Trafalgar, tuna and tuna nets

Once the winds finally died down a bit, we left Chipiona for Barbate, together with a few other sailing yachts including Marcus and his new crew member. We were all keen to get through to the Strait of Gibraltar before the orcas, who were all still hanging out at Gibraltar, started following the tuna moving north along the Spanish and Portuguese coast.

Trafalgar

The highlight of the dry stretch of beach-lined coast south of Chipiona came just before Barbarte when we rounded Cabo Trafalgar – yes, that Trafalgar. I (David) knew a little bit, a very, very little bit, about Lord Nelson, that single-armed, single-eyed and very single-minded murderer/slayer (take your pick) of the enemies of the British Empire.

I even knew a little bit about the battle of Trafalgar; primarily that Nelson won the battle with a clever though risky strategy but got himself mortally wounded in the doing of it and, of course, that his pre-battle message to his sailors was a cheery “England expects every man to do his duty” (and they did). One thing I did not know however, was where the Trafalgar of the battle was.

Well, it is south of Cádiz (where the hapless Spanish and French fleet set disorderly sail from a day or two prior to the battle) and just a bit west of Barbate (where we were headed to) and a fairly non-descript, low lying cape it is too. Graced with a simple light house on shore and a nice tidal race off shore, it would be easily overlooked.

Orcas

Having rounded Cabo Trafalgar and put a bit more east into our heading to get us into Barbarte we got to listen to an amusing bit of radio traffic about orcas on Channel 16. Orcas being one of our primary concerns in this area, we were keen to find out what was going on and so we turned up the volume and listened in carefully. After a while, we figured out that one of the main boats on the radio was a vessel from Sea Shepherd France. They are one of the vessels cruising the orca hot spot areas trying to prevent sailing boats from doing silly things that might get them into unwanted interactions with orcas.

We got to hear in real time how they talked with the sailing boats and how they were responded too, and noticed some striking differences in responses. First, it should be said that at all times the Sea Shepard folk were extremely polite, they enquired as to whether the sailors knew they were in an orca area and if they knew how best to avoid the orcas, if not they advised them about the recommendations and let them make the decision.

In one conversation, they called up a French yacht to ask them whether they knew they were sailing through an orca hotspot, let them know that orcas had been seen nearby that same day, and suggested that it might be a good idea to head for the 20m depth contour. This yacht responded in true French fashion: ‘Ah, mais non! Je suis un bateau d’expédition!’, left it at that and kept sailing. The next conversation we overheard was with a Portuguese yacht, which responded with a ‘Thank you, I will change course immediately!’. Meanwhile, Yuma, just a few miles to the north, kept slipping along well within the 20m depth line, although at some point in this stretch we did manage to find a 20m++ hole that wasn’t on the charts. Luckily no orcas in this hole and we arrived safely in Barbate.

Excitement 1: Bumping into our neighbour

Barbate provided us with a few moments of excitement. The first came as we moored up in the harbour. There was a strong cross wind blowing as we came into our allocated berth and the mariñero who showed us the berth decided to not fasten the mooring line that he had called for and had taken and instead let us blow onto the boat beside us with a thump. Cheers, mate. Luckily the very surprised owner of the boat we banged into got over his shock and, seeing no damage, was completely forgiving.

Excitement 2: More swifts

The second was the discovery of 50m-ish long ‘arch’ over the entrance to the industrial port that was a massive swift nesting apartment. Hundreds of common and pallid swifts (Apus apus and A. pallidus) were zipping in and out, knocking each other off their nesting hollow entrances, and generally carrying on like the world was about to end. Fantastic!

Excitement 3: Tuna

The third delight was a fantastic tuna meal at Vario Pinto, a restaurant on the esplanade, recommended to us by a Belgian sailing yacht, SY Senes. Thanks, Arne, it was delicious!

Tuna nets

From Barbate south towards the Strait of Gibraltar we hugged the coastline closely and keeping well within the 20m depth contour most of the way. This required squeezing in behind a tuna net just outside Barbate, but going well outside the 50m contour to get around another one near Zahara. Luckily there were no orcas hanging out there that day.

Low scrub covered the hillslopes and wheat crops and golden pasture spread out over the lowlands. Cattle lounged on the beaches and where the hills met the coast, forest came to the rocky water’s edge and towns and houses nestled in amongst the cliffs and gullies.

Sighting Africa

Just before we reached Tarifa a dull blue outline began to form in the bright haze to the south – Africa! What a strange feeling it is to see a continent gradually taking shape like that.

Both of us have been to the other end of Africa, so the continent wasn’t completely new to us, but for some reason seeing this corner and seeing it from our own boat felt rather special!

Gibraltar

With a strong wind from astern we rounded Tarifa and in short order were making our way into the Bahia de Algeciras and the harbour at La Linea.

Moored up in the evening light we looked directly from Yuma’s cockpit to the Rock of Gibraltar, perhaps just a mile away. Not bad at all.