We had a relatively short stop in Gibraltar, but did do some important victualling, had a great steak dinner, bought some pretty dresses (for Laurie!) and got to the top of The Rock – albeit via cable car – to visit the apes.

Our onward journey was expected to be a pretty light wind affair which proved to be the case – unfortunately in spades! We had a buddy boat on this trip – Dan and Alison on Equus, a Taswell 43. We left the anchorage in La Linea in the early afternoon and both made a stop at the fuel dock in Gibraltar to take advantage of the cheap(?!) ($5.11/US Gallon) diesel before heading on for a 2 overnight passage to Cartagena.

Initially we had decent wind – though from the direction in which we wanted to sail – but we carried on until the wind died and we started motoring… That continued for hours 🙁 Finally the wind picked up – after dark – and in darkness we were setting a poled out genoa and preventing the main for a rolly wing on wing sail. Not comfortable.

In the early morning the wind shifted direction and then increased, catching Laurie in an accidental (but prevented) half gybe. She woke me, and in an attempt to free a stuck clutch on the preventer, I managed to screw up and we completed the other half of the accidental gybe!

Late the next morning, Laurie suggested we switch to the spinnaker and what a good idea that turned out to be and we had a wonderfully long spinnaker run with speeds in the high 7 and 8 knots area, right up until it was getting dark. We had fallen behind Equus during the night, but ended up screaming past them with the spinnaker.

We changed sail to the genoa again for the nighttime hours and I ended up having to reef down heavily (2 reefs in main, handkerchief Genoa) to drop our speed from mid 9 knots to mid 7’s! Sadly, shortly after midnight, the wind evaporated and we were back to motoring! In the early morning hours the wind had returned but we’d be very close hauled – so we sailed with main and inner jib, struggling to hold our course for a direct shot to Cartagena… We arrived at 10:00am and took a slip, getting tremendous help from the marinaro.

Cartagena is getting ready for the Easter celebrations – which includes numerous elaborate processions through town, and making the town center a really vibrant place to be.

We’ve had a lovely stay here, but the islands are beckoning and a sort-of weather window approaches us tomorrow, so we’re going to take advantage – even though it may mean adding more hours to the engine… Both of us are anxious to get back to some island hopping and sitting to anchor in some remote spot. (Is that possible in the Balearics?)

We left! We are finally out of Lagos – that sounds awful as Lagos is a very nice town and the marina is great – it’s just that we’ve been here too long – time to leave! (though we did get a nice walk to Luz in – and a quick kart race at the Kartodrome! 🙂 )

And so we did… we moved Toodle-oo! to the waiting pontoon (the other side of the bridge that only begins opening at 9:00am) and spent the night there along with Dietmar in s/v Mermaid so that we could get an early start while the tide is high. A sand bar has developed at the entrance to Lagos Marina, reducing depth by about 1.5M (!) so we could only really comfortably leave within 2 hours of high tide – which was at 6:00am…

We departed at 7:40am and saw 3.1M minimum depth (we need 2.0) and set after catching Mermaid who had left at 7:00am. Winds were very light, so Mermaid had a distinct advantage as a much lighter boat, but Toodle-oo! didn’t disappoint and we pretty much kept up until the windier weather kicked in – at which point we were significantly faster.

Destination Gibraltar. We had a long enough weather window to be able to plan a direct overnight passage, albeit with very moderate wind. Our “other” concern was that Orca are present here and have taken to literally attacking the rudders of sailboats – until they are rendered inoperable. They have damaged numerous boats – all sail – well over 50 last year. Everyone therefore has some sort of Orca plan as they sail around the Portuguese and Spanish coasts… Lots of folk are buying Pingers designed to ward them off (nobody knows if they actually work…), ours plan was: following sight of – or presence of – Orcas, to drop all sails, start the engine and engage reverse – most likely in a tight circle. This way, the black and white beasts will have to swim past or at least in close proximity to our spinning propeller. We can also dispense bleach down the galley sink – and failing that, have a small supply of diesel that we’re prepared to pollute the sea with in order to attempt to safeguard our home. (Sorry earth!)

Fortunately, neither we nor Mermaid encountered the nasty beasties and several other boats that arrived here were beasty free too – sadly a French Catamaran not far from where we were was not so lucky and suffered debilitating rudder damage while we were on the overnight portion of our sail. Just the news of that made things tense aboard Toodle-oo! as we approached Gibraltar.

We arrived in Gib (actually La Linea, just north of Gib) after some 35 hours for a dismal average speed of 5.57knots and 25% engine use and we anchored close to Eqqus, friends on a Taswell 43 who had arrived an hour or so ahead of us.

The following day, we took the little dinghy with its electric motor in search of a place to park so that we could visit Gib. We did so, but got quite wet in the process! It’s going to take some time getting used to the new small dinghy!

A stop at the chandler for some essentials and then dress shopping for Laurie as she searches out some respectability for Stephanie’s wedding in June!

We are in Gibraltar for a short stop – having spent some time here last fall. We are waiting on a favorable weather window to take us to Cartagena – which looks to be approaching on Monday evening…