Storm on Gibraltar

Ata Jata has been anchored for a month in front of La Linéa beach, at the far end of the Bay of Gibraltar on the Spanish side. I went back to France for 3 weeks and Ludo stayed on board, fixing things and getting bored. Now we have a third battery, which allow us to stock the extra energy we were losing before. Wind is supposed to be mainly West in this season but in a month only 2 windows of 48 hours of West wind occurred!

On October 9, the Navtex and passageweather.com announce a fair gale of Levanter. East wind force 8 and 9 is expected in the Gibraltar strait area for at least 24 hours. We realize there’s going to be trouble but we think we are in a safe protected place, we will just have to be patient…We sleep badly of course because we know what is coming. Friday, we wake up at 6:30am, it’s starting to blow. Around 10am a 2 meter swell enter the anchorage and we start bouncing. What’s worrying is that some waves are breaking 500m behind us (apparently on a sand bank we haven’t noticed before) but also break less than 50m in front of us toward the beach…not too good. We feel like the surfer waiting for a good wave. We start the engine and several times we have to run up the wave in reverse gear. We fear our anchorage won’t resist strong winds and big waves and for sure we won’t play this game for 24 hours. We wait for a lull of wind to pick up the anchor (and that’s not easy as the boat is already pulling hard on it) and seek shelter inside the near breakwater of Puerto Chico. One after the other almost all the boats will do the same. They are building a new port and a month ago they kick out all boats anchored inside Puerto Chico but today everybody is back for protection from the swell.
By midday on Friday it’s blowing harder. With our little manual wind meter (that almost falls apart) Ludo measures 37knots (65km/h). We hope the anchorage will hold: 12kilos anchor and 25 meters of 10mm chain on a mud/sand 6m deep ground.
The gale (soon renamed “storm” in Gibraltar) warning covers an area from Algiers and all Alboran Sea, Gib strait to Agadir in Morocco. Already 3 “Search and Rescue” messages flashed on the navtex. At the end of the day a catamaran adrift in the bay has been rescued by the Salvamento Maritimo and brought to the harbor. She broke her chain; she won’t be the only one. We are following live on channel 16 the preparation of a rescue operation by an helicopter to extract 31 crew members from a drifting ship. Later we’ll read in newspaper that this ship is actually the bulk cargo Fedra which knocked on and broke in two on Europa Point. The night is long and sleepless; every minute I feel like our boat will break her anchorage and go adrift.
At 3am the sound of a fog horn rushes us into the cockpit: there’s a motor boat dragging her anchor and drifting across the anchorage. She passes us by few meters only. There’s no one on board. Her anchor will hold again just before she bumps into the break water, then the wind will veer and she will continue to wander around in between anchored boats, will get out of the harbor and end up on the other side of the bay where her captain will pick her up unhurt the next morning! Huge waves are dismantling the breakwater rock after rock and it is now wide open on 250meters. The wind is freshening again and the fetch in the harbor is getting worse. Ata Jata is holding good but I’m stressed out: thunder lightens the night all around us, wind is screaming, the water is smoking, there are enormous masses of water smashing up the breakwater on the left and behind us…”What the hell am I doing here?!?!?”
Saturday morning, we haven’t slept, it’s still blowing hard. The wind veers and now it’s coming from right in between buildings of the city and the Rock, which makes an accelerating corridor. At each gust we hear a big noise from the bow. In Queen’s Bay marina on Gibraltar side a sailor notice a gust at 59 knots (force 11, 100km/h)! At last by midday it’s calming down, the boat is all covered by red dust; at 3pm we crash and snore.
The forecasted gale turned indeed into a strong storm force 11 generating dreadful sea conditions. Our stress lasted 36 hours. Aftermaths: 2 cargos run ashore, one on Europa Point, one in Algeciras, both have oil leaks and the sticking oil balls on our hull prove it. An unmanned 44 feet sailing boat went ashore too. Finally we were not so bad in Puerto Chico, a billion times better than at sea for sure and even better than in the Gib marinas were the causalities were serious; but even if Ata Jata made it, I’m not looking forward to experiencing this again!!! Even if we’ll have to sail against the wind toward East, we’re out of here!