Sailing back to the Rock from Ceata
I flew to Malaga and then took the bus to La Liniea abd then walked over to Gibraltar. I used Rock Sailing for the course as the reviews were quite good.
I met the instructor who was an old fasioned English man who liked to drink. Onboard there was a German and Gibraltarian who were both doing there RYA Yacht Masters. The first day due to heavy rain and the decks being slippy the German fell in while trying to jump onto the pontoon.
I was not keen on the mooring system as it was not what we had in the UK.
On the first day we did a number of exercises that seemed very easy with the very weak tides. Not like back in the Solent. It was very strange sailing past the airport. Most of the time the weather was bad with lots of rain my cabit leaked a lot. We sailed to Ceata and around the Rock saw lots of dolphins and not many container ships like I was expecting. While enroute to Ceata we heard a mayday call coming from an inflatable dinghy full of people atempting to reach Europe. We did not assist as the skipper said if we do assist we will be boarded by armed immigrants who would not hestitate to shoot us. As he was familiar with those waters I did not protest. Other vessels beter equiped went toaid the dinghy.
I was pleased to pass my Coatall skipper and very shocked at how laid back things were with a complete lack of regard for rules or even simple things like wearing a life jacket. I was the only one who wore one the who.e time while at sea.
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