Yesterday we arrived in Gibraltar. We were lucky to have a peaceful passage with no problems passing through the straight, but unlucky in that we had to motor 95% of the way due to there being no wind. The forecast had promised a F3-4 westerly, which would have been great, but after departing Cadiz at 0700 we encountered nothing more than 5-7 knots from the south.

Our passage planning must have worked well, as we were assisted nicely by the tides past Tarifa and into the straight, which at its best added over 2 knots to our boat speed over ground.

After 11 hours we finally entered Gibraltar bay with Africa clearly visible on our right, UK territory straight ahead and Spain to the left. The bay was quite busy with ferries, tankers, large container vessels and sailing yachts.

As we had feared, all the marinas said they were full, so we diverted to our fallback plan, which was to anchor north of the city in La Ligne (in Spanish territory, north of “the line”). The anchorage is peaceful enough and offers good shelter and holding.

It was 7pm by the time we arrived, so we weighted the anchor, checked it had set correctly and settled down to beans on toast, a quick drink and a game of backgammon.