Andalucian Arrival - Day 1

Day 1 of our Out of the Blue trip to Spain to watch whales and dolphins has been a long and tiring day, but it has been good. We left home at about 2.45 am and arrived at Gatwick about 2 hours later. By the time we had checked in, had a croissant and a drink and looked in the shops we only had half an hour to wait. We boarded on time but were then told that we wouldn’t take off until 8.50 which was 40 minutes later than scheduled.

Despite the late departure we arrived only 15 minutes late and by the time we had reclaimed our bags it was about 1pm local time. We were met by our local guide, Pierre, and were introduced to a couple, Mike & Gill from Hull, who had already flown in from Manchester . We were joined soon afterwards by David, from Cambridge (who had also been on our flight), Gabriele, an Austrian living in Brussels and Silvia from Frankfurt who flew in via Madrid. The 7 of us and Pierre then set off in the minibus for the two hour drive to Tarifa.

Along the way we saw Gibraltar and, across the straight, Africa. Pierre said he had never seen it so clearly, and we stopped briefly for an ice cream and to take some photos. We then piled back into the minibus and arrived only about 15 minutes later at our hotel, the Hotel 100% Fun.

Our (air conditioned) room is on the ground floor, it has no windows but the doors open out to the pool area and the pool is just about 10 metres from our door. We quickly unpacked and then met up again in the outside bar for a drink and a quick briefing. Tomorrow we are going out on the boat, but the wind is due to change (from Ponienté to Levanté) and it will be rather choppy.

After we finished our drinks we arranged to meet up at 8pm in the restaurant for dinner, then went and had a swim in the pool. It was lovely and cool after a long day. After this (at about 6pm) we took a stroll across the road to the beach. There are hundreds of kitesurfers and windsurfers and with the backdrop of Morocco to the sea it was very nice. The photo shows us at the waters edge with Africa in the background.

The outside bar where we had our drinks has a WI-FI connection so after dinner I will try to post this, which I am now writing at ten to eight. I will then try to write an update each night which I hope to publish to the web, hopefully with some good photos too.

Quick update – just got back from dinner, it was very nice. Tuna steak was excellent and Fran’s chicken fajitas were very sizzly. That’s all for now, as we’re meeting at 7 in the morning to get on the boat.