Rota to Barbate to Gibraltar

Rota to Barbate to Gibraltar

After the visit to Cadiz it was time to start the passage plan to Barbate. We normally start with weather forecasts and, with a lack of wifi, the marina office is a good place to start. We also have a Navtex system on board which provides weather and navigational warnings. With a good forecast we get out the paper charts and look at a route. Our Pilot Book provides some good waypoints so we tend to use these, plot them on the chart, and draw a line between them. This allows us to see if there are any hazards to navigations, such as rocks!

When we are happy that the route looks good, we enter the lat and long into the chartplotter and read back the co-ordinates to make sure we have not made any mistakes. This builds up a series of waypoints which we then give names to.

Waypoints are handy tools as our plotter can provide us with useful navigational information between them: estimated time to waypoint, distance to waypoint, velocity made good to waypoint. It also provides our autopilot with a place to head for.

We use the autopilot a lot, perhaps more than we should. But, most of our recent trips have involved motor sailing, so it means that one of us can go off watch and rest, or maybe head for the galley to make a snack, or go to the loo!

With the forecast looking good for Barbate, we slipped the mooring lines just before 7am and motored for a while in flat calm conditions, until the wind picked up enough to get the main sail out, but not enough to switch the engine off.

It wasn’t until 10am that the wind had increased enough to turn the engine off and we un-furled the genoa and settled down for what we hoped would be a nice sail. Sadly, the wind was right on the nose for most of the way, and with the tide against us, we made pretty slow progress.  It made for fairly lumpy seas too, especially when we passed the headland Cabo Trafalgar.



Choppy seas around Cabo Trafalgar

We arrived at Barbate at just after 3pm and headed onto the waiting pontoon which has only enough room for one boat at a time. As we checked in we asked if the weather would be good to sail to Gibraltar the next day. We had heard so may people tell us that you go to Barbate and wait for the Harbour Master to tip you the nod when it is safe to head through the Straits. We are not sure if this is an urban myth, but on the day of arrival all we had to go by was a printout of the next days forecast in Spanish. Duly translated it looked OK and the fog/mist around Gibraltar would lift by lunchtime.

Scarlet Lady in Barbate marina

As it was getting towards early evening and perhaps with more than a little apprehension about tackling the Straits, we decided not to go into town. We topped up the water tanks (this is the last place we will use for some time where water is not metered), and ate onboard before putting the final touches to the passage plan and had an early night.

The Straits have a formidable reputation and not since the build up to Biscay had we slipped the lines with so much trepidation.

Leaving Barbate in glassy calm seas

We left before lunchtime to make sure we got a favourable current for most of the journey. If conditions deteriorated enroute, we knew that we could pull into Tarifa, but we also knew that for 300 days of the year the wind blows in excess of 30 knots there. Great if you like kite surfing! However, we got to Tarifa on what must have been one of the other 65 days of the year, in totally flat calm conditions! Of course this also meant little wind so we continued under engine. A couple of hours later we managed to get some sailing in but it was not long before the engine was back on again.

Tarifa

We were now in the Straits of Gibraltar and it was busy! There were not just huge container ships, fast ferries and cruise liners (thankfully all in the shipping lanes), but all manner of small fishing boats nearer the coastline. It was only about an hour later when we made out a huge fog bank ahead. Gulp!

With the fog bank heading towards us, we realised that if we turned back to Tarifa we would still end up in the fog, as it would probably overtake us. We opted to carry on but slowed down and switched the radar on.

For most of the time the visibility was not too bad and the radar worked a treat, picking out the numerous small boats at anchor and one or two heading towards us. This was the first time we had used the radar outside of a classroom and the MARPA (mini automatic plotting aid) facility is simply amazing. It allows us to track up to 10 targets at a time.

At one stage, visibility was down to about 30 metres and our progress was now down to a crawl. It was really eerie hearing lots of fog horns all about us but not being able to see anything! But, in what seemed like no time at all, the fog started to lift and Lynne caught sight of the Rock emerging out of the gloom and what a sight it was.

Is that the Rock of Gibraltar?

There it is!

As we turned into the bay, the plotter showed so many dangerous targets that it was easier to try and concentrate on what was going on around us than stare at the screen, other than to check the waypoint to the entrance to our destination at Alcadaisa Marina at La Linea. Just before we got to the marina, we saw a large pod of dolphins.  However, they weren't in the mood to play as they were coralling the fish and having a feeding frenzy. As we were otherwise occupied with all the traffic, we sadly didn't have time to watch this spectacle and take photos.

When we finally made it to the waiting pontoon it was with a sense of achievement. Not only given the conditions, but we were now at the Gateway to the Mediterranean and had come along way since leaving Eastbourne.

We will stay here a while as it is very good value for money and we also want to rest for a bit, catch up with the laundry and do some sightseeing. We also have some friends flying out to see us in September for a week which will be great.

In the meantime, we have the most amazing view of the Rock from our cockpit. The marina appears to be secure and the facilities are OK.

Clouds pouring over the Rock (it was blue skies above the marina!)

We will post more as our time here evolves but for now, it’s off for a stroll and an early night.

Steve and Lynne x