13th Oct 2008

The 50 miles from Fuengirola was done in company with Sheer Fantasy but they only stayed one night in Gibraltar and then moved on to Barbate. Since we arrived here on the 5th Francy & Richard visited with Mick & Irene, they drove up from Vila Real (in Portugal) and stayed in La Linea – and we saw them on both the Monday & Tuesday. We have been to the Gibraltar museum (Monday 6th) which is £2 well spent – the exhibition is very good and includes a 15 minute video of the history of The Rock from its birth, it is easy to spend half a day in there and would be impossible to take in all the information in one visit. Wednesday we walked round to Catalan Bay on the East (Med) side of the Rock and then on the 9th we walked up the Rock to visit the Great Siege Tunnels and the Moorish Castle but you can’t buy tickets for the individual places and must buy an £8 ticket (each) which covers 4 tourist places which are spread all over the Rock and not easy to do if you are on foot.
We had been expecting some bad weather to arrive during the day on Friday and it gradually strengthened until overnight it became storm force 12. Beaufort says that is winds greater than 63 knots and the boat opposite us recorded 80 mph so it was BIG wind, which eventually died down about midday on Saturday. There couldn’t have been anyone sleeping in the marina that night – we were up tending to ropes & fenders to make sure that we didn’t hit the cement wall ( which we were ‘bows to’) or any of the neighbour boats. At times, when the gust hit the side, we were leaned over about 35 degrees and it was quite un-nerving to see it happening to the other boats. 3 boats had their foresails ripped off the forestay and torn with the force of the wind; about 6 or 7 boats had broken the stern-line (big rope, which goes out to a big anchor-chain to hold the boat off the jetty) and several have sustained damage to their hulls and fittings. After the high winds – the swell came surging in and the effect was at times worse than with the wind – and caused the boats to range about with even more force which led to violent snatching on the mooring lines. It was at this stage that one boat ended up with it’s stern stuck under the cement pier for a while. It was a long night – one to be remembered (hopefully not repeated)! However, Marina Bay where we are, did not come out of it as badly as Queensway Quay which is very badly wrecked (and several of the boats in there have suffered (expensive) damaged) it looks like a disaster zone with all access piers (except one) broken and sunk, and the water littered with debris. There is also 1 ship (35,000 tonnes) wrecked on Europa Point which had engine failure, dragged anchor and is now broken in two; and another which dragged anchor and went aground in Algecieras. One or both has resulted in a major oil spill which has now closed the port and marinas (which have oil booms across the entrances to keep the oil out). Apart from the wooden spar in the main front cleat breaking and the wind instrument mast-head unit failing – we have suffered no other damage. Yesterday and today have been spent tidying, cleaning and doing some small jobs – and listening to stories of how no one (locals) can remember ever having experienced anything like it in Gibraltar before.