By 0200, we decided the wind was confused. It would pick up for a while, then die down for a while. It changed direction often, rotating from starboard to port and back. It was afraid to commit. Seas had picked up some more, but it was still nice ride overall.

By 0230, the seas really picked up out of nowhere and it started to get a little bit rough. If it were head seas, we would definitely be well into the “uncomfortable” category, but since they were following seas, and it was tolerable, but not fun. The stabilizers were working hard and the autopilot motor makes a whirring noise, as it does in following seas. We also hit a bad current against us that slowed us down to high 4’s. Painfully slow, especially for 1800 RPM’s.

By 0400, the wind had picked up another 5 knots. The traffic around us had continued to increase, as did the size of the ships. The seas were getting progressively rougher and more confused. We think all the wakes from the ships is creating the confused seas.

The moon is only ¾ full, but it is especially luminous tonight. The sky is mostly cloudy. The combination of the two is making for vivid effects. For example, the clouds will mostly block the moon. The little bit showing literally looks like a spotlight shining a beam of light on one small section of water, while the water all around it is enshrouded in dark. It looks so much like a spotlight that you can’t help but search the sky for a helicopter. It is surreal. Then the clouds will fully engulf the moon, and it will go completely dark. Sometimes the middle of the moon will be covered, with little bits on the sides peeking out. This makes for an odd illumination of the water below. Sometimes the moon will get behind a lighter, thinner cloud and the whole cloud will glow with a soft, diffused light. And sometimes the moon comes out and for a few minutes and the whole sky lights up, with the water almost glowing in the bright light. You can see almost as well as if it were daylight. The overall effect of the light pattern is in some ways kind of eerie, yet at the same time kind of magical. You can almost envision this as the backdrop of an animated movie: an angel and demon locked in a swordfight fly by above, avidly clashing swords, the clouds moving in as the demon gets a good blow in and the clouds clearing as the angel gets a good blow in. Maybe we watch too many movies.

We could see Gibraltar by the first light. The Spanish coast consists of small, gently sloping hills that look like dark, solid masses behind the gray and churning water. Then the rock of Gibraltar shoots up out of nowhere, tall and ominous and gray, with the top completely enshrouded in clouds. There are a couple dozen or so huge vessels anchored in the unprotected waters near the rock and down the coastline a little ways. It reminded us of Singapore, but on a much smaller scale. But in Singapore, the ships were anchored in relatively calm water. This rough stuff has got to be no fun for the crew on board.

By 0830, the wind had picked up by another 3 knots. The seas were angry and full of white caps. The day is cloudy and gray. We heard an announcement on the radio that no vessels were allowed to transit between a set of coordinates because a salvage effort was underway in that vicinity. A few minutes later, Eric spotted the wreck a huge ship smashed up against the tip of the peninsula, near the Europa point lighthouse. That’s not good. How does something that big crash into a well marked shore?

As we started to round the tip of the peninsula, the seas got bigger and more confused, with sharp 4 foot waves and more white caps than ever. It looked like a cauldron of rapidly boiling water, reminiscent of some of the passes into atolls in the South Pacific. We officially upgraded conditions to “uncomfortable”. And, like the passes in the atoll, we suddenly caught the current and our speed rapidly jumped to 7.7 knots. There were big ships galore all concentrated in a small space, so you really had to be on high alert for possible collisions. We are so glad it is day time. We would be freaking out if came through here at night. Here is a shot of the tip of the peninsula. You can’t see the wreck, but it is close to the lighthouse. The cloud cover is beginning to lift, so you can see the rock pretty well, too. The second shot is our radar screen as we were going around the tip.

And then, in the thick of the discomfort, the port stabilizer stopped actuating in one direction, meaning it would go up, but not down. Oh Lord. Bad time for the stabilizer to stop working. Eric went down and took a look at it. Something was definitely not right. The actuator piece was bumping up against the wall, which means it must have broken and moved. Oh boy. At least the port stabilizer is working. One stabilizer can do 80% as well as two. It is just in these miserable seas, that extra 20% helps a lot.

As we finished rounding the corner into the bay, we could see the city. It is tiny, as we had been told, but just like Mallorca, we are surprised at how modern it looks. The waterfront is lined with mid and hi rise modern buildings, and we are guessing that like Mallorca, they are on recently made land. Rising up behind them is the rock. The clouds had totally lifted, and the top was clear. The lower ¼ looks to be packed with development, the upper ¾ appears to be undeveloped, except for a small fort looking thing about ½ way up and few radio/TV towers at the top. It actually kind of looks like Monaco, except even smaller and more isolated. We also passed a warship on our way in.

By 0945 the wind had picked up another 6 knots. And it was right on our nose. Aren’t bays supposed to offer wind protection? But in our case, the tiny and flat strip of land that adjoins Gibraltar to mainland Spain was straight ahead. No shield from the wind for us today. We proceeded past the industrial area meant for the big boys to the northeast corner of the bay where the small boat berths are tucked in a nook between a quay and the air strip.

Eric radioed one of the marinas and asked if they had space. They did and directed us to a downwind side tie spot. Thank God. It was now 1030 and the wind was up to 25 knots real, even in this “sheltered” area. Docking along the side ties wasn’t going to be pretty, and trying to med moor would have been a nightmare.

We put out a bunch of fenders and got the lines ready. The dock we were going to is on a 45 degree angle. The dock next to it is 90 degrees, and the two docks meet in a triangle at the tip of the quay. It was intimidating looking, because closer up to the point of the triangle there is not a lot of space to maneuver in. But docking turned out to be much easier than expected. The spot was nice and big and the wind was blowing at just the right angle. Once we were close to the dock, Eric let the wind blow us in, and we glided right in, protected by all the fenders. It is a concrete dock similar to the ones in Mallorca and Rome. It is a million times easier to get off on the side, where the walkway is high off the water, than in the back, where we are basically at water level.

Eric went and checked in. The guy took all our paperwork and said he would go to the officials on our behalf. That is a nice bonus. While there, Eric found out that while we were in Rome, there was a hurricane here in Gibraltar with 80 knot winds. The smashed up boat we saw was at anchor. Their anchor chain broke from the force of the wind. The crew was on board and turned on their engines to motor away from the rocks, but the wind was so powerful that they couldn’t make enough forward progress against the wind. They smashed on the rocks. And this is a big boat that probably had a powerful engine. Scary. They have never had a storm of that magnitude in Gibraltar before, and called it a “freak storm”.

To be continued”¦