As we where sailing along yesterday afternoon, in a beautiful Algarve afternoon with 15 knots of breeze, ripping along with the masthead code zero on, it was hard to take Aksel too seriously when he was telling us that in just a few hours time we would be short tacking in 35 to 40 knots of wind, dead upwind through the Straits of Gibraltar!! but sure enough, as is normally the case, he was spot on, as windy and as wild as it was, it was very impressive... Africa on one side and Spain on the other.
As a New Zealander whose country's discovery by Europeans is only 160 odd years old, landmarks like this that would have been (and in fact still are) so incredibly pivotal in the control of defending the Mediterranean countries of Europe, just blow me away. One thing you know for sure, is that as inconspicuous as we felt sneaking through there at midnight in our little Volvo 70, there is no doubt that we where being "watched" by many... And it's very cool to think that would have been the case for hundreds of years.
Now we are just in for the long 400 odd mile beat upwind to Valencia, we have a few extra sail tests that we still need to do so we will go a little further so we can run back.
One last night for now on the mighty rainbow colored machine of ours for this trip, and what a trip it's been, beautifully prepared once again by our shore crew from when we left and just like they will have to get used to as we race rally and roll her around the world. Tomorrow we are back into making her better and faster...
Talk soon
Cheers
Mike
