Rabat Morocco

Sandy and David and Marian in Guadalest

We left Ibiza for Campello on the east coast of Spain to visit our friends David and Sandy. We arrived in the early evening and managed to get tied up even though there was no room. We find that if we just arrive at places they always seem to find a place for you even if they say there isn't one. In Campello they have, once a year, a festival of the Christians and the Moors. The locals have this party that last for a week. When we arrived the parade was on, and knowing our friends have taken part in this for the last ten years, we scrambled up town to watch and see if we could find them. The costumes are just amazing with a two hour parade of a lot of people all decked out in authentic Moorish and Christian costumes of a period hundreds of years old. We did not find our friends that night but when we got back to the boat we found that they had already been there. This year they were not involved so we were able to spend some time with them. We stayed for five days and drove up to mountains and Benidorm, a large tourist city on the Med. Our friends took such good care of us that we did not want to leave but it was time to get going as the weather was favourable for our move south.

We traveled down to an inland sea called Mar Menor and met with Mike and Bev on White Bird whom we had met in Northern Spain a year and a half ago. We spent a day and a half with them then pushed off for Almeimar. We stopped in a cove and anchored for the night so we would be getting into the marina in daylight. The marina was very big but as it is October there is no one there other than the few yachties either moving through or over wintering. We did a big shopping for supplies for the Atlantic crossing here as the super market was close by. We even went to a pub with the yachties for quiz and bingo night. Marian won the bingo and got an electric hot plate as her prize. Met some good people and had a fun evening. Then it was off to Gibraltar with a short anchoring over night on the way. We arrived on Saturday evening and saw off Point Europa a freighter crashed on the rocks and apparently another one sunk a couple hundred yards offshore. Gibraltar had a near hurricane hit which was the same storm we waited out in Ibiza a couple of weeks ago. It did a lot of damage closing one of the two marinas in the territory. We anchored at La Linea which is just on the Spanish side of Gib beside Rapture I with Howard and Kellie. It was exciting to see them again and we had a wonderful dinner on their boat. The next morning they were off to the Canaries as the weather was looking good. We stayed as we wanted to spend some time as we enjoyed it so much when we were here a couple of years ago. We were lucky that we had friends, Win and Pam, on an Amel, named "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch" from Wyoming who managed to talk the marina into allowing us to tie up to them for a day until a berth opened up. It is a small world out here and we keep running into lots of new old friends. Anyway we enjoyed Gibraltar with no language hassles and British shopping especially the super markets with lots of products Marian is familiar with. We walked up to the top of the rock and just had a good time wandering around and visiting other boaters.

Gibraltar

Leaving Gib on the following Saturday we felt we had a good forecast to run to Rabat 130 miles away. However just out of the straits the wind and rains picked up so we ducked into Tangier where it was just pouring. Luckily for us "Following Tides" had just arrived and Robert and Darlene helped us to tie up to them. Then it was off to immigration through 2 to 3 inches of water running everywhere. The next morning we all decided to stay and hired a guide to show us around the old city. It was a good day seeing the Medina and the hotel that was used for the movie Casablanca. So on Monday we were off again to Rabat and Following Tides for the Canaries. For the first ten hours all was going well then the winds defied the forecast and turned into our face with more rain and thunder. It kept getting worse with the winds picking up in the low 40 knot range right on our nose. This really slowed us down and we were constantly taking green water right over the boat so were very happy to arrive in Rabat and find our way into the confines of the marina. Following Tides arrived at the same time as us and the pilot boat brought us both in through the shallows of the river. Twenty six hours of banging about requires a couple of whiskys and about twelve or more hours of sleep!!

Moroccan fishing boats.

Rabat is the capitol of Morocco and has a nice feel to it. It is clean and the people are so friendly always saying were are you from and welcome to Morocco. We walked for 6 plus hours the first day and enjoyed the whole of the city that we saw. That evening Sea Mist arrived. We have not seen John and Cheryl and son Ian since Marmaris in Turkey and today did another big walk about around the city. Tomorrow we are all going to Fez for a couple of days so it will be strange to sleep on land again. Our plan now is to be off sometime next week for the Canaries to await a window for crossing the Atlantic. Hope I get better results than the last two tries!!