Guest entry: Robin and Heather's report on Gib

We arrived at Gibraltar on Saturday afternoon October 8th and had obviously planned this trip to coincide with Kika's arrival at The Rock. Can you believe it ? Kika was stranded the other side of the Straits in bad weather with a string of other stuff waiting to get through as well so the two of them hired a car and drove overland the 35 miles or so and met us at the airport. Nick had already ascertained the whereabouts of the chandlery but, of course, it was the weekend and so, as they had to return the car on Sunday night and were, in fact, marooned the other side of the Straits until Wednesday, Robin was detailed to attend the chandlery for a multitude of essentials. On Wednesday morning it was really thrilling, from our hotel balcony and the hotel restaurant, to see Kika round the point and sail into Gibraltar Harbour and we have got some marvellous DVD of that. By the time we had finished breakfast, the whole hotel was cheering her in !

Kika arrives as viewed from the hotel restaurant

From then on, we had a marvellous three days with them. They had to anchor off in the bay for one night until a berth became avaiable in one of the marinas.

View of 'the rock' from the anchorage

Gibraltar is undergoing massive development in the building and reconstructing of marinas with vast amounts of overlooking properties going up and fetching £ 580.000 for a two bedroomed flat !! Mind you, we liked the place in spite of all its' tourism. The Gibraltarians are very friendly and extremely pro British. We have never seen so many Union Jacks !

Gibraltar with Rif mountains of Morocco in background

The chandlery was several times graced with the presence of Nick (I wish I had shares in the business) and on Friday I was commandeered to help him dismantle the whole rear (sorry, Aft) section of Kika prior to the fitting of a solar panel.

In all, we had a wonderful time with them with very many laughs and it was a very sad departure on Saturday