Cartagena to Gibraltar 36 09.428N 005 21.390W
Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Mon 17 Sep 2018 09:21
Ironically, as we headed off towards Cabo de Gata, where the Spanish coast turns the corner and we head more west than south, we enjoyed some of the finest sailing conditions we have had this year, with 16 or 17 knots of wind and sunshine. But as evening approached, the clouds built all around us and then the electric storm started.
We had contemplated an anchorage for the night, but as the frequency of the lightning increased, decided to present a moving,rather than static target, and pressed on. Strangely, as we became surrounded by storms, the wind neither increased or decreased, and we sailed serenely on, nature throwing a wild light show all around us.
Around midnight, we passed Cabo de Gata, and gybed towards Almerimar, with a new course of around 240 degrees....south west! And, as always happens, it seems, as we prepared to gybe, the heavens opened. Biblical rain soaked us through as Karen manned the pit and I dealt with the pole on the foredeck. Briefly the wind touched 20 knots but then slipped back to 13 or 14 and we ploughed on.
Next morning, the wind was reducing. We had about 6 hours on the “iron donkey” across the middle of the day before it filled in again in the late afternoon, this time from the south east. A cracking evening sail was abruptly suspended at 22.30 when the wind suddenly shut off and we motored through until about 0800 the following morning.
Gibraltar loomed up in front of us with a distinctly autumnal feel, and at 11 in the morning we tied up here at Marina Alcaidesa in La Linea, just across the spanish border with Gibraltar.
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