Morocco Archives - Sailing Catamaran Lunara

Left Gibraltar This Morning

After visiting customs and emigrations to clear out we left the dock of the friendly Alcaidesa Marina (La Linea, Spain).

Currently in the Strait of Gibraltar heading for our TSS crossing point to head towards the south side of the TSS. (TSS = Traffic Separation Scheme, kind of motorway with median for vessels)

Busy Port. The grey ship symbols to the south are in the TSS

TSS Crossing section. We are the little vessel near the top a bit to the right.

Morocco on the other side. We are heading there in some minutes (literally)

Back to navigating.

Bye, bye!

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)