Hello everyone!
We finally metaphorically weighed anchor in Rota at 3am on 4 January to take advantage of favorable albeit benign winds, a following tidal current, and especially daylight, and made the 75nm transit down the Spanish west coast to the Strait of Gibraltar. Winds were light but favorable and we motored or motorsailed the entire way, arriving at “The Rock,” as Gibraltar is known, <12 hours after getting underway, about an hour less cruising time than we had estimated.
When I was practicing medicine, I used to tell my patients, “There’s no such thing as a simple or routine procedure,” knowing that something can and will often go wrong when it’s least expected. Well, perhaps we can say the same about cruising: “There’s no such thing as a simple or routine day cruising,” either as our final day preparing for the voyage demonstrated.
The excitement began midday the day before our departure when we realized two things. The first was that Rota is not a point of embarkation/debarkation, and therefore we could not legally sail away from Rota without clearing out with Customs and Immigration in Cádiz, in much the same way as we entered Spain by stopping ever so briefly at the Port of Cádiz to clear into the country before making the 45-minute sail into the Puerto Deportivo de Rota. The problem was, it was already after noontime and our research said the offices we needed at the Captainia Maritima de Cádiz closed for the day at 2pm, so not enough time to get there by sea, which meant we had to hail a taxi. So one hour and €62 later, Vicki and I walked into the port captain’s office and completed a proper checkout. In reality, they weren’t particularly concerned about clearing At First Sight for departure (as they had been in Dominican Republic, BVI, and Bermuda); however, they gladly stamped our passports with a stamp showing we left Spain by vessel rather than by an airplane.
The next problem was we learned we did not have a courtesy flag for Gibraltar. How could this be? We had purchased a “Flag Set – Europe” before we left the U.S., and in our minds the inventory clearly included Gibraltar, along with all the other European littoral countries. And why wouldn’t it? Gibraltar is clearly in Europe, and the kit has a courtesy flag for Morocco, which when last we checked is firmly attached to the African continent – directly across the Gibraltar Strait from, well, Gibraltar.
Accordingly, immediately after getting our passports stamped, we Googled searched for chandleries in Cádiz, and quickly learned almost all of them were closed for siesta until 5pm or 6pm. The one exception was a big box maritime supply store in San Fernando, ~20 minutes and €25 down the road by taxi. We called to confirm they had Gibraltar flags in stock; indeed they did, and off we went. We found the store, which normally sells online only, in the industrial warehouse area of San Fernando. The nice attendant at the counter worked magic with his accounting office, and within a few minutes and €15 later, voila, we had a courtesy flag for Gibraltar – at 3’x5’ big enough for an aircraft carrier to fly from its signal bridge. We thanked the attendant, got back in the waiting taxi, and returned to downtown Cádiz intending to catch the catamaran ferry back to Rota. Little did we know, however, that dogs are not allowed on the ferry, which meant another €62 taxi ride back to Rota.
It was nearly 8pm by the time we were back aboard AFS, with intentions of getting underway at 3am to take advantage of a favorable weather window and to arrive in port Gibraltar well before sunset, 6:15pm. And we still had ~2 hours of planning and prepping to do in order to be ready to set sail the next morning. We finally crawled into bed at 11:30pm, exhausted from all the running around we had done.
Our tally for the day: Taxis = €174. “Courtesy” flag = €15. Meals and miscellaneous expenses = €25. Experience = priceless!