We have had a lovely few days in Gibraltar, done some sightseeing, gone to the casino twice being up despite losing sixty pounds in three rolls of the roulette wheel at the end!

It is now time to run the gauntlet of Orca and ships in the straits of Gibraltar. It is only a short run across to Morocco and Tanger Bay Marina where we have decided to stop. There is a strong wind from the East which will help us but crossing the shipping lanes will be “interesting” due to the vast amount of large cargo ships that go through this area.

We plan to leave early in the morning which will mean we will arrive in Tanger early afternoon although we have heard horror stories of four hours to check in and difficult customs searches where items get “liberated” mostly alcohol, cigarettes and cash. We try to radio the authorities to tell them we are leaving Gibraltar but despite several attempts on two different channels, we can’t get through to them. We eventually do and they provide advice as to what ships are coming in although we have already checked every ship near our path and found most of them to be anchored. Maria is concerned when she hears one ship complain that a sailing boat is impeding them. Surely that can’t be us, they would know our name and could have contacted us directly. Shortly afterwards we hear that the culprit has been spoken to and no one contacted us so there is some relief. Maria’s luck with dolphins continues as we see a pod of about twenty jumping and swimming quickly across our bow but they decide not to come any closer.

As we head out, I am starting to look at the Chartplotter with all of the ships identified. It looks busy as we head parallel to the shipping lanes trying to choose our point of crossing. In open water, the larger ships have consistently wanted to have at least a mile between us and them and I am seeing a lot of relatively fast moving ships moving in a line. We have sails up and the engine running to ensure a safe crossing. Eventually I decide the time is good. There is a cargo ship off our port quarter, slightly behind us but by the time I have turned to go across the TSS, we will go harmlessly behind him. However, being decide, I decide to call them on the radio to let them know what I am doing and that I have seen them and will pass astern. A couple of attempts are made but they are clearly not listening to the radio and don’t respond. It is time to make the move but before we do, we take in some sail, the wind is blowing over twenty knots which directly behind us is one thing but right on the beam would be a little more uncomfortable. We pass behind the slow moving freighter and are 1.5 miles ahead of the next ship – the first direction has been safely negotiated. Like coming out of a junction in a car, you have to look both ways and can’t just sit straddling the lane with a 200 metre cargo ship bearing down on you. I have selected a good gap on the other side but with two reasonably fast moving freighters coming at us abreast. We should be fine missing them by a similar distance to the one we have just avoided. There is the slight complication of two fishing vessels going round in circles right in front of us. Eventually they sort themselves out and head off in the direction of the oncoming vessels – an interesting decision but we are past them and heading to the safety of the end of the TSS. We get there and turn back towards the west but keep an eye on the fishing vessels which seem to have belatedly seen the two large cargo ships – they have turned and running to safety ahead of them. I assume this is what they do all day if they fish inside the TSS. We are running down the Morocoan coast and the wind is picking up towards the mid twenties. Again no real problem when it is behind us but something to consider when we make our turn towards the marina. The sails are goosewinged with our headsail on one side and the main on the other which works well as long as the wind stays in the same place or you alter course appropriately. A short time later we are taking sail in for the last turn and the few miles to the marina. The turn goes well and we are half an hour to the marina setting up lines and fenders before taking the sails in and motoring in. The staff are friendly and helpful and wave us onto the waiting pontoon where they will help us through the check in process. It only takes a couple of hours although we are forced to surrender the drone and Maria’s spear gun. The later causes some questions – are you sure you only use this for fish? Err yeah, we haven’t killed anyone with it yet…

The customs team come on board and check for any passengers and what we have onboard. This is quite quick while I am away from the boat although the boat is a little lighter when they leave…

The wind has picked up and the marina staff decide that they want us to move the boat the next morning. This sounds sensible although we do have a midday train to catch for our weekend holiday in Casablanca.

The berth they have allocated has a large bollard at the end which we would prefer not to have to negotiate so I request. Minor adjustment to our berth. The next morning the wind has reduced a little but builds quickly and we are having to move Mariadz in gusts of thirty knots.

In my head I have decided to bring her in astern at an angle to the wind but as I approach in forward to make the turn, the wind gusts are huge and we start to get blown onto the ships on the other side. I should have just come in astern the whole way. With a lot of power and some bow thruster, I extricate Mariadz from the situation and take her back into an empty berth further up. This will allow me to turn her around and come in astern. I haven’t told Maria what I am doing which is a little confusing before I make it clear. As we complete the turn and set up for the reverse into our berth, we have a good line. there are a few staff waiting to take lines and quite a wind stopping us so I still have quite a lot of power on as we enter the berth. Lines are ashore quickly, well done Maria and the guys get Mariadz tied on. We make some adjustments needing both the bow thruster and engine to move Mariadz against the wind – normally you can pull on lines but not today. Another tricky mooring where no one and nothing got hurt – success!

Mariadz is now settled for a few days until our next voyage to the canaries, which will take the best part of a week.

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!