Tangier

The Tanger  Marina Bay International had opened only a few weeks before and we had scant information about facilities or even its exact location.
Lynne had been in email communication with Nezha who had assured us that we would be welcome. She was actually waiting on the reception pontoon when we arrived and helped to guide us through the formalities of clearing in. The marina was fully staffed with "guardians" on duty to prevent unauthorised access to the pontoons. The majority of berths are stern to and we were lucky to be given one of the few on a finger berth (not a lot of competition for space) It is not quite finished but is a very promising start and I am sure will be a success. The onshore facilities are also impressive although waste disposal needs to be thought about. At the moment there are only waste bins along the promenade, which is swept and mown every day and I am sure the bins are emptied so possibly I am being picky.

The actual pontoons are at the moment largely empty and as a consequence are popular with seagulls however they are hosed down regularly by the unfailingly polite staff. The showers and offices are housed in the new buildings seen behind Dark Tarns stern. They are popular with locals in the evenings as there are several restaurants that are perfect for an evenings "promenade".

Once we had settled in it was time to go and explore Tangier, the waterfront has recently been redeveloped ,the marina complex being part of this. There is still work in progress om luxury housing adjacent to the ferry terminal. The dock containing the marina is self contained and separate from the ferries now so wash from them is no longer a problem. Commercial container traffic has been moved to Tanger Med a few miles east and the cruise ships, fishing fleet and ferries have their own docks.

We walked along the front towards the old town , the "Medina". Its very busy, dirty, and the smells colour and noise are a bit overwhelming

Walking past the many stalls we saw the Berber women in their distinctive costume, Their hats are very notable being decorated with what seem to be furry cat tails! I didn't photograph them for fear of giving offence.

After a very hot climb into the Medina we decided to stop at the Cafe de Parc for a mint tea, something we had been introduced to in Gibraltar. After we had sat down at a table on the balcony it became apparent that Lynne was the only woman in the place. This was a little off the tourist track and no indication was ever given that we had caused offence. In fact we were surprised at how friendly and polite everyone seemed.

There is a fantastic mish mash of tradition and technology evident. everyone seemed to have a mobile phone, in fact Morocco is way ahead of the UK in that the whole country was on 4G phone and data signal. I found this street where the satellite dishes sit happily on top of the traditional buildings and shops.

Just Near the Park is the Anglican church of St Andrew. Its very visible by the Flag of St George flying from its minaret like steeple.

The church was opened for us by a very helpful warden and we were treated to a guided tour, the church is really rather lovely. The pillars were carved by craftsmen I believe from Fez and the building is a wonderful melding of styles and symbology. Mainly Moorish but there are elements of Coptic and Jewish faiths there too.

The Moorish influence is striking looking toward the altar, with a quotation from the Gospel in Arabic carved around the distinctive Moorish arch. I believe verses and dedications from both Bible and Koran form part of regular Sunday services. It says a lot about Tangiers and Morocco, this melting pot of cultures at the western end of the Mediteranean.

The interior ceilings are also typical Moorish and are intricately carved, they are simply stunning. It is not very obvious from the photo but the decorations are not simply inlaid they are three dimensional and form the usual floral motif favoured by Islam.

Our guide was very informative and explained at length about the numerous plaques set into the walls. The two just to the right of the Altar arch were donated by the Jewish community.

Further right still was this intriguing plaque commemorating T.G. Kirby Green who was one of the prisoners shot after the Great Escape as celebrated in the movie of the same name.

The church and graveyard are a real oasis of tranquility in an otherwise noisy and chaotic part of the city

There are some notable people buried in the graveyard, not least the small war graves plot in a shady spot just off the entrance courtyard.

Outside this peaceful haven life in the Medina goes on. The whitewashed wall to the right in the picture below marks the church grounds and just the other side spilling over into the road Berber women sell fruit and vegetables.

We walked further into the Medina and fell into the usual tourist trap of an unofficial local guide, we had maybe been lulled into a false sense of security by the welcome we had received at St Andrews but it was not a negative experience. We were led to a shop selling carpets and offered mint tea. we were also escorted to the roof to see the stunning views over the city.

T
he Medina is a fantastic hodge podge of buildings which actually follow a common pattern, the streets radiate out from the Mosque in the centre with main routes on a roughly North South East and West.

Mohammed was very informative about the history of the Medina and of Morocco in general. Later he would tell us of the patterns and meanings of Moroccan carpets. Although we explained we lived on a boat we think he misunderstood us to mean a cruise ship that was docked that afternoon.

We did point out that our boat was " over there" just past the minaret of the mosque and we really didn't have room for a carpet but we left on the best of terms and the loss only a few Dirhams to our "guide"

The views alone were worth the few coins.....
from our vantage point on the roof we noticed just below us a small mosque completely surrounded by encroaching buildings and once we had left the shop we went to have a look at the entrance.

These are always green. In the photo below Lynne is looking into the courtyard seen in the photo above.

She didn't go in that would have been frowned upon. Eventually with the aid of our "guide we found our way out of the warren of tiny streets and back on the front towards the marina. As we approached we noticed we had new neighbours. It was a Dutch registered boat (with Spanish owners ) that had obviously damaged its foresail. The crew were asleep presumably after an epic crossing. Yes, it was still windy in the straits.

Later we helped them to cut away their shredded genoa from the luff foil, a tricky job that involved several trips up the mast and the loan of some tools from us. However a couple of hours saw it done and we were rewarded with a bottle of wine.

Finally that evening we walked out to watch seemingly hundreds of locals playing with their children in the coloured fountains on the front. This seems a very popular pastime in the evening . The children certainly enjoyed it!

So ended our first full day in Morocco, we had been amazed by the hospitality and friendliness shown to us. There is an element of culture shock to be sure and to a great extent we were sheltered from some aspects by the privilege of staying in our guarded enclave of the marina but we looked forward to exploring some more of this fascinating country.

Hats, in the scheme of things..

One of the big attractions to a Brit abroad in Gibraltar is undoubtedly Morrisons supermarket, a real taste of home and not stupidly expensive. It also has a cafe and once Lynnes mouth had healed sufficiently she treated herself to pie chips peas and gravy. Fine dining for a Wigan lass!

Our enforced stay was reinforced by the strong westerlies that had set in, this made any passage to the west problematic if not impossible. There is actually a level difference between the Atlantic and Mediteranean about 2-3 metres difference between the western and eastern ends of the straights. The Med evaporates faster than the Atlantic can fill it up this means there is a fairly constant eastwards flow of current, the tidal movement complicates matters further. The winds however do basically two things. blow west , the Poniente, or east, the Levante. As the westerly winds were in charge for a few days we relaxed and explored La Linea a bit, discovering that the local museum never seemed to be open but did have peacocks in the grounds.

Eventually the easterlies appeared and as this wind direction carries moist air there is a cloud develops over the Rock, At home we would say it, "had its hat on ", if it looks as it does in my photo below I now know that the maximum wind speeds you can expect in the straights will be in the order force 5 or thereabouts. You will get gusts and eddies in the bay of Algeciras, but once the average windspeed exceeds 20 knts or so the higher windspeeds will see the cloud detach from the rock and gale force winds can and will be encountered in the natural wind funnel between Spain and Morocco extending into the bay of Cadiz. We would discover this to our cost in a couple of days.

Meanwhile we made a trip across the border to have a look at the Botanical gardens, a green oasis in the heart of Gibralter. The actual real estate value of these green spaces must be enormous given the paucity of building land on the rock. Largely set out by an Italian they are a joy.

On our visit some areas were not open to visitors.

We also spent some time on the eastern side of La Linea on the beach, which is great for swimming if a little cold!
There are some nice beach bars to get a small beverage, the beach is very popular with local families and around 4-5 oclock you can sometimes feel a bit crowded as locals reclaim "their spot".

This cafe bar is almost exactly on the "Line" The photo below shows the remains of a fort on the eastern side of the narrow isthmus joining Gibraltar to Spain.

The origin of the name "La Linea" comes from when Great Britain acquired Gibraltar after the treaty of Utrecht, the Spanish built a line of forts across the narrow neck of the peninsula, hence "The Line"
After we had thrown the French out of Spain in the Peninsular war we decided to blow them up, so as to keep the French from using them against us in the future, politicians lied through their teeth even then!

Lynne had also acquired some new friends as she had started to feed the local fish. Their was soon a micro feeding frenzy around the boat every morning as they appeared as if from nowhere.

On one of our last nights we saw the "Blood Moon eclipse", it made quite a sight along with a red Mars just below and to the right of the red moon.

Not a very good photo but better than most of my friends in Northern Europe managed as it was a bit cloudy on the night..
Well the big day had arrived and we had paid our bill the night before, said farewell to our new friends Tim and his children who had been busy preparing another small steel yacht for adventures next to us.
We motored out of the Marina and into the bay, the sun was shining and Gibraltar was clear, remember what I said earlier? I myself had obviously forgotten, as after seeing some huge Tuna leaping in the bay and some Dolphins, we had been contacted on VHF by the ferries coming out of the fog, and had to make course changes, busy, busy, totally forgot to read the signs and suddenly we entered the fogbank and visibility was less than 50 metres. I am fairly comfortable in fog but what has come as a new experience for me is fog with WIND...…

As we followed the coast west taking advantage of the small counter current taking us the 15 miles or so to Tarifa the wind was constantly increasing until by the time we were approaching Tarifa it was blowing 30 knots. We struggled to reef the genoa having to resort to a winch eventually to reduce its sail area. we changed course to cross the T.S.S. ( traffic separation scheme )

It is essential that you cross a T.S.S. as nearly as possible at right angles to the traffic flow and as quickly as possible. Remember what I said about the currents and tide? well there we were wind over tide making the seas huge, beam on, so we were getting green water in the cockpit, haring along at between 6-8 knots under a half genoa and no main, trying to listen to the big boats on the VHF calling to each other in less than patient terms, contacting them when necessary because thank God we were the same size on their AIS screens. It was getting a bit serious and Lynne was worried enough to sit in the cockpit well, wedged around the binnacle, wet through of course. Dark Tarn was surfing and slamming into waves and I was having to hand steer as the tiller pilot couldn't cope.
It was without a doubt the most intense and serious passage we had made in four years, the boat coped superbly, the skipper and crew possibly less so but apart from Lynne losing her bob hat overboard we survived unscathed. As we approached the African coast and left the T.S.S. behind the wind abated for 30 minutes or so, just time enough for me to sort out the lee genoa sheets which had become hopelessly entangled in the gale force winds . as we coasted along the North African coast the cold fog again descended and with it came the howling easterly wind. We were approaching Tangier and as we tried to put away the genoa two ferries approached us, one coming from and one going into Tangier. At least it showed us where the harbour was. Unfortunately we had no idea where the Marina was located, it had only opened the previous month and information was sketchy to say the least, however we made a best guess, but luckily the marina staff  must have had scouts out or access to AIS because they called us up to inform us we were heading into the fishing dock. We reluctantly went back out into the howling gale and crept along to the new entrance and pulled up at the massive waiting pontoon. There were two fellows there to help with our lines and we were relieved we had made it.
The most challenging and downright scary passage of my time as skipper of Dark tarn.
As we had left the EU we were flying not just a courtesy flag but a yellow Q flag and I duly was asked ashore to clear immigration Customs and the port police. It was all handled very efficiently and after paperwork was done the police and customs officials came to inspect the boat. Luckily Lynne had managed to put some semblance of order back below and we were promptly directed to a berth. We were given one of the few finger berths (most are stern to ) but the wind and the inexperienced marinero line handlers meant we touched our bow briefly on the pontoon and lost a bit of paint but we were soon snugged down, and in glorious splendour, being one of maybe 20 boats in a marina designed for 300+. The marina is superbly constructed and is first class. There are bits that are not quite finished. But we didn't care,we were, to be honest a bit shell shocked.
But we were in Africa, and the exciting city of Tangiers.

That is a day we will always remember, not fondly, but it is a vivid memory, apart from the loss of a hat and the missing cloud one on Gibraltar I failed to spot, there was no loss or damage. Lynne stopped shaking after a few hours. There are no photos because for most of the time there was nothing to see and it was also not even a consideration. Apologies.
To all my sailing friends who are considering fitting AIS, do it now, you wont regret it, it was absolutely essential to the success of this passage. I would also like to thank the watch officers on duty in the straights that day for their skill and professionalism and for referring to Lynne as Madame over the radio, made her day!

Gibraltar

Much like the Guadiana I had very strong preconceptions about Gibraltar, these were, in no particular order, its occasionally windy, dusty, concrete, and full of ex pat Brits. All of which are true.
However it does have a unique vibrant sense of its own identity, it also has some green spaces which are lovingly tended.  This reflects well on Gibraltarians as space is at such a premium.

These photos were taken in Commonwealth Park. The name alone will tell you a lot about Gibraltar's place in British history .It is however along with the Botanical gardens one of the most peaceful and lovely spots to sit and contemplate.

The proximity of the ever encroaching concrete high rise urban building site which is never far away.

This however is my preferred memory. A quite amazing fact is that as we wandered around I naturally assumed that this was a 18th or 19th century throwback that had resisted the developers.
How wrong can you be, the first magnolias were planted in 2013 and the park was opened in 2014.
Not far away is the Cathedral, Anglican obviously but with a very obvious Moorish influence.

Witness the arches over the windows, again it can fool you into thinking its older than it is, its not that old 1840 or thereabouts.

As sailors we recognised the church service pennant.

During our visit we were entertained by the organist practising in the Gods above.

Back in La Linea, Spain ,it was festival week...…..

A weeklong series of events starting with a big parade, with dinosaurs. during which it seemed the entire town decamped to street level and set up tables laden with food whilst children collected sweets from the many floats passing.

I have to admit the dinosaurs were impressive,

Which didn't prevent small children from grabbing their tails!

Later in the week as we visited the boatyard to arrange our lift out for a survey we came across a familiar sight . The Festival of Carmen and taking the statue out to sea to bless the fishermen and presumably us too , as fellow mariners. Unusually this time it was a local yacht doing the honours....

All a little bit chaotic and possibly contrary to every health and safety regulation ever, but this is Spain...

The big day arrived when our surveyor was to inspect Dark Tarn, Ray Johnston was the man and after a quick run over the boat it was round to the yard to be lifted for the ultrasound survey. This basically involves separating the hull into square metres or thereabouts and measuring the plate thickness of each.

We had arranged to be left hanging in slings, luckily this coincided with Spanish lunchtime, or siesta as it has become known, and Ray was left undisturbed to do his ultrasonic thing.

This did involve removing a lot of our precious antifouling but we had prepared for that, what we had not thought about was that the shaft anode ( sacrificial zinc anode ) had become loose and had been rattling around the cutlass bearing. our prop shaft is about 28mm. our friend Marcus at MH Yacht preserve had 30mm and 25mm anodes in stock. Clock is ticking at this point and Marcus very kindly allowed me to use his workshop to grind out a 25mm anode to fit.

Lucky for us siesta had done its usual thing and overrun slightly so I was able to restore two coats of antifoul before we were launched over the patchwork of sample points Ray had scraped away on the ultrasound test.
Ray eventually left at 5 o'clock in the afternoon having done a very thorough survey of  DarkTarn and her systems. In the interests of honesty I had admitted to ray that our tricolour navigation light was not functioning, however I had arranged to return to the yard to have it looked at.
The idea was to come alongside the concrete end of the boatyard adjacent to the lift bay, I was not too keen on this but an Amel turned up crewed by two young lads who had blown their engine. I asked if we could raft against them the following day. They agreed ,

The two lads had bought the Amel for a ridiculously small sum of money in the med, I believe €39,000 and were sailing back to the UK to fill up the coffers and refit the boat. They had bought a Perkins genset online and had it delivered to La Linea ( I think it was from a tank ) the hope was that Marcus's team could cannibalise one good engine from the two.

After waiting a few hours during which I disassembled the deck plug again to no avail.Steve turned up declaring he was no electrician, ( promising start!) He was hauled to the top of the mast by his young Spanish assistant and between us we fixed the problem. It turns out that because of the extra circuitry involved in LED lights they don't just stop working like a filament bulb they blow fuses. Guess what's in our tricolour now? Good old filament bulb. I called up the marina and asked for help with my lines as I returned Dark Tarn to her berth. Lynne was still in Gibraltar having her wisdom tooth taken out.

She returned after a few hours with a very frozen face. Apparently it hadn't hurt in the slightest! The dentist advised rest and care when eating so we arranged to stay for a few more days.

We decided to go and have a look at the southern end of Gibraltar and leave the top of the rock for our return in spring. We caught the bus to the crowded cable car and walked to the battery holding the 100 ton gun.

Normally this has a £4 entrance fee but luckily for us the man in charge had locked himself out of his office so he let us in for free. To be honest £4 is a bit excessive. It's possible to examine the loading room and see a very small exhibition about the 100 ton Armstrong gun, a marvel of Victorian military engineering.

The views over the anchorage are superb, its possible to see that no ship would have been safe from the guns huge projectile. Although I am still unsure whether it was ever used in anger.

This part of the rock has several small beach area that are popular with locals. The beach areas are very small but in typical Gibraltar fashion concrete painted a fetching sandy colour provides a suitable substitute.

The steep cliffs provide an imposing background.

In order to reach the most southerly point in Europe it was necessary for us to walk through one of the many tunnels that riddle the rock. This particular one was dug by soldiers and the regiment involved proudly placed a plaque at the entrance. It's a little damp and spooky to be honest.

It's also quite long.

However yet another surprise awaits at the tunnels end. It's a Mosque used by Gibraltar's Islamic population.  It has a superb minaret which dwarfs the lighthouse on Europa point.

There are the ubiquitous military installations again with state of the art Victorian Armstrong guns.

There is a small exhibition in the gun emplacements describing Gibraltar's pre-history.apparently at one time when the land bridge was breached there would have been the world's biggest waterfall in the view from Europa point.

It was an interesting walk but we decided to catch the bus back rather than risk the spooky tunnel.

I
We had a last look back and saw our next destination in the mist on the horizon. The Rif mountains in Morocco. Africa awaits.......

I was getting quite exited!