We don’t mean Dwayne Johnson but as part of our trip out of the Mediterranean we have decided to stop over at Gibraltar, the rock, to refuel and also use the funky bathroom that we used last time we were there.

We decide to head off on the Monday, immediately after the last lot of strong winds which would have helped us and before the next set. It will be dead calm but we only have 24 hours maximum to travel to Gibraltar and it doesn’t seem too much of a hardship.

We plan to leave between 10am and 11am but first have to collect our new fire extinguishers, fog horn and serviced life raft, continuing the final steps of getting Mariadz ready. Then pay for our stay before returning the hire car.

Even with the help of a lovely German couple, Aaron and Valentina, we aren’t ready to go before midday. Then we are on our way.

As expected, the sea is a like a millpond with no wind except what we make ourselves as the engine powers us forward. One upside with our timing is that we are getting a great push from the current which will keep going for another six hours and get us a long way there. At the moment it looks like we will arrive mid morning. We are once again staying at the Ocean Village next to the cruise ship converted to a hotel I understand. Maria has had good communication from them and calls them on the phone to confirm our arrival.

We are a few hours in when I see some splashes off our port side. I can see tina the tuna jumping and some dolphins also jumping. It seems ages since we had a proper dolphin encounter and two peel off to come and play on our bow – fantastic.

That is the first of several dolphin visits over the next hour or so which makes Maria very happy and excited.

It is then evening and time to think of food before we settle into our night watches. Today is Maria’s homemade chicken curry washed down with sparkling water – well you need some bubbly! Very tasty and by 10pm I am starting to settle down for some rest.

The plan is to get a few hours rest before relieving Maria from midnight to 4am. This is a short twenty hour crossing and we are motorsailing so achieving better than 7 knots. However, Maria is telling me she probably won’t get any rest and will go through – I may have been caught out in this way before. At 3am her energy levels drop off a cliff and she needs to rest and where I haven’t had any rest before then, it is problematic. While I rest, Maria continues to see dolphins playing around the boat and jumping out of the water nearby. I take over at midnight and hear all about the fun maria has had. On my watch, I don’t get any of that just a cruise ship that decides to aim straight for us! He passes within a mile despite my changing course a lot – very unusual especially with our AIS on so they knew we were there, even if they didn’t see our bright lights. I get a little rest after my four hours but we are making good time and are likely to be in Gibraltar by 8am, so it is a quick break as we ready for the entrance to Gibraltar.

As I wake, I can see another large “cruise ship” anchored in the distance. Checking AIS and it isn’t there which seems a little unusual but with my recent experience of cruise ships I am keeping tabs on it. It is only as we get a little closer that I realise that this is the rock of Gibraltar with a cloud “crown”. I had wondered why the cruise ship was only showing two red lights on its stern! The good news is that cruise ship or rock, I was always going to avoid it! The cloud soon clears to reveal the familiar silhouette. Approaching Gibraltar there are boats everywhere and they are manoeuvring without really making their intentions clear. One in particular is coming towards us before abruptly turning to port to come across our bow. They continue the turn until they are going to go across us again! This time they decide to pass just behind us. Despite these fun and games, we are soon at Europa point, the end of the road as far as the Mediterranean is concerned. As we look at the straights, it is wall to wall shipping on the motorway of the TSS (Traffic Separation Scheme) – that will be a problem for another day.

The problem for today is the ten large cargo ships in our way to the marina. This is complicated by a flotilla of police/military small ships that decide to come right across us as they go to provide an escort to one of the ships sitting outside of the harbour. They will bring this into the naval base but we didn’t know that at the time. There are several anchored ships and a few smaller boats coming at us but it is all safe enough as we turn toward the ocean village marina and our refuelling stop.

We spin Mariadz round so that the fuel tank is on the side of the hoses and the friendly staff help us to get the boat positioned correctly. The wind has been negligible most of the way so the engine has been running all the time unfortunately. The tank also wasn’t full when we left Almerimar, my guess is around 400 litres and Maria, the pessimist, suggests 530 litres of our 680 litre tank! 300 litres of cheap(er) fuel later and we are full so neither of us are very good at this guessing game.

We then need to get into the berth allocated by Ocean Village. They have told us we are in OV15 which we can see easily from the fuel pontoon. By coincidence this is exactly the same berth that we had four and a half years previously and very close to the Sunborn cruise ship permanently moored in the Marina.

Rather than attempting lots of difficult turns, I decide that we will come off astern (sideways to start) from the fuel pontoon and go straight back into the berth which has pontoons on either side! Coming off the fuel pontoon works fine, although not quite as well as we do from out side to, where the prop walk helps us. A few minutes later we are nestled up in the berth although it takes me far too long to adjust all of the lines to our liking!