepless night.
** note: we were told a few days later by a sailing school instructor from Gibraltar that we were very lucky to have been able to anchor in the harbor at Tarifa. Apparently anchoring there has been banned since last year. They had too many problems with boats impeding the passage of the ferries. I suppose they let us slide through since we arrived at sundown and left at sunrise.
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| Refreshments in Tarifa with the sun setting on Africa in the background. |
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| "Africa is just over my shoulder !" |
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| Leave room for the high-speed ferries in Tarifa harbour. |
But let's start from the beginning: On the
passage from Cadiz to Barbate, we had 2 1-hour periods of thick fog that were a
bit disturbing, and at the exact moment that the first fog bank hit us, we
heard a loud and repeated “boom – boom – boom”.
After a moment of panic, memory kicked in… this is not the first time
I’ve heard that noise at sea. I ducked
down to look at the chart plotter: we
were in a military firing range. I had
heard Spanish war ships talking on the radio earlier in the day. We have a similar zone in Brittany and were
once chased off by a pilot boat clearing the area before a bombing
exercise. We weren’t disturbed further
by the continual booms since there were lots of small fishing boats around us
and we figured we weren’t in the direct line of fire.
Barbate was
a very nice, nearly empty port with a large supermarket about 15 minutes’ walk
from the port. The big fishing nets that
nearly block the entrance of the port in summer were already gone and we had
smooth sailing on a direct course to Tarifa.
The
handbook got it absolutely right. The
previsions were for 8 – 12 knots winds, and we had 18 knots as we approached
Tarifa. The winds grew from 12 to 18
within an extremely short period of time, and thanks to being forewarned, we
put 3 reefs in the mainsail expecting the worst. (We didn’t really think we would need 3 reefs
but we wanted to test our little-used 3rd reef and decided this was
a good time.) With 2 knots of current
pushing us along as well, we were often sailing at speeds of 7 knots with only
the deeply-reefed mainsail. We were
somewhat protected behind Tarifa and doused the sail with 13 knots in the nose
as we set the anchor.
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| Straits sunrise. |
The next
morning, the forecast was for 8 knots of wind.
We had a very variable 10-15 knots as we left Tarifa. Since we had 2 knots of current and the wind
was from 177 degrees behind us, we opted to just unroll ½ the genoa with no
mainsail. This configuration worked well
and allowed us to adjust our sail area as the wind went from 15 to 6 knots,
then back up to 15 again as we progressed down the Straits. Right on time, as we rounded up into the bay,
the wind suddenly accelerated to 18 knots, and did a bit of a pirouette,
turning first to a close reach then falling off to a beam reach. Our lovely tail current went away and even
turned against us slightly. We continued
rolling and unrolling the genoa to adjust our speed to avoid cargoes and
ferries, but as we progressed further into the bay it became necessary to
launch the motor.
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| Mareda, bottom left under Tarifa. Me: "I always thought the Straits would be more crowded. Where is everybody?" Wait till you turn the corner... |
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| ...And there it is: The ROCK ! |
We pulled
into La Linea (on the Spanish side of Gibraltar) and were surprised to find
that it was relatively full and busy, after having had nearly-empty ports since
leaving the Algarve. The waiting pontoon
is the same as the gas pontoon to port as you enter, although after 5 years in
service, the marina has still not put up any sign signaling that it is, in
fact, the waiting pontoon. The dock is
very high and concrete, with large widely spaced bollards rather than cleats,
so it’s a good idea to put your fenders up high and prepare long lines if you
aren’t a 15-meter boat.
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| The most beautiful berth we've ever had. |
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| My wind chute, unwittingly in Gibraltar colors for Gibraltar National Day. |
After lunch
and a well-deserved siesta, we made contact with our new Dutch friends Dorette
and Victor sailing on Mamira Fenna,
who left Cadiz on the same day as us but preferred a one-hop over-night sail to
Gibraltar. Comparing notes afterwards,
they also confirm that the wind was double what was predicted for Tarifa, and
double again for entering the bay at the end of the Straits.
All in all,
we had a very smooth passage. The
anxiety was worse than the actual event, and I wish I could turn that
experience into something that would serve to lessen my anxiety in the
future. My hands bothered me a bit, and
I was slow in some manoeuvers as I tried to use the winch instead of my hands
as much as possible. It’s going to take
some time to get used to new ways of doing things, and unfortunately, the
knowledge that my hands are slow and weak now adds to my fears about sailing in
potentially difficult situations.
We are
THRILLED to be here ! Our berth is the
most beautiful we’ve ever had: a full front-row view of the rock. We learned as we signed in that we were
arriving on the eve of Gibraltar Day and festivities are in full swing. The port is modern and comfortable,
attractive and CHEAP ! After having paid
around 32 euros per night for most of the ports in the Algarve and southern
Spain, we are in this beautiful spot for less than 20 euros / night. For a 30-euro fee, we have internet on the
boat, we have a large farmer’s market about 15 minutes from the port, and of
course, we have Gibraltar and all that duty-free fun at our doorstep.
After a
week of research to decide where to leave the boat for the winter, we’ve
decided to winter-over here in Linea.
The marina prices and travel prices from Malaga are much better than
anything else we’ve seen along this coast (even though it’s still expensive… 7
months costs the same as 1 year at home).
It is a strange mixture of sadness and relief to think about leaving the
boat already, but staying here will save us more than 1000 Euros compared to
pushing on up the coast. In the
meantime, we are really enjoying Linea / Gibraltar. It’s the first time we’ve experienced “house
boat living” where we stay in one place for 3 weeks. It’s calm, friendly, beautiful, and we have
lots of tourism and entertainment options around (but note: it’s important to
have bikes here !). We have made friends
here and we, of course, have lots of work to do to prepared the boat for 7
months of abandonment.
It feels
like an abrupt ending to the first leg of our big Mediterranean adventure, but
sailing is all about patience and opportunity, n’est-ce pas? We’ve packed a lot of experiences into the
last 4 months and feel better prepared for the next leg of our journey. We’ll call that a successful season.
