A big sail even if it was downwind.. but it wasn’t, we tacked all the way from Cadiz to Gibraltar, over 60 in total, we basically tacked every 30 mins for about 28 hours straight!

And experienced just about every wind condition you could possibly think of, from none at all to perfect conditions with about 16-17 knots and often gusts came through of over 30, they were very sudden and quickly disappeared but not quickly enough to keep full sails up, so throughout the day and night we were putting more sail out, then less, then more.. it was exhausting…

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When we neared Tarifa there was a lot of wind and there were many kitesurfers out making the most of it, at one point it looked like they were racing us.. I think they’d win pretty easy tho!

The thing which did go in our favor for the most important bit was the tide/current going through the straights of Gibraltar, somehow we managed to time it well to be going in the same direction as the 3knot tide which took us nicely into Gibraltar in the early evening.

On our way into the Bay of Gibraltar, we passed a number of huge container/cargo ships, hiding in the mist.

Dolphins saw us into the bay before disappearing into the night 🐬🐬 no pics this time tho 🙁

We arrived more quickly than expected even with all the tacking and we had reserved a marina spot for the next day as there’s no anchoring allowed in Gibraltar, so we sailed on by and anchored to the north in a Spanish anchorage, I didn’t realize quite how small the country is till we sailed from one end to the other in about an hour!

As we came into the anchorage we spotted a boat that looked strangely familiar but not because we had seen her before, she turned out to be another Nic 38 from the same era as Hannah, called Salara.