S/Y Belisama: To Gibraltar, through Barbate, 3 & 4 October

Wednesday 5 October 2022

To Gibraltar, through Barbate, 3 & 4 October

Today, we made it to Gibraltar, kind of a significant step in our way to the Mediterranean. We were extremely exited about the trip and wishing to enjoy the cruise. To most of our surprise, a thick fog emerged as we were approaching the straight of Gibraltar, and we could not see more than 50 meters around us as we moved full speed in the currents all along the straight. No need to say that we will plan a new crossing of the Gibraltar straight in the future :-).

Arrival to Gibraltar as the fog clears up

The "Rock" of Gibraltar is not a myth. You just see it as you approach and the fog clears up. As expected, in this area, there is extremely intense traffic of all sorts of boats. While you are expecting tankers and other cargo ships to cruise along their access lines, we were surprise to see how many pleasure boats were wandering around in the fog without AIS system. We had to activate the radar for the whole crossing as the only way to be able to safely monitor the traffic ahead of us.

Looking back a bit, we made a stop over in Barbate before crossing the Gibraltar straight. The nautical instruction very clearly indicate that the best time to approach is 3 hours before the full tide in Gibraltar, and go through it in 6 hours, until 3 hours past the full tide. And as the full tide was 11:15 in Gibraltar today, we decided to stop over night in Barbate and leave at 8:00 in the morning to start our journey through the Gibraltar straight.

The arrival to Barbate goes along the Trafalgar cape coast, and Trafalgar is very well remembered from the French and the British, as well as the Spaniards, unfortunately allied with the French. The battle of Trafalgar was the most significant naval disaster of all times, and resulted in the supremacy of the English navy for over a century, the disappearance of the Spanish fleet which jeopardised their ability to keep a link with their colonies in the Americas, as well as a full destruction of the French navy that would require years to restore. Napoleon was definitively not a sailor!

Along the trafalgar cape coast

The Trafalgar battle itself took place on 21 October 1805, but was the result of months of hide and seek game across the various fleets in different parts of the world. To make it short, Napoleon wanted to gather an army in Boulogne in order to cross the channel and invade great Britain. But for doing so, it imagined bringing the French fleet to the americas in order to attract the British fleet there to fight the French fleet, while at the same time repatriating part of it to ensure the secure moving of the French army in Boulogne across the Channel to the UK. On their way back the French fleet, supported by the Spanish fleet got ambushed in Cadiz along the Trafalgar cape coast, and the Franco-Spaniard fleet was destroyed by the more operational British fleet under orders of Admiral Nelson. The result was a large British victory, a new square in London, and the first of three Napoleonic defeats that are remain as of today as synonym of catastropies in the French language: "Un coup de Trafalgar", "Une Berezina" ou "Waterloo".

The trafalgar cape lighthouse

On the morning of the 4 October, a small fleet of boats were departing together around 8:00 from Barbate to cross the straight to Gibraltar. The rising sun was very nice over the friend boats, despite the complete lack of wind. Of notice, this was the last day that the crossing could be made safely, as the forecast for tomorrow and later indicates strong head winds in the 10th of m/s preventing a smooth crossing of the straight.

Departure from Barbate to Gibraltar

Passing Punta Carmarimal

On the way to Tarifa

As we enter the Gibraltar straight, the fog gets thicker, not allowing seing anything more that 50 meters around us. We needed to activate the radar, and sail under the radar control to watch ahead of time the small fishing boats which are so many in these waters.