Flying Visit

Gibraltar

Gibraltar, aka The Rock, is a British enclave that is more patriotic than England will possibly ever be. Did you know that the Queen's birthday in Gibraltar is a Bank Holiday? Passions run high in this place, especially when the Spanish step a millimetre into territorial waters. The papers are full of headlines saying the UK must send a warship to protect the sovereignty. How much of it is political posturing? Is it all a storm in an English cup of tea? Time will tell. From our experience of being here just over a week, life goes on as normal. The cruise ships arrive, the tourists disembark and flock like sheep to the High Street for retail therapy, as tax free bargains can be had. Well that is to say if you smoke and/or drink. The jury is out on electrical goods, as some appeared considerably more expensive than say Amazon or suchlike.

Thanks to an off the cuff remark by Marco, the yotties electrician in Almerimar, we got wind of a possibility to buy certain goods at an even cheaper price than the already tax free one. As a yacht in transit we could take advantage of this. In reality the only real saving was on cigarettes so we purchased 1000 B&H for the princely sum of £75. Why you might ask? Well, we have heard that packets of cigs make good tips in certain countries, so we thought we would put some into stock to test the theory. Time will tell. As for booze it was actually cheaper to buy it over the counter than through the bonded stores scheme. If you like a tipple here are some prices. Bombay Saphire £8.65 a litre. Southern Comfort £10 a litre. Jim Beam £6.45 a litre and so on. If you are fussy and don't go for well known drink, you could be paying less than £2 a litre for Gin, Vodka and Whiskey etc. It all goes to show how much duty is made back in the UK.

Gibraltar also has a Morissons supermarket. So what you may ask? Well, if like me you develop a craving for Lime Cordial and Scotch eggs you are out of luck in Spain, but here in Gib it's not a problem. Did we go shopping there every day? No, but almost. If only to be in an air conditioned environment, as most days witnessed temperatures touching and sometimes exceeding 40C, with 85% humidity. 

Whilst in Gibraltar, and timed accordingly, we had a visit from Phill. Arriving in furnace like heat, we walked about 20 minutes from the airport terminal to Ocean Village where Azzy was snug in her mooring. It was here in 2008 that Lynne first experienced a sailing course, so rather nice to come back. Much water under the keel since then so to speak.

As a tourist there are a number of things one can do when visiting Gibraltar, and pretty sure Phill did most of them apart from the Dolphin excursion. No visit would be complete without a visit to the top of the Rock for the views, meeting the apes, and delving into St.Michaels caves.

With those boxes ticked we also found time to play pool, go ten pin bowling, watch the new Mission Impossible film at the cinema, see live music in Grand Casemates Square, rub shoulders with hairy bikers who had rendezvoused for a Harley Davidson meet, and order 4 fillet steaks for three of us in a Casino. (A special deal as we only paid for 2, well Phill did, thank you very much).

With so much to do and more, the week flew by. Speaking from personal experience and casting my mind back to the work thing, a weeks vacation was never long enough if all you did was sit on a beach or by a pool. The mind traffic gnawed away and you would find yourself taking sneaky diversions into cafes for wifi access to pick up mail and read the headlines in newspapers. In truth a more active holiday is probably more relaxing as it diverts your mind. Anyway, you be the judge of that.

So below are some snaps of happy memories. We look forward to seeing Phill again in the Southern Hemisphere!

The Rock as seen from Spain

How cheap!

Lynne and Phill at the top of The Rock

A Barbary Macaque

Looking out over the Med side

Looking down onto the runway

Amazing rock formations inside St. Michaels Caves

Inside the Siege tunnels

No, it's not Florence Nightingale

Tasty Indian curry... had to be done

This was Steve's Surf n Turf, but Lynne and Phill pilfered the surf!

Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble

Harley Davidson Rally, AKA mid-life crisis meeting

This felt high and was only the first set of spreaders

Oh dear!

Next stop is a visit to the anchorage near Rota in the Bay of Cadiz to break up our journey to one of our all time favourite places, the Guadiana river.