Our arrival at La Linea felt like a weight had been lifted as we were finally through the high risk Orca attack areas. News came in that a boat had been attacked in an area we had sailed through the day before which was sobering, yet justified the prep work and course we sailed which wasn't the best of fun at the time. After a good rest in La Linea marina we headed into town to explore, a very small central area was interesting with some good photo opportunities. We were both looking forward to heading into Gibraltar, whose marinas, despite our constant nagging over the radio, still didn't have a berth for us, so a bus/walk across the Gib airport runway was required. We had a part to collect from a chandlery in the afternoon but we made our way up the mountain via cable car to explore the sights and history of the area in the morning. Walking around the nature reserve reading the various plaques explaining significant events was interesting and the monkeys were well behaved and kept their mischievous hands to themselves on this occasion. St Michael's cave was a sight to behold, stalactites and stalagmites everywhere lit up in varying colours creating a dramatic scene.
Although the caves are long known about, there was a section, not open to the public, which was only discovered in the 1940's as Royal Engineers dug more defensive tunnels into the mountain. All in all there are around 33 miles of tunnels in the Rock, must be like Swiss cheese! As we sailed around the point the following day we could see where they all exited the cliff face with fortified entrances. Sadly we didnt have the time or energy to go and see either the siege tunnels or the ww2 tunnels, they are for another time. We walked a very long way in the heat that day, picked up our parts and headed to Ocean Village, first decent pint of British beer for over 2 months !! The fish and chips were to die for too.
Departure day came and we headed off, there isn't much of interest along this coastline so we decided to do an overnight sail (motoring, as there was no wind) All pretty uneventful apart from Nigel having to radio a rather large ship, steaming up from behind at 13 knts, to check if he knew we were just off his starboard bow. He didn't respond, but flashed a green light at us, which we assumed was a yes and held our course. He did adjust his course and steamed off into the distance after crossing our bow after he passed us. Amanda spotted a pilot whale to add to our list of wildlife. We were headed to Almeria so we could check out of Spain but a lack of response to our attempts to contact them meant we ended up 20 miles short in Almerimar marina, thinking we could get a bus to check out in Almeria. This was a mistake as the bus schedule indicated 3 hrs each way! The marina is hot, surrounded by bars and restaurants and not very private so we are heading off to Agualuce tomorrow to get the bus from there to Almeria. It's only a 15 mile sail and the bus from there is only 20mins. Hopefully we will be checked out of Shengen by late afternoon on Saturday. (finally! woo hoo! we have just under 30 days left) We are heading to Tunisia from there, Looks like being a long, slow trip with headwinds for whatever wind appears, the forecast isn't very enthusiastic and we are not putting the engine on anymore!!! It's been a low mileage week this week and we will be making up for that next week.
