At last we reached Africa. The Kingdom of Morocco. We left Gibraltar eventually when all our parcels finally arrived but only moved ‘round the corner’ and anchored in La Línea bay for a few days as our friends from the Guadiana, Titch and Stella in Karina, were coming to Gib to take on fuel before heading north. The diesel in Gibraltar at the moment is only 59p a litre, the cheapest in Europe, so we filled our tanks before leaving, also a couple of jerrycans. We have since found that it is only 47p a litre in Smir although the quality is not as good. In La Línea we also met and made friends with Peter and Ruth from Mudskipper, a fantastic swing wing junk rigged boat they built in Sydney. Mike will tell you more about Mudskipper on his page. They have been sailing around the world for 10 years now and they are soon setting off to return home. We hope to meet up with them in Oz if not before. After catching up with Titch and Stella, also Brian, temporary crew member from the Guadiana, we finally left to cross the strait on Sunday 18th May 2008.

It was pretty breezy and Mike wasn’t sure he would be able to set up the Hydrovane properly at first but it was amazing! Pat certainly couldn’t have handled the tiller in the very rough seas and even Mike would have struggled, but the wind vane (or Henry - the Navigator - as we have named him) just kept putting us back on course every time the waves knocked us off. We are sure now that the investment has been worth it. Everyone we have spoken to has said it’s like having another crew member on board.

The trip took us seven hours but we reached Marina Smir in only five hours as Morocco stays on Universal Time (GMT) all year. Spain is one hour ahead of Britain so it was more than the usual one hour difference between time zones for us this trip. Mike said he was suffering from ‘yacht lag’ as he kept falling asleep at 8 pm every night for the first few days!

Morocco gained independence from France and Spain only in 1956 after 44 years of being a ‘protectorate’ of both countries. It has a monarch, Mohammed V1, who came to the throne in 1999 after the death of his father Hassan 11, who had been the Arab world’s longest serving leader. It is slightly smaller than France or Spain, with a population of just over 30 million, the vast majority being Muslim. The main languages are Moroccan Arabic, Berber and French. Around the northern area Spanish is spoken too.

The Berbers were the original inhabitants until the Arabs arrived in the seventh century and the two ethnic groups have pretty much merged. In the Rif and Atlas mountains there remain pure Berbers and there is a movement to retain the old traditions.

The whole country is very poor, with mostly only the coastal regions being prosperous, apart from the great inland cities of Fez and Marrakech, and there is still great poverty in the hinterland. There are some beggars in the towns, but not as many as Pat remembers from her visit here back in the 1970’s. The new king is trying to develop the whole country, especially around Tetouan which was very neglected, ergo the new developments, and the amount of building work going on is massive. It reminded us of how the Spanish Costa’s looked in the 60’s and 70’s. We don’t think that Moroccan society will allow it to end up as decadent as Spain’s resorts. At Smir there was a disco and night club but when the King visited (he has a palace nearby), he ordered it to be demolished! We read somewhere that over 70% of Moroccans would like to join the EU, and they are certainly trying their best to improve the lives of their citizens.

Marina Smir is quite a new development situated on what was a deserted beach between Ceuta to the north and Tetouan to the south. There is a small fishing village just south, M’diq, which is also being developed for tourism.

When the marina opened in the 90’s it got a bad name as the customs and immigration were quite strict and a lot of boats were searched. You can understand the need for vigilance as an individual is only allowed to bring 200 cigarettes and one bottle of liquor (spirits or wine) into Morocco and most people, aware of the cost of alcohol here, were stocking up in Gib before coming across. Also, the customs men were all after Bakhshish, or a bribe.

The searches don’t happen as much now. We weren’t searched as we arrived - a good job as we had a stock of booze on board - but they did inspect the boat when we left. They were very polite and only opened a few cupboards and drawers. They seemed very impressed when they saw we had a copy of The Rough Guide to Morocco. It is a shame that not more people come here as the marina is superb and the facilities in the yard are the best we’ve seen anywhere - very clean and the staff are so helpful. We were told by doomsayers that you have to bring everything you need for lift-out (paints, brushes, even masking tape), as you can’t buy anything here, which we proceeded to do, but you can buy paint, antifoul, polish, anodes etc. from the office no bother. The only thing the marina doesn’t have is a laundrette, but we haven’t had access to one for quite some time and Pat has got used to washing by hand by now, so no problem.

We lifted out only to renew antifoul and anodes and Mike did a bit of filling to the hull. See his page for details.

We visited Tetouan one day and ended up buying the proverbial carpet! it is just a little one though, and we enjoyed the experience, also the delicious mint tea which accompanied the sale. We walked around the medina (old town) and wandered around the souks thronged with people, clutching our bags close as we warned about pickpockets. We were surprisingly unmolested. King Mohammed has been quite strict and has stopped many of the touts and hustlers. We emerged unscathed and returned to Smir by Grande Taxi. The taxis here are fantastic. They are old tattered Mercedes cars which are used as small buses really. They tend to run along specific routes between towns or you can flag one down. There is space for 6 people and the driver, four on the back seat and two perched on the front seat next to the driver. You pay for as many seats as you want so if two of you want to sit in the back seat in luxury, you pay for four seats and he won’t stop and pick anyone else up if there are already two up front! Very sensible we thought. The prices are very reasonable, just a little more than the ordinary buses which are packed as you can imagine.

There is a modern big supermarché on the outskirts of Tetouan which has all the usual supermarket fare with the addition of rows of exotic spices and nuts of all descriptions. It was very quiet compared with European supermarkets, and there was a large proportion of fair skinned people shopping there. We suppose it will take some time for Moroccans to forsake their traditional shopping habits but at least we could just choose what we wanted easily.

The other place we visited from Smir was the fishing village of M’diq. There we had the most amazing lunch. Most of the fishing boats catch sardines and there were many outdoor eating places along the dockside. You sit down and the waiter brings a sheet of brown paper for your tablecloth. He then brings each person a whole flat loaf of bread (not unlike a North east ‘stottie’). He then  brings a small dish of Moroccan salad (chopped tomato and onion) for each and a bottle of Fanta or Sprite or Coke. Then he brings you a plate of 10 freshly griddled salted sardines, again on brown paper, which have been cooked in grilles over charcoal in front of you. He then brings a sheaf of brown paper to use as serviettes. When you finish your sardines (no cutlery) there are small boys sitting opposite who pour soapy water then clean rinsing water over your hands. All of this for 20 dirhams! There are 14.5 dirhams to the pound!!

Speaking of soft drinks, the Fanta Orange here is the brightest orange colour you can imagine. There are 8 E numbers on the label! The Sprite has 3 E numbers and the Coke only 2 so we’re sticking to them for now.

The rest of M’diq seemed to consist of numerous second-hand shops. We think you could buy almost anything there!

After 5 days, El Lobo was returned to her natural habitat looking a lot better for her rest ashore. We had waved a final farewell to Paul and Phil as they headed off into the Med, and we were a bit down about saying ‘goodbye’ but we can keep in touch via e-mail. Isn’t the Internet a wonderful thing?

After a general tidying up we left for Ceuta on 29th May, but not before meeting some more new friends. Steve is a Kiwi from New Zealand and the skipper of a 30 metre luxury motor yacht and he was accompanied by Natalie, the stewardess who hails from Sussex. The boat is based on the Costa Del Sol and they were only in Smir for lift out and maintenance the same as us. Steve was good enough to show us around the boat and it was quite an eye-opener. Our whole boat would fit into the saloon! We invited them back to El Lobo to see how the other half lives and they both spoke kindly of the boat.

So back we went to Spain on the 29th, although without leaving Africa as Ceuta is a Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast, like Gibraltar is to Spain. We have only explored a small part of Ceuta up to now. It is larger than Gibraltar, 8 square miles in area as compared with Gib’s 2¼ square miles. We will let you know more about it next month when we’ve found out more ourselves. We are here for at least a week as the weather forecast is for westerly winds for the next seven days. We will then move along to Tangier then down the Moroccan west coast and away from these infernal Straits winds.

This month’s photo gallery is below.

See you at the end of June.

Pat & Mike.