Position: 2000 LT, 35° 53’N, 006°19’ W
Date:Thursday June 10, 2010
Date:Thursday June 10, 2010
Gibraltar
There is no peace and quiet any more . Since a few days we gradually notice more ships around us, but now we have sailed into the Cadiz area, ship are swarming around us. The big ones luckily are sailing the same track, but the fishing trawlers sail like Italian scooters through the heavy traffic.
The VHF traffic channel is an agitated quarrel of ‘scooter drivers’ asking containership captains to change their course to spare their fishing nets. To stimulate the chaos, the Spanish have positioned a ‘gunnery exercise area’ exactly between Gibraltar Street and Cape Sao Vicente, at the highway exit towards Northern Europe to put it bluntly.
We are preparing the ship to anchor tomorrow morning. The sails that we will not set any more will be stowed and the stun sail booms are taken in. Tomorrow we will be overlooking the Gibraltar’s monkey rock.
Richard Slootweg
Captain Clipper Stad Amsterdam
The VHF traffic channel is an agitated quarrel of ‘scooter drivers’ asking containership captains to change their course to spare their fishing nets. To stimulate the chaos, the Spanish have positioned a ‘gunnery exercise area’ exactly between Gibraltar Street and Cape Sao Vicente, at the highway exit towards Northern Europe to put it bluntly.
We are preparing the ship to anchor tomorrow morning. The sails that we will not set any more will be stowed and the stun sail booms are taken in. Tomorrow we will be overlooking the Gibraltar’s monkey rock.
Richard Slootweg
Captain Clipper Stad Amsterdam
