The weather remained fine and we still had one last possibly challenging trip to make before we reached Gibraltar – the passage through the Straits. We decided to hop down the coast to Puerto Sherry then to Barbate from where we could run down to Gibraltar when the weather and tides were suitable.
Alan, Eduardi and Lorcan would accompany us for this leg which should take us around 3 hours. Again we had a little wind to make it worthwhile raising the sails but it quickly faded away, so back to motoring! I had been in contact with two former colleagues, John Hall and Dave Thomas who owned a boat of the same model as Synergy. John and Linda Hall came out from their home port of Puerto Sherry to meet in their Jeanneau 39i, PATRE, giving us a chance to do some ship to ship photography.
There are sound meteorological reasons why the wind picks up in the afternoon on the coast but it is, nevertheless, infuriating when there is no wind when one wishes to sail and a near gale when it comes time to manoeuvre into a berth. With a wind off the pontoon, we clattered into the narrow gap and tied up. Jac prepared a feast for us all and John and Linda joined us together with Pepe, Eduardi’s brother, who was collecting the Dunne family for the return journey by road to Sanlucar.
Once everyone had left, Jac and I were left to our own devices and we went to a restaurant overlooking the bay of Cadiz. It was a beautiful location and we dined on swordfish steaks while the sunset over the Bay of Cadiz. Very romantic!
Sailing Synergy 