Blog 41: Avoiding the Orcas!

So now we're setting off towards the Mediterranean, calling at a few nice harbours en route.

We had a lovely sail along the coast to Mazagón…

…where these two ships looked as if they were about to collide, but actually one was going alongside to fuel or supply the other!

And we enjoyed super “posh tapas” at a lively street restaurant called El Brujo, which means The Wizard, the nickname of the chef! It was sort of Masterchef Tapas - delicious and different and beautifully presented!

He was certainly a wizard when it came to the strawberry roulade!

The next day we enjoyed another super sail to the Bay of Cádiz where we anchored just off Puerto Sherry…

…and had dinner in the cockpit with the sun setting behind us.

But the wind then quite suddenly got up and was fiercely strong, possibly the Levanter coming from the Mediterranean. Our anchor held overnight, but it was not very pleasant, so the next morning we were lucky enough to find a space at the Real Club Nautico de Puerto Santa Maria (RCNPSM) just a short distance up the River Guadalete and much more sheltered!

El Puerto de Santa Maria has an attractive old town…

 

 This is the Real Plaza de Toros and the bullring…

This is the Town Hall…

The Iglesia Mayor Prioral…

…where a family of storks has taken up residence on one of the highest pinnacles, safe from predators and humans!

A nice shady square

This is one of the many Sherry warehouses, some of which look a bit run down and un-used, possibly now that the river is not so important as a method of transport.

A welcoming glass at the end of the day at Maria Castaña overlooking the River Guadalete

I also visited the nearby city of Jerez de la Frontera, famous for its Sherry. It’s just a short train ride from El Puerto de Santa Maria and I went with Kit and Mariella from Tiger Lily, who we are sailing with.

The impressive station at Jerez

Plaza de Arenal 

With Tio Pepe (Uncle Peter) of Sherry fame

A tempting bar in the Centro Historico

Part of the old city

An inviting restaurant just about to open, tucked away behind the main square

Some sort of street art festival using coloured sand

A display of Sherry barrels for which Jerez is famous

Next port of call was Cádiz, another beautiful and interesting Spanish city, which we enjoyed revisiting.

Impressive Cádiz Cathedral

I cycled round the old part of the city and the bay….

….and joined Charles at a nice bar in one of the city’s parks

Traditional tapas bar, Cumbres Mayores….

….where we enjoyed a delicious tapas dinner with Kit & Mariella

Sunset over the Puerto América marina on our last night in Cádiz

We left Cadiz early the next morning, just behind this cruise ship

Now for the orcas! 

From Cádiz we set sail towards Barbate along 'orca alley'. This is the area where orcas have been mysteriously attacking the rudders of sailing boats, mostly about the same size as Astraia. Many have been damaged and a few actually sunk, so this part of the trip feels quite nerve-wracking!! It seems the orcas, otherwise known as 'killer whales', are following migrating shoals of tuna, their food source, and are either playing with the boats or attacking them because they see them as a danger in some way. This is only recent behaviour - in the past orcas appeared to have no interest in boats.

Anyway, there is lots of research going on and lots of advice available about how to avoid an orca attack. The most sensible thing seems to be to cruise along close to the shore in depths of less than 20 metres, which is generally too shallow for the orcas.

But - there's always a but! - there are three huge tuna fishing nets, attached to the shore at one end, which extend out into depths of more than 50 metres. Hobson's choice for a sailing boat is to risk an orca attack in the deep water, or risk ending up on the beach or catching the keel or rudder in a net in the shallow water! We briefly went into the deeper water to get round the first net. But mostly that first day we stayed close to the coast within the 20 metre contour.

Here we are approaching Cape Trafalgar close inshore (where the Battle of Trafalgar took place in 1805)

…with Charles giving the naval salute to Lord Nelson!!

As if orcas weren’t enough to worry about, we then encountered gale-force winds as soon as we rounded Cape Trafalgar. From a fairly gentle breeze the wind suddenly increased to Force 8 (about 34 knots) exactly 'on the nose', i.e. completely against us, which produced an uncomfortable and lumpy motion, with waves breaking over the boat and into the cockpit! 

As soon as we rounded Cape Trafalgar, the wind suddenly increased…

…until it reached gale-force with waves crashing into the cockpit!

Astraia actually handled the conditions very well and we always felt safe - by this time we had no sails up, we just motored slowly into the storm, but we did still have the bimini up and it was just too rough to safely take it down (it got battered, but survived!) We just had to put up with it for a couple of hours or so and got pretty damp, despite wearing waterproofs.

We were very pleased to reach the sheltered, calm waters of Barbate Marina - it's amazing how well the sea wall protects the harbour.

The marina has got a friendly feeling with rescued cats living contentedly along the jetties and being fed by a charity.

We took a walk into the town of Barbate…

…and had a delicious dinner in a smart restaurant overlooking the beach

After a day off in Barbate, we set sail for Gibraltar, with another two huge tuna nets to avoid.

We left Barbate on a sparkling morning with a flat-calm sea - what a contrast to our arrival!

In the end we crept along the shore to avoid the net off Zahara - you can see the floats marking the nets just to starboard of Astraia…

…but we were so close to the beach it was almost more scary than meeting an orca!! This is too close for comfort!

We then had a nice sail along the coast until we reached the next tuna net!

We went outside the Tarifa net in the deep water and scurried back to within 20 metres depth as soon as we could!

The boat is patrolling the outer end of the net to keep people away.

After passing the final tuna net without seeing an orca, we reached the southernmost point of continental Europe at Punta de Tarifa.

We feel lucky to have avoided the orcas because there were several 'interactions' or 'attacks' very close to our route in the days before and after our passage! We were as careful as we could be, but it's still a bit worrying!

We lowered the Spanish courtesy flag before reaching the British territory of Gibraltar 

The familiar outline of Gibraltar was a very welcome sight!

And we were soon comfortably moored in Queensway Quay Marina, Gibraltar.