Gibraltar you’re nice but please let us go!

26 February 2013

 The first thing you learn about cruising under sail is that all plans are fluid. Any attempt at having hard and fast departure and arrival dates are pure folly as you are always at the whim of uncontrollable forces that pay no heed of your plans. The biggest of these is of course the weather but other factors also seem to love to pop up and complicate life.

We have been here in Gibraltar since late October sitting out the northern winter and literally cooling our heals until we can get underway again. It’s actually been very pleasant. For winter, the weather has been remarkable with much, much more sunshine than grey skies. The people have been very hospitable and we’ve made many new friends. We’ve loved exploring the Rock and its remarkable history and have also enjoyed ample time to get on with pet pastimes. Karen’s been able to get the paint gear out and produce a wonderful collection of portraits and illustrations for the book project that has kept Rob occupied at the keyboard. The draft now sits at 85,000 words and still growing. Who knows, it may actually get finished one day.

 As nice as it’s been here in Gibraltar we want to leave. It’s time to move on and start our migration back into the Mediterranean where we are looking forward to exploring many new destinations and meeting more new friends. All the jobs we wanted to do on the boat while we were here have been accomplished and even a little ahead of schedule. We’ve decided on our first destination which will be the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the North African Coast, a great base from which to explore neighbouring Morocco. We’re loaded up and raring to go so why are we still tied to the dock in Queensway Quay Marina?

We're ready, the boat's ready, but it's time to hurry up and wait.

We fear Gibraltar doesn’t want to let us go. Not until we began speaking about leaving and set a target date of February 22 have we run into any hurdles here at all. But that all changed the moment we started telling people of our departure plans. Firstly, three parcels sent from our daughters back in Australia that were due to arrive the previous week failed to turn up. Then a new dipstick/filler cap for the boat’s transmission on order from the UK did arrive but proved to be the wrong one. It’s nothing essential. The old one may be super-glued together at the moment but it is serviceable. However we’d rather replace it so the correct one was reordered. But the cruncher is that suddenly, the brilliant weather we’ve been boasting off has disappeared. Instead of clear skies and fair winds we’ve had days of blustering westerly gales and heavy rain which have now been replaced by strong winds blowing from  the east, exactly the direction we want to go. It’s a triple whammy.

One upside of the delay has been getting all the paperwork printed out, signed, scanned and emailed back to Australia for the sale of our rental property to top up our cruising fund. This is the only net cafe we've found on the Rock which is apparently so busy they have to work real hard. Check out their opening hours.

Here we are, four days after we planned to leave, writing a blog instead of touring Morocco. We are getting closer though. One of the wayward parcels has finally reached us from the far flung colony of Australia while the new, and this time correct, dipstick has also been delivered.

So do you want to know when we’re planning on casting off now? Well we’re not going to tell you. We don’t want to risk the Rock finding out and trying to stop us leaving again.
 

Since WW2 Britain's military presence on Gibraltar has been progressively shrinking with the withdrawel further accelerating since the end of the cold war. Compare this photograph of the airpower present in 1942 to the one below of Gibraltar's current air fleet. No wonder the Rock's sick of people leaving.

 

We love to receive comments on our blog from readers. If you do leave a comment and you also have a blog, please leave a link as well. We'd like to click over for a visit and leave you a comment too.

To stay right up to date with what we’re up to  and see lots more photos check out and 'like' our Dreamtime Sail Facebook page at Dreamtime Sail

 

If you have only recently discovered our blog and would like to read how it all started, or work through our previous adventures, click the link to go back to our first blog entry. Stuff it. Let's just go sailing anyway. 

We hope you enjoy reading the previous posts to catch up on our story.

 

Alcheringa in Print

18 February 2013

 

 The March edition of Australia's 'Cruising Helmsman' magazine has just been released complete with our first article published. It relates the story of our getting caught with Alcheringa in an unexpected, violent storm in a crowded anchorage on Mallorca last summer.

 

 

 

We've just received our electronic version of the magazine on the I-Pad. We can't wait to see it in actual print. If you're one of our Australian readers keep an eye for it on the newstand. The electronic version of the magazine is available at the My Sailing website

 

If you'd like to read our original blog of what happened click back to Ambushed by the Storm Gods in Santa Ponsa

 

We love to receive comments on our blog from readers. If you do leave a comment and you also have a blog, please leave a link as well. We'd like to click over for a visit and leave you a comment too.

To stay right up to date with what we’re up to  and see lots more photos check out and 'like' our Dreamtime Sail Facebook page at Dreamtime Sail

 

If you have only recently discovered our blog and would like to read how it all started, or work through our previous adventures, click the link to go back to our first blog entry. Stuff it. Let's just go sailing anyway. 

We hope you enjoy reading the previous posts to catch up on our story.

 

 

Everyday in the marina is a day closer to sailing!

16 February 2013

 As we get closer to leaving Gibraltar and getting underway for the new sailing season we’re trying to make sure we get around to all those things we said we’d see and do while we’re here before we run out of days.

Karen looking over Spain from Princess Caroline's Battery high on the Rock

Yesterday it was another stroll around the top of the rock, but this time we made our way to the northern end to see the Great Siege Tunnels carved out of the limestone by hand in the early 1780s. It was an eye opener to walk the full length of the tunnels and look down on the surrounding area through the series of gunports. We really did marvel at the engineering achieved with pick, shovel and gunpowder along with the very rudimentary surveying equipment available 230 years ago.

 

A series of excellent signboards and audio points detail the origin and history of the tunnels making it a totally enjoyable experience. During the siege around 8,000 barrels of gunpowder were expended to fire 200,600 rounds of shot down on the attacking Spanish and French forces. No wonder this place has been known as Fortress Gibraltar for centuries. The tunnel network was greatly extended during the Second World War and now the Rock of Gibraltar is not quite so solid with 40 odd kilometres of tunnels honeycombing the limestone. Click the link for more information about the Great Siege Tunnels

St George's Hall is the largest chamber and held seven guns

We left the tunnels and reached the lookout at Princess Caroline Battery with perfect timing to witness one of Gibraltar's most unique features. We watched below as all vehicle and pedestrian traffic to and from the Spanish frontier was halted to allow a jet to take off from the world's only major airport runway that's crossed by a main road.

 

Jet aircraft have right of way in Gibraltar which is avery  good thing

 

We then made our way to the Moorish Castle that dominates the view of the western side of the Rock. This amazing structure was built by the Moors in the 1300s during their occupation of Gibraltar. It was an integral part of the city’s defensive walls but its major role was as a last point of refuge where the moors could hole up until relief forces arrived. Being Australians not used to buildings much older than a century or two we still find it extremely surreal wandering through a place built 700 years ago that will no doubt easily stand for 700 more with ease.

Gibraltar's Moorish Castle has stood since the 1300s

Rob atop the Moorish castle with the Bay of Gibraltar in the background

After walking for quite a few kilometres all over the place, we took the short cut back down to the town via the Castle Steps. This may be the most direct route but trooping down the almost 400 steps certainly gave our calf muscles a workout. We’re glad we went down them and not up.

We ended the day with the serious business of commissioning the latest piece of equipment fitted on Alcheringa. Marc bought the boat its own Christmas present in the form of a shiny new BBQ so with another glorious warm sunny day we felt we really should test it thoroughly before heading to sea. It passed with flying colours, beautifully flame grilling our huge slabs of pork spare ribs which we devoured in the cockpit with sundowners.

Marc sea trialing Alcheringa's latest upgrade

 

Life is good on Alcheringa.

We love to receive comments on our blog from readers. If you do leave a comment and you also have a blog, please leave a link as well. We'd like to click over for a visit and leave you a comment too.

To stay right up to date with what we’re up to  and see lots more photos check out and 'like' our Dreamtime Sail Facebook page at Dreamtime Sail

 

If you have only recently discovered our blog and would like to read how it all started, or work through our previous adventures, click the link to go back to our first blog entry. Stuff it. Let's just go sailing anyway. 

We hope you enjoy reading the previous posts to catch up on our story.

 

Itching to sail away into the Mediterranean!

13 February 2013

 We can’t say we haven’t been enjoying our time in Gibraltar over the winter. The weather has been mostly very good and nothing like the bleak few months we had been expecting. We’ve done plenty of exploring, met some great people and had a lot of fun. Rob’s has made some serious inroads into a book draft of our 2011 sailing adventures in South East Asia. Karen’s been able to get a brush in her hand again and has turned out some very nice portraits and has also begun working on illustrations for Rob’s book. Marc was able to enjoy a trip back home to London and a catch up with family and a lot of friends and since returning has just about burnt out his Kindle churning through books at a prodigious rate. Yes it’s all been good with plenty of laughs.  Hell we even came second in the pub quiz at The Lounge this week so why are we all so mad keen to get out of here?

Gib has been a ton of fun but we're ready to move on

 

One of the illustrations Karen has done for the book about our South East Asian sailing adventures in 2011 Rob is working on. If you'd like to see more of her work follow the link to her Karen Oberg Artist facebook page

Sitting still obviously no longer suits us and we all can’t wait to throw off the lines and start heading east towards the coming summer’s cruising grounds around Southern France, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy’s Amalfi Coast and Sicily. The conventional wisdom is that the Mediterranean sailing season runs from about late May-early June to late September-early October but we have no intention of waiting that long. March to November is more our style and we’ll happily put up with a bit of cooler weather each end if it means we can get back to wandering from anchorage to anchorage discovering new places and new experiences.

So now we’re getting Alcheringa ready to take on another season. In fact from the time we tied up in the marina back at the end of October we have set aside a day a week to work on the boat. Some weeks boat day would simply involve a good scrub from bow to stern on deck and below. However, after cruising the Balearics and Spanish Coast for four months since buying Alcheringa, we discovered a lot about her and developed a pretty solid list of fixes and improvements that we’ve worked through during the winter. We’re pleased to say that our work list is now pretty short and continues to get even shorter.

There's a lot of bits in there. Fortunately after being cleaned, oiled and greased, they all went back where they were supposed to .

Today we pulled apart and serviced all four of our winches for the first time. It was a little daunting thinking about it but thanks to some excellent instructional videos on youtube it proved to be no real problem at all. It’s amazing what you find when you google ‘Servicing Harken Winches’. The next job we tackled was a safety issue that had concerned us since we first sailed the boat out of harbour. For some reason Jeanneau do not provide any secure anchor points at all in the cockpit which we could clip our safety harnesses to. After seeking some advice on the excellent Jeanneau Owners Network Forum, that’s now fixed and we have four secure fittings spread throughout. Our last job this afternoon was fitting a very neat, folding mast step which will make life a lot easier up forward for the vertically challenged amongst us when reaching up to the sail bag or attaching the mainsail halyard.

New safety harness attaching points bolted through the deck

Nice shiny, folding mast step for the shorter crew members aboard.

So we’re nearly ready to go. Basically we’re just waiting for a couple of parcels from Australia to arrive and then we’ll be looking for the first good weather window to come along and it will be back into the Mediterranean for us.

On our way back up the Spanish coast we will make a stop in Almerima Marina and have the boat lifted out of the water for a bum clean. We’ll also get our new AIS (Automatic Identification System) fitted there as labour costs are much lower than Gibraltar. There’s also an excellent supermarket at the marina with a very good range of everything we need at the best prices we’ve found anywhere. We’ll load the boat up to the brim with goodies and then it’s all systems go for the summer.

BRING IT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We can't wait for more of this - warm days and great destinations

We love to receive comments on our blog from readers. If you do leave a comment and you also have a blog, please leave a link as well. We'd like to click over for a visit and leave you a comment too.

To stay right up to date with what we’re up to  and see lots more photos check out and 'like' our Dreamtime Sail Facebook page at Dreamtime Sail

 

If you have only recently discovered our blog and would like to read how it all started, or work through our previous adventures, click the link to go back to our first blog entry. Stuff it. Let's just go sailing anyway. 

We hope you enjoy reading the previous posts to catch up on our story.

 

Need an Extra Cabin – No Problem!

10 February 2013

 We’ve just had our first overnight guests on Alcheringa.  Aussie friends Gary and Tanya were holidaying in Europe and dropped in to see us in Gibraltar for a couple of days. It gave us our first opportunity to make use of one of the cleverest features of our Jeanneau 43DS. Thanks to some ingenious design work by Jeanneau, it took all of ten minutes for Rob and Marc to split our huge stateroom into two conventional aft cabins so we could accommodate our guests.
 



Don't you love guests who arrive with essential provisions. Gary, Tanya, Karen and Rob with some bubbles for sundowners

Stored in a dedicated space beneath the bunk we have five timber panels that slide easily into a track on the bunk base and cabin ceiling interlocking to form an instant wall to divide the room. Two triangular in fills then convert our semi walk around queen size bunk into two doubles.  Voila! Instant guest cabin.
 



Our fantastic, very large stateroom on Alcheringa

In just ten minutes the stateroom can be split into two, good size double cabins. You can see the timber panels in place on the left.

When choosing a boat, we always had in mind that although there would just be the three of us on board for the vast majority of the time, we definitely wanted the space to comfortably have friends and family join us at various times. The flexibility that Jeanneau’s 43DS provides was one of a number of features that strongly attracted us to this make and model of yacht. Now we’ve actually used it, we’re even more convinced of its value. Alcheringa was one of the last of its design constructed and we struggle to understand why Jeanneau didn’t continue this innovative idea in their later deck salon models.



Sundowners in the cockpit. We're not sure whether we need to get smaller strawberries for the champagneor larger glasses.

 

It was great to have Gary and Tanya with us for their brief visit. Fortunately Gibraltar turned on more fantastic winter weather with clear blue skies and plenty of sunshine and we were able to enjoy sundowners in the cockpit on the afternoon they arrived at least giving them a little taste of how cruisers entertain.

The following day our good friend Jeanna from the yacht Deca Dance joined the party and the six of us headed around to Stefano’s, our favourite cafe at Catalan Bay, for a wonderful afternoon of brilliant tapas, nice drinks, great conversation and lots of laughs. We were all having such a good time it was almost 9.00pm before we knew it prompting a dash up to the main road to catch the last bus back to town. We did get to the stop in time but for some reason the bus sailed on by without slowing down. We didn’t think we looked that unruly. Fortunately a taxi appeared a few minutes later saving us from a long walk home in the dark.
 



Afternoon soon became evening at Catalan Bay's Stefano's and the laughs kept coming.

Next morning we bid farewell to our friends as they headed to the airport for a flight to London and then converted the stern back to the huge stateroom we love in just minutes. Even if our boat had just been sitting in the marina, Gary and Tanya’s visit whetted our appetite for the approaching summer when we have a few more friends and family joining us at different stages during our travels. It’s great to know we will be able to accommodate them in comfort without compromising our own. Thank you Jeanneau.

 

We love to receive comments on our blog from readers. If you do leave a comment and you also have a blog, please leave a link as well. We'd like to click over for a visit and leave you a comment too.

To stay right up to date with what we’re up to  and see lots more photos check out and 'like' our Dreamtime Sail Facebook page at Dreamtime Sail

 

If you have only recently discovered our blog and would like to read how it all started, or work through our previous adventures, click the link to go back to our first blog entry. Stuff it. Let's just go sailing anyway. 

We hope you enjoy reading the previous posts to catch up on our story.