Plans Plans Plans: La Linea de la Conception

I must apologise for my lack of posts, its largely down to being lazy and also being again in a Bordertown. Doubly important and relevant due to the Brexit fiasco. So we spent a month at anchor in the bay of La Linea before moving into the marina for the winter. After the "Bandit country " of Newry or even the Basque country of Getxo, this tideline of countries seemed to be quirky and amusing. The dividing line is about a 10 minute walk and unusually the way into Gibraltar crosses over a live runway. The only truly flat bit of ground also hosts the local football pitch. The planes duly land and take off to left and right dictated to by the prevailing west and east winds, the Poniente and Levanter respectively. In the photo below the wind is easterly (photo from Gibraltar) so British Airways lands from left to right

Its difficult to avoid but Gibraltar is a unique place, not unique as in special and precious just different to any place you have ever been. It has apes, for about two minutes they seem cute, but in actual fact they are despicable thieving parasites. I took this fellas picture just before he "mugged" a passing woman with a plastic bag of shopping, tearing her bag open and then calmly eating the contents. Not so very different from the local shopkeepers who will quite happily mug you for your money on the assumption that you believe you are getting a "duty free" bargain. think again.....its true that booze and tobacco are stupidly cheap, as is diesel. but everything else is designed to separate the cruise ships inmates from their cash as quickly as possible. Lynne and I fell for a couple of scams (£5 for two cups of tea?) but we quickly got wise.

Famously a notorious ape known as "Dracula" mugged a tourist on the Skywalk, an elevated glass bridge on the top of the rock throwing her money passports etc. Anything in other words inedible down the cliff, the passports were still visible weeks later. Another tourist complained to the local authorities that the response she received from the local police was less than satisfactory when she complained she had been sexually assaulted by an ape, the polices asked if she would like them to arrange an identity parade of the usual suspects, made me laugh anyway!

La Línea, literally "the Lines" indicating the border is a different kettle of fish from Gib. A slightly seedy run down but still vibrant town, famous for being the drug runners home turf. Not difficult to understand when unemployment in Gibraltar is about 2% whereas in La Línea it’s around 35%. It’s also to be fair not the most attractive town, however it does have its charms.

The anchorage is one, on a quiet evening as the sun sets it can be glorious.

There is also a legendary eatery that serves steaks cooked on a charcoal grill for very little money but be warned you will have to queue up for a place. We visited with some fellow Brits from other boats.I could tell you how to find it but I am not going to.........trust me it’s great!

One day we walked around to the east of Gibraltar, we discovered some small beach resorts we had been unaware of, they have a certain charm but suffer slightly from Gibs biggest problem which is available space, they are also a bit seedy and a bit down at heel..

Being on the east side they really only get sun in the morning and are gloomy in the evenings, Also a bit prone to rockfall, however you could always strike lucky with some holiday money and passports thrown from above by the Barbary ape mugging squad above...

At our lovely anchorage we avoided the hurricane forecast and merely got very high winds. The holding was good and apart from not going ashore for a week we were fine, however not all the boats in the anchorage fared as well and this wee fella fetched up on the beach, refloated a few days later she was back out in the bay snug at anchor.

At the beginning of November we moved into the marina at La Línea which would be our home for the winter months.

The marina is very well run however is quite expensive when the electricity bill is factored in for live aboard like ourselves. However you can see some amazing vessels including for us the Carrack Victoria, Ferdinand Magellan’s flagship and the first vessel to successfully circumnavigate the globe.

She looks quite spectacular at night.

It’s difficult to tell sometimes if the ceremonial and posturing side of Gibraltar is just for the tourists or just for Spain. We watched the "ceremony of the keys" involving keys to a non existent gate on a sea wall now a quarter of a mile from the sea. Lots of pomp and quite entertaining, but........

The yoemanry then march up "Main Street" whose main purpose is to separate cruise ship punters from their money.

We retired back to the marina to think about the Mediterranean and tried out our least used sail, the spinnaker, in the safety of our berth. We have been told there is either not enough or too much wind in the Med. so this is one of our low wind options.