Between the Pillars of Hercules - Day 2

Day 2 has turned out to be almost as long as day 1, lying in bed typing this seems an awfully long time since we got up. Our alarms were set for 6am and we were ready to go at 7. Breakfast in the hotel doesn’t begin until 8 so we missed that, but Pierre took us to a little cafe in Tarifa where we had freshly squeezed orange juice and some churros, which was basically strips of fried dough – a straight doughnut. It was very nice and as we sat outside and ate there were loads of swifts flying around us.

We then made our way to the harbour and our boat, the Rainbow. We got our life jackets on and at 8.22 we set off into the second busiest shipping lane on the planet (after the English Channel). The many large ships use two lanes of traffic, along the African coast into the Mediterranean or the European coast if heading for the Atlantic. By quarter to 9 we were in the middle of the Gibraltar Straight, roughly 7km from both Europe and Africa.

Almost immediately we were surrounded by a pod of bottlenose dolphins who were in playful mood. One or two we saw leap right out of the water, others rode the bow wave of the boat, and we saw plenty of fins (and took a few photos of them too). A couple of them would leave their tails sticking out of the water and wave them at as...at least that’s what it looked like they were doing. One even came out of the water, tail first, and was doing something like a headstand (with just it’s head in the water). Pierre said he’d never seen this before.

As we moved further westwards we saw a large number of long finned Pilot whales. These were in small groups of about 4 or 5, but there were lots of groups. One group even had a tiny calf which was only a couple of weeks old.

When we had been out for an hour and a half we went further west to try and get a glimpse of Orca (killer whales). Chances were slim as they don’t tend to mix with Pilot whales, and they also tend to appear when the Spanish fishermen are out as they can steal their tuna. We came across more Bottlenose dolphins and Pilot whales, but the Orca proved elusive. Some fishermen did make an appearance but they were not fishing for Tuna, sadly, to attract the killer whales.

We had been out for nearly 4 hours and the weather was changing. The westerly wind was giving way to an easterly one, the Levanté, which is not so good for sailing. We headed back and the sea was definitely a little rougher. The bad news is that it will be too rough to go out tomorrow so we will have a cetacean free day.

After the boat trip we had lunch in a local restaurant. Fran had carbonara and I had seafood with fresh pasta, which was both large and very nice. We popped into the supermarket on the way back to get some fruit and other bits and pieces.

When we got back we had a swim in the pool. Fran then read for a bit and I went down to the beach to watch (and photograph) the kitesurfers.

After a (very) quick dip to cool off in the pool we got changed and met the others to head into Tarifa. Pierre gave us a brief tour, then we explored by ourselves for an hour during which we got lost as well as seeing a wedding and a christening. We met up again at 8.30 and had Tapas for tea along with a selection of Sherry. After eating we headed back to the hotel.

In the outside bar in the garden there were some acrobats performing and I watched them as I sipped a Mojito. With that safely drunk I walked back to our room to write this, and now I will stop to go to sleep as we are going to Africa in the morning.