Arrived in Formentera

It was an interesting trip. We had a weather window of about 4 days when the wind was blowing from the west, this would have been right behind us for the whole trip of about 3 1/2 days. Unfortunately we were held up in the marina at Gibraltar for about a day and a half.

We finally left at midnight on Wednesday and had light to moderate winds behind us for a couple of days. Then it stopped! We then had to motor for about 18 hrs until we got a little more wind. We finally anchored on the west coast of Formentera, the smallest and least known of the Balearic Islands, and just south of Ibiza, on Sunday morning. Ibiza is the Spanish party island that all the young English flock to. Can't wait to get into those night clubs, one can take up to 10,000 guests!

Very nice clear water here, where you can see the sandy bottom four metres down. It's the first time we have had this since the Western Caribbean. (That's over a year ago!)Will go and inspect the hull and have a bit of a swim today, although the water is only 22 degrees, a bit chilly for the Admiral, although it doesn't seem to deter anybody else!

Hey I think we can leave....

They are saying that we can leave at 6:30pm.

Next stop,,,,,,hmmm until the wind stops.....
Bye

Arrrrrrh .... let me out of here.....

The marina entrance

It is now 3pm and we are still stuck in the marina.  The oil spill is from the tank explosion a few days ago. The wind was blowing from the east and blew the oil over to the Spanish side of the bay. The wind has turned around to blow from the west (just what we need to go east) and this has blown the oil back from Spain and onto Gibraltar, closing the marina!.  They keep on telling us that it should be open soon, all the port authority has to do is come around and remove the small amount of oil from the boom and we can leave. So far no action. 
We are not the only ones being affected, there are many others waiting to leave and some waiting to come in.

A small amount of oil is enough to hold us in Gibraltar!

The explosion and fire on the 31 st of May.

 The oil spill was caused when a fuel tank exploded in the port of Gibraltar,  near the Independence of the Seas, injuring 12 passengers.