I'd never been to Gibraltar and hadn't really read too much about it, so I arrived with a completely open mind. Gibraltar town is quite quaint, the shops on the main high street are mainly touristy - alcohol, watch and souvenir shops but there is a Marks and Spencer if you need the real comforts of the UK. Yes, there are red post boxes, yes all the bobbies look english and yes everywhere takes sterling.
We came here on a sailing course, namely the RYA competent crew and day skipper courses - this was no holiday, we were here to learn and to do 2 exams in the process! We'd booked it through Hot Liquid (http://www.hotliquid.co.uk/). These are a friendly bunch of guys who have just opened up in Gibraltar but who have been running courses in Southampton for some years now - the reason for Gibraltar is that its tidal and you really need this to get your day skippers ticket. They are thinking of opening up in Antigua aswell. Their instructors are top notch, Simon was ours and he was brilliant.
We arrived and got to know our fellow sailors (Louise, Christian, Joe on our boat and Melissa, Peter, Mark, Steve and Sam on the other boat) over a beer or two and we were then introduced to our boat - ours was a 36' Bavaria called "Liquid Inferno" which was comfy enough.
We had 5 days of competent crew practical - this was all about crewing a boat including handling a boat under sail and engine. The layout of the days was very casual, we'd set sail from whereever we'd moored up, sail around, learn some drills such as man over board, use of the dinghy tender, reefing sails etc and then head into a port. We didn't always return to Gibraltar, we sailed up the coast to Spain, visiting a few ports including Sotogrande (see 2 piccies below). Once we'd moored up, we would put the boat to bed, wash her down etc and then head off for a much needed beer and some food.
The next 4 days was back to the classroom to learn the Day Skipper theory. We were staying onboard the boats so we didn't need to move accommodation. This was very intensive but the first 5 days we'd had made it easier as we'd covered a lot of this in the practical competent crew course.
At the end of the 4 days we had to sit 2 exams - aaarghh! The first time I'd sat exams for over 20 years. For the theory course we had some new recruits - Kate, Ruth and Jack and we lost Peter and Mark (not literally).We had some R&R to discover Gibraltar - we decided to go and visit "the Rock" and see its famous inhabitants.
path off the rock with Africa in background
After this it was back to the boats for the practical side of day skipper, we pottered around in Gibraltar Bay dodging the ferries, fast cats and tankers - all great experience. We also crossed the Straits of Gibraltar 4 times, once at night. The wind varied considerably from no wind whatsover to a force 6 - the force 6 was at night! The night crossing was great fun, but serious still, we had to spot the ships just from the light configurations we'd learnt the previous 4 days and alter course accordingly . We got to Ceuta (Morocco) by 1:30 and proceeded to the bar arriving back onboard at 6:30am - a good night was had by all!
Another crossing of the straits took us to Port Marina Smir, also in Morocco - this was a more laid back affair with beers onboard in the evening.
Our return was supposed to be up the coast to Spain but a valuable lesson was learnt in tidal currents on our way back. We hadn't set the right course to steer to make Spain and so back to Gib it was - this wasn't too bad as we were getting quite used to dining out at the Waterfront Restaurant at Queensway Marina (http://www.gibwaterfront.com/) - very nice!
All in all, we had a thoroughly great time and got our day skippers ticket into the bargain. I can thoroughly recommend Gibraltar and Hot Liquid for sailing - tremendous fun.
Dolphins off the bow of Liquid Inferno courtesy of Alan Briggs.
