Early Morning Departure
Category: Liveaboard
Carloforte. Italy like we imagined it.
Small Island. Ferry connections only. Colorful buildings. No big box stores. No brand name chains. All buildings two stories high or less. Every little store felt like the time eons ago when the world consisted of small things. Zoomed back in time.
This post contains picture galleries to flip through. Words fail to describe, but somehow even pictures fail. Being here is the thing.
Small is beautiful!
Below is Italy’s answer to the Dodge Ram. Fits perfectly into every narrow alley, supplying stores and restaurants through the backdoor.
Walk Downtown
First walk around downtown and trying to get lost 🙂
Fresh Food
When we came out of quarantine, the first order of the day was replenishing fresh food onboard LUNARA. What a pleasant experience. Even though the shopping atmosphere is eery with face-masks everywhere. Post Corona, normal times will return. We can imagine how lovely shopping and tasting fresh food next year will be.
(Promise: will never use Portrait mode for video again)
Getting Groceries:
Gallery shows a food supermarket near the marina in Carloforte.
Small Church:
Another day we discovered this small church downtown. The colors outside match tastefully with the surroundings and the blue sky. Inside, everything was perfect pastels.
Church in Carloforte 
Admiral learns Italian 
Good Bye Gibraltar
A little heavy hearted we left Gibraltar, heading for Tanger, Morocco on May 27.
We had a very good time in Gibraltar. Both of us were having a cold, limiting our urge to explore a bit. Nevertheless, we had wonderful experiences here. We had some excellent recommendations, but couldn’t follow through. All rental cars within a reasonable radius were rented out on the weekend. The Tio Pepe Sherry winery or the white horses and several other great attractions have to wait until next time.
(Babak, thanks for the recommendations)
Passing the border from Spain – our Marina was on the spanish side of the bay – you got right away the good old England feeling. We lived near London in the early 90s. The border crossing had the oversized sockets, a red British mailbox, red phone booth and a bobby controlling the traffic.
But before we view more pictures, I must mention our personal highlight of Gibraltar:
Without doubt, this was our mid afternoon lunch in a restaurant on the ridge of the Rock of Gibraltar. You ride up there with a cable car. If you feel like it you can hike up there. It’s 750m altitude difference 🙂
Anyway, the cable car it was and a short walk to the restaurant. In the relative narrow dining area you will see the Mediterranean sea and through the other window the Bay- and Strait of Gibraltar. Food was excellent and very reasonably priced for such a prime location. It was a moment were you lean back, look 40miles into the distance and simply feel blessed.
Cable Car Ride
The View!
Point Europa
Neanderthals
In Cartagena we were impressed by its 3000 years history. Gibraltar goes way back over 40000 years. The “capital” of Neanderthals was here. Many caves with relics were found in Gibraltar. This was during a period when the sea-level was 100 meters lower than today – the Ice Age.
A lot of interesting information is on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthals_in_Gibraltar
Next time in Gibraltar, we’ll visit the Ice Age museum to learn more about that period:
Ice Age Museum of Gibraltar and other heritage sites
What would Gibraltar be without its monkeys
Good Bye to the Rock
Odds and ends
Lunch Time & Rigging Work
Exchanging some chafed ropes on the boom.
Love Life in Gibraltar
Lunch on top of the Rock in Gibraltar. Absolute fantastic view. In the background, barely visible, Africa. We are feeling blessed.
Breakfast with a view
Love life!
Underway to Tanger
Having night watch. It’s after midnight
It’s May 20 0340h UTC and I am writing a blog text. I wonder, being tired, how much this helps my grammar – let’s see 🙂
May 19, around noon we left our Marina berth for the fuel dock. We needed 380 liters of diesel to fill the tanks.
The whole morning we prepared the boat for the trip. Getting LUNARA seaworthy is always more work then we think. The prior day, being out of the boatyard and back in the water, was filled with all the tasks you cannot do when out of the water. Testing the generator, adjusting idle rpm of the diesel engines, watermaker maintenance and washing the dirt and dust of the boat-yard off and many other chores. We maintain todo lists to keep up with all the stuff.
Around 14:30 we motored out of the harbor and set sails soon. With decent wind we sailed southwest with 6 knots. Between 1700h and 1800h UTC the wind died and we had to motor. On long distances we go into fuel saver mode which is running only one diesel at 1850 rpm. That’s typically good for 6 knots. Not today as we are heading into a short wave “thshhhh bang” every 6 seconds. We barely make 5 knots.
Late afternoon we had a wonderful first. A pod of pilot whales visited us. Families with kids so to speak. They swam under the boat and appear a more shy species then dolphins – not so easy to photograph as Flipper was. (We think they were Pilot whales. If anyone knows better please let us know in the comment section)
Little duties continue while underway. We changed from our winter storm damaged flag to the official summer flag:
It’s 0412h UTC now and the sky begins to brighten in the East from the soon rising sun.
I have to pay attention to other things now. I am logging out.
Bye, bye
Fresh Produce Shopping
Leaving Cartagena soon.
PS: PS: Coke needs to be fresh too
Getting Ready to Splash
Big cleanup and work day. We might splash tomorrow on Wednesday.
Getting closer to launch
Up early morning. With the street sweepers.
