The summer sailing finally began as we cast off the lines at Alcaidesa Marina in La Línea de la Concepción. It was time to bid farewell to another winter berth of Suwena and turn the bow towards new adventures.
The first leg of our journey was to stop for refueling in Gibraltar. This sea voyage was a breathtaking 1.5 nautical miles long as we rounded the new large breakwater of Alcaidesa to enter the Ocean Village Marina that was almost at a distance of stone’s throw.
We had some enterntainment on the Gibraltar side, as we drove past the Gibraltar Airport runway. For entering the Ocean Village you need to drive parallel to the runway. The distance to the tarmac was more or less 50 meters only and when we were leaving Gibraltar, an Easyjet plane took off at the same time. It felt like it was almost touching Suwena’s masts. Our ears did feel the pressure change as the Airbus took off with its two CFM6 engines roaring at full throttle next to us.
There were a several fuel stations right next to each other, so we joined the queue to wait for our turn. The fuel stations are in free-zone area and for refuelling only there is no need to check into Gib so in addition to local boats the vessels from Spain and Morocco were refuelling there as well.
There was quite a hustle and bustle as boats were coming and going to refuel. The refueling process went smoothly, and soon Suwena’s belly was full of Gibraltar’s famous tax-free fuel.
Our plan was to spend one night in Ocean Village Marina before continuing to the Med. To our surprise, we received a very blunt and absolute refusal, stating that the marina was full. There were several pontoons that had only a few boats each, so the marina had plenty of empty space. Nevertheless, there was no berth available for a visiting boats for one night. We had saved a few places in Gibraltar for our last night there, but that didn’t happen. We had no choice but to change our plans and find a new place for the night.
The skipper chose Sotogrande as the next destination. We had a target to be in Fuengirola the following day to meet our Finnish friends. However, it was already a late afternoon so we decided to make only a short leg and anchor off in front of Sotogrande and continue the journey the next day early in the morning.
The weather was really nice, the afteroon sun was shining, and there was a nice 14 knots of wind. We sailed the entire 16-mile voyage of the first leg of the season. At first, in the shadow of the Rock of Gibraltar it was more like drifting than sailing, because the wind was blowing from the west. However we were not in a hurry, the summer sailing had just started and we were just enjoying being at sea again. As we drifted out from the shadow of the Rock, the wind caught the sails, and we sailed comfortably at 6.5 knots to Sotogrande.
The harbour fee at Sotogrande was steep, and we wanted to have as many relaxing anchor nights as possible for this season, so we dropped the anchor off the beach of Sotogrande and spent a peaceful night. The feeling of the boat swaying slowly at anchor is really hard to describe. The nerves really relaxed, and it was an incredibly wonderful feeling to be back on the water again.