departure at last

on november 7 at 4:00 am they departed at last. the weather conditions were not prefect but they did not want to wait any longer. the more you wait this time of the year, the harder it is to leave. we watched the weather patterns and there are strong gales forming every week. so with a not so great day, and very cold weather they finally left and unfortunately had a very slow progress leaving the strait. there is normally a strong current flowing from the atlantic towards the med of an average of 2 knots. in addition every time the tide rises, the speed of tide against increases. so, to have the weaker current against, one must plan the departure carefully to hit the worse 10 miles of the strait of gibraltar at exactly 5 hours after high tide, or when the tide is coming down. i helped with the calculations from shore but unfortunately the progress was never more than 2 knots. maybe we missed the good timing, or we simply were doing the best possible and it could have been worse. we will never know; but the good news is that they left. the route followed the Spanish coast and then after cutting across the strait they would continue hugging the moroccan atlantic coast for a few days. for me, being the first crossing not being on board it was very difficult. i was constantly thinking about the progress of the boat and following the weather closely and tried to communicate whatever i saw. in the meantime all was good on board, they caught several fish, mostly tuna. peter got a very good looking fish which he liked so much that he put back in the water. after some hours esteban got another of these pretty fishes, which turned out to be a mahi. this one they ate. after peter ate it and liked it so much, esteban says he will not put them back on the water again, no way. they are better looking in the pan!!

first departure

finally the time arrived to leave gibraltar and start heading towards the canaries so peter and esteban left on october 28 but after two hours had to return to port because of a minor problem with the alternator and battery charger. it was minor because they were close to shore, had they continued like that, they would not have been able to charge the batteries, so of course they turned around. the problem was fixed within the next couple of days but unfortunately there was a bad front coming and they had to stay 10 more days waiting for the weather to give them a chance to depart again. in the meantime they celebrated halloween at the marina, visited sevilla and also spent some days at peter’s house in el rompido, in the south west part of spain.

meet peter

during esteban’s stay in gibraltar he met peter; a sailor from britain who lives between spain and the UK. he was looking to cross the atlantic and esteban was looking to go with someone; they decided to cross together. luckily for esteban peter is a great cook, so i am sure he will not miss me that much. i will only meet peter when they arrive in the caribbean in december, but so far i have only heard good things from esteban, so i am thrilled he is on board and i am sure they will both bring the boat safe to america while enjoying themselves while at it, I hope!

national day

on september 10 the people in gibraltar celebrate their national day. it is the anniversary of the vote to reject spanish sovereignty or association.

life in gibraltar

for the most part this place was not so much a vacation place for us. i had to be back in the US and estaban stayed there working on the boat; but we made the best of it. gibraltar is an interesting place. everyone that goes there stays for only a few days, but for esteban and puerto seguro, it was home for almost three months. people are constantly moving, and most speak a combination of english and spanish similar to that of the cubans in miami. we were very happy with the marina end esteban was even happier when he discovered a very nice movie theater.  even though he worked most of the time, he also enjoyed the days there, he walked around, crossed several times to spain and enjoyed one of the best supermarkets we have seen on our trip. in all a very pretty and convenient place where, because of its strategic location, he saw many of the sailors and friends we have met along our travels. seems this is a common stop before heading back to america. a little pricy, but a very well-situated place...

the plans...

after finishing the med, i returned to my previous job and esteban stayed in gibraltar doing much required and needed maintenance to the boat. once the 2011 hurricane season is over, he will cross the atlantic with a friend and arrive in the caribbean for christmas where i will join him to sail the boat through to finish our circumnavigation in january of 2012!! stay tuned for more news and the soon to start posts on the crossing to the canary islands, and the atlantic ocean back to the continent where we started: america!
this is my view from florida overlooking where the boat and esteban are, just on the other side the pond!

gibraltar

back in palma we found out that argentineans can come without a visa to europe and stay up to 3 months consecutive and 6 per year if they go out of europe for 3 months. some complicated rule which in simple terms meant that we could not stay in Europe after august 31. big problem considering we decided to cross the atlantic in november. so we changed plan from the originally intended stay in the south of spain to another place outside the European union. That only gave us two options. morocco or gibraltar. after making inquiries of marinas and chandleries we decided on gibraltar and headed there.



so from ibiza we had the last sail of the med. approximately 300 miles south west on what were the most perfect weather conditions of the last couple of months.
favorable winds and currents followed by no wind some times and flat seas and many many dolphins swimming around. No clouds, beautiful skies… etc. we really had all one imagines on a passage. It was rather emotional, at least for me; as I will be getting off the boat for several months; so it felt like a perfect farewell and close of a chapter.


The only complicated part of this leg came when we had to round the rock of Gibraltar. This was a race against time. There is a constant easterly current from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean of 2 knots. That means we already had current against. In addition, this current can be reversed or increased depending on the wind and the tides. to have favorable tide we looked at the charts and figured out we hat to arrive in Gibraltar, at the marina at 7:20 PM that is one hour before high tide. The calculations gave us the best favorable times to sail around from 3:20 PM until 7:20PM. We could not stay out one minute after because the current would start to play against us. In addition we had strong winds against (20 knots) which would make it impossible to advance with both current and wind against. We force the engine, motor sailed and generally tried to get the best speed for the last 4 hours of our sail, having the last hour a speed of even only 1.5 knots… but finally unbelievably enough we made it into the marina at 7:19PM . we could not believe it when we made the entry in the blog. Exactly on time. A bit stressful but we made it.




once in the marina we relaxed, cleaned as usual and started packing for our trip to madrid and for me my departure. we also went to the immigration authorities and were pleased to have confirmed that, being a British territory, argentineans could stay here without problems and without the 3 month cap that we had in spain. so we found the place that would become home for esteban and puerto seguro until november. a perfect spot with a good and comfortable marina, chandleries, many restaurants shops, and just a walk (and a cross of a live runway) away from spain. a very interesting place indeed.




after so many miles our boat needs serious maintenance. its over 32 years are really showing, not to mention the thousands of miles that we have covered already. There is nothing really wrong except that every item on board needs to be looked at, inspected and in some cases some parts replaced. so esteban will do just that in the next three moths to come. Puerto seguro will be like new again and ready to cross the atlantic at the end of the year.