Our first view of The Rock was through thick haze, but on a clear day it is supposed to be visible for up to almost 60 miles. The Rock in itself is very impressive and the highest point reach about 1400 feet. The part of the Iberian peninsula that makes up Gibraltar, consist of about two square miles of land. The town of Gibraltar cling to the sides of the rock on all sides, but the biggest concentration of buildings are on the west side. The airport runway separates Gibraltar from the Spanish mainland, and the runway serves as the road leading into and out from The Rock. Currently Gibraltar belongs to Great Britain, and has been part of its domain since 1704, but before that the Moors and the Spanish tried to gain access to the strategic location of The Rock. During the Franco era, Spain tried to revive the claim for the Rock again, but was unsuccessful. Even so, the attempt to claim The Rock culminated in the border being closed between Spain and Gibraltar for 13 years. We got the feeling that no love is lost between the British and the Spaniards to this date, as they don't seem to want to cooperate in matters concerning the common good of the land.

The people who live in Gibraltar and call it home, are a mix of British people, Moors, Genoese, Portuguese, Spanish, Jewish, Maltese and Indian, and the two most common languages are English and Spanish. Both languages are taught in school, and the children I spoke to, go back and forth between the languages without any trouble. Of course they lost me immediately once they spoke Spanish.

The climate on The Rock is sub-tropical, and that was evident in the many beautiful flowering plants, that were still in full blooming color when we arrived in September. "Birds of Paradise" flowers were very impressive, and looked just like a colorful bird ready for flight! The cactus thrived all over The Rock, palm trees were planted along some streets and huge eucalyptus trees climbed the western sides of The Rock. Among all the greenery on the western side of The Rock, lived the Gibraltar Apes in a semi-wild state. Obviously, they were so used to tourists gawking at them, they paid us no heed, but went about their business as usual. Their business consisted of eating, playing, grooming and resting, and they did all those activities with gusto! When we hiked up to visit with the Apes, they didn't bother with us humans at all, but they were quite interested in our dog, Duke. Some of the braver younger apes, made attempts to get close to Duke, but when Duke wanted to have a sniff at them, the apes pulled back their lips, showed their teeth, and scurried off screaming to a safe place.

From the ridge of The Rock we had a beautiful view over both the east and west sides of Gibraltar, Spain to the north and farther west, Mediterranean Sea to the east, and to the south the Strait of Gibraltar with the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in the background. On the eastern side of the ridge, the people had filled in The Rock with cement in order to collect rainwater, but those methods were no longer used. Now the people of Gibraltar get their fresh water from desalination plants! At the very southern tip of Gibraltar is "Europa Point" with its huge lighthouse, which dates back to 1841. The lighthouse stands 160 feet above sea level, and it has a range of almost 23 miles!

Any kind of shopping in Gibraltar was duty free, and compared to Spain, it saved us up to 16% in taxes. Booze, beer, wine and cigarettes were very cheap, and fuel was the cheapest compared to other places in the Mediterranean, but not so the food and other items. Even with paying 4, 7 or 16% tax in Spain, it was still cheaper there, so that's where we ended up buying most of our food and necessities. In Gibraltar a ship's captain can write prescriptions for medicines used onboard, and after Dan had contracted some kind of stomack virus, that didn't want to go away, we tried it. We were a bit leary to walk into a Pharmacy and give them a letter stating what kind of medicine we wanted and in what quantity, but the pharmacist we choose, just happened to be reading about just those English laws, so he was more than happy to fill our request.

While in the Azores we had gotten spoiled with the ports supplying washers and driers either for a charge or sometime for free, but not so in Gibraltar. First of all, they did not have laundry facilities like the US; instead you could use washers at a local laundry, but only when they didn't need the machines. When we wanted our clothes washed, we could put them in the washer and/or drier by ourselves, for 50 pence less than they charged to do it for you. One regular size washer cost 3 pounds, which we estimated to be about $4.50. After our clothes were washed, we brought them back out to the boat and hung them out to dry, which could take days, sometimes! It all depended from where the winds were blowing!

The winds in Gibraltar seemed to come from either east or west the most, sometimes from the south and very rarely from the north. We were anchored west of the airport runway in Gibraltar to begin with, and that was just fine with easterly winds. We were protected by the runway and the holding was good. That was not the case when the winds changed direction to west or southwest, as the wind and the waves came straight up towards us. We endured a few very uncomfortable days and nights in real choppy waters, until we moved behind the big breakwater wall coming out from the city of La Linea on the Spanish side of the airport. Immediately the water got calmer and even though the winds howled in the rigging, we were very comfortable. A few times we moved back and forth between Gibraltar and La Linea according to the weather, but towards the end of our stay, we just stayed on the Spanish side. The anchorage was very good, and we had no problems in winds blowing as high as 45 knots. The clouds that formed on or around The Rock were very strange. Sometimes it looked like The Rock had a hat of thick clouds. Other times the clouds seemed to be slithering up and over the ridge, and still other times the clouds formed in a band on the side. Very seldom was the weather crisp and clear in and around Gibraltar, but sometimes the mountains in Spain and Morocco were more visible than normal. Could it have something to do with the refinery smoke stacks, along the Gibraltar Bay in Spain, billowing out black smoke day and night? At times we could smell the smoke, and black dirt fell on our boat when the winds carried the fumes our way, which didn't happen too often! It didn't seem that pollution control was a big issue in Spain.

Soon we settled into somewhat of a routine and the days disappeared. We had parties on our boat with Ed and Diana from "Reality", and Tom from "XTC". At one get together we grilled and ate the last dolphin fish that Dan caught on the way to Gibraltar. It was delicious! At another party on our boat, we invited another American couple we had met, Gary and Caryn from the boat "Windflower". They, along with their son, were on their way back to San Diego after circumnavigating the globe and spending the last five months in Greece. Since they were leaving the Mediterranean and didn't need their "Mediterranean Cruising Handbooks" any longer, they were willing to sell them to us. We had been looking in the Ship's Store at Sheppard's Marina for just those books, so we were happy to get them at a discount! When we wanted to go ashore, sometimes we went in our dinghy across to the Custom's dock in Gibraltar, where they let us tie up. Other times we just went ashore in La Linea, and walked across the airport runway and into Gibraltar that way; it was quite a bit farther but a nice walk! To the Internet Cafe we walked quite often, and there we could call our son through the computer for 3 pounds per hour. Of course, everyone in the whole room could hear what you said, so it was no privacy, but for the price we couldn't complain. To get cash for our purchases we used ATM machines, but only one in Gibraltar worked with our Master card. Many more ATM machines were available for Visa cards. Sometimes the line for the ATM machine was long and slow moving, but eventually we got our sterling pounds and could spend again. Our son sent another package our way, and after three weeks it arrived at the post office without any hassles at all. It was just as fast and a lot cheaper to use the regular mail service, compared to UPS Express, that we had used for our package to the Azores.

Since we weren't going to sail home to Sweden this summer, I still wanted, or rather needed to go home, so October 13 I flew out of Gibraltar with change of planes in London and arrived in Sweden late Friday evening. My nephew Richard, picked me up and soon we headed north up into the woods and home to my parent's house. I had three wonderful weeks at home visiting with relatives and friends, but most of my time was spent with my parents, and that was important to me. How happy I was to be at home, but of course the three weeks soon disappeared and it was time to return to Dan, Duke and our boat. My uncle Erik drove me and my parents to the airport, where my nephew Richard and my great niece, Elin also showed up to say goodbye. It was so hard and so sad to hug my mother, my father, my uncle Erik, my nephew Richard and my great niece Elin and say goodbye, but the time had come to board the plane and return to Gibraltar.

While I was at home in Sweden, Dan, Tom and Duke had rented a car for a few days and went exploring along the Spanish coastline. They wanted to check out the marinas, to see which one we would like to spend the winter in, as it was not a good idea to be sailing in the Mediterranean until spring. Tom, with his boat "XTC" had continued along the Spanish coast and ended up in Almeria, by the time I returned to Gibraltar. "Reality" with Ed and Diana onboard had returned to Lagos, Portugal, because Diana was flying back to the States for four weeks visit in October/November, and Ed wanted to stay in a marina while she was gone. Our old friends had moved on, but we soon found new ones! Rickard and Ingrid from the Swedish boat "Golif", and Manfred from the German boat "Paseo", soon became regular visitors to our boat. Manfred came with us on our boat one day, when we decided it was time to sail across the Bay of Gibraltar to Algeciras in Spain and officially check in. That was easier said than done, as nobody knew what to do with us. After trying in four different government buildings, one Spaniard finally pointed us in the direction of the ferry departure buildings along the port. After walking miles, it seemed, we at last found one man, who walked us to the correct official, and soon Dans passport was stamped. Since Manfred's and mine are Euro passports, ours needn't be stamped! As we were walking away, the official changed his mind and stamped ours also! Two stamps in my new passport; Gibraltar was the first and Spain the second! Nothing was said or done about the boat papers! Before returning to our boat, we found a marine store and bought a small Spanish curtesy flag, which we hoisted under our starboard spreader.

As usual, repairs to the boat needed to be made, and while on anchor in La Linea, Dan had to work on our generator. He had the waterpump repaired at a Bosch dealer, the glow plug broke off and parts were stuck in the head. Since we didn't have a tap set with us, Dan ended up taking the head into the marine repair shop, where they used their tap to get the rest of the glow plug out. The injector was also replaced, and the exhaust rewelded by an English man, who had a machine shop onboard his boat! Soon the generator was working like new, and we didn't have to run the main engine to charge our batteries! Our watermaker has not given us any trouble since we started using it. Every other or third day we run it and fill our watertank, but we try to be pretty conservative with the water, so only about 15-20 gallons need to be made. While underway from the Azores to Portugal, our new auto pilot motor broke. Since they had an authorized dealer for Autohelm in Gibraltar, Dan brought the motor in for repairs. It was still under warranty, so it just got replaced. We were not so lucky with our Autohelm Tri-data. When that instrument would not work correctly, we had to buy a new circuitboard for it, which was not cheap! Of course it was needed for our sailing to continue, and soon we had everything in working order and started planning our next move.

When the last day of November arrived, it was with overcast weather and calm winds. We didn't hurry with our chores, but when they were done, Dan went into Gibraltar to check the weather forcast at a marina. He soon returned and said that it looked good, so our boat was readied for another overnight sail. Guess we had stayed long enough in the Gibraltar area, and Dan was anxious to continue. By noon we had pulled up anchor, powered our way over to the Swedish boat to say goodbye, Manfred had already returned to Germany, and soon we were on our way out of the safe anchorage at La Linea. Since the winds were very light, we ended up powering around The Rock and into the Mediterranean Sea. I took some last pictures of The Rock from the water, and it still looked impressive. As the day drew to an end, we were powering northeast towards the port of Almeria, which is a city along the southeast coast of Spain, and where we planned to spend the winter in a marina!