Sailing into the Orca’s Kitchen: Prelude

Position: 36°45’04.4″N 6°25’18.5″W

Rather than overwhelm you, dear reader, with another vital instalment of our excruciating linear narrative of sailing down the coast of Portugal, let’s skip ahead a couple of months and talk about the lead up to sailing across the Orca’s Kitchen. The hottest of hotspots for mischievous, boat crushing, ship sinking, rudder eating orcas.

Lauren and Wade Return

Lauren and Wade have been supporting our adventures for years now. And for years we have tried to repay their kindness with a trip on Aleta. Our last attempt was in March of 2020 when they flew to Spain, and we took one last road trip before Covid shut down the world. Kicked out of our hotel in Peñiscola, we raced back to Cartagena and hunkered down. Within minutes of arriving at the marina, the United States closed its borders to everyone but returning citizens. The authorities said we could leave but not return. With every other country on lockdown, there was nowhere to sail to. After spending hours on the phone with the airlines, Lauren and Wade secured the only flights in existence that would get them out of Spain and back home to the United States.

Of course, even in the best of circumstances, visiting Aleta and actually sailing on her are two entirely separate things. Given Aleta’s near perpetual state of maintenance, having enough functioning systems for a safe, successful passage is one thing. The other, of course, is weather. Sometimes the stars align, and we leave one port and head for another. If we are really fortunate, we have people we like on board with us. Such was the case two weeks ago.

Leaving Albufeira

For northern European sailors heading to the Med for the winter, turning left at the corner at Cabo Sao Vincente is a relief. The dominant northerlies iron the seas flat, while the wind blows steadily on your stern quarter making sailing easy. Lauren and Wade are lubbers with open minds and, it turns out, surprisingly strong stomachs. Even though they came armed with scopolamine patches, they never broke the seal or even hung over the rail.

Our first leg was a 36-mile jaunt down to the island of Culatra. A storm in the Atlantic had unsettled the seas from the west, while a powerful wind out of the Strait of Gibraltar had unsettled them from the east. Locally, the two winds cancelled each other out. No wind blew and our first day was perhaps the worst kind of re-introduction to sailing. Slow rolling seas with diesel fumes coming over the stern is by far my least favourite point of sail. Everyone held onto their cookies.

Once past the breakwater, the bay remained serenely calm. Sunset rippled across the inlet on plein air as the day’s deep reds and orange glow faded into the horizon. Seabirds squalled in the distance. Their calls broken only by the cacophonous roar of jets directly overhead as they made their final approach to Faro airport. I recall the first time we visited Culatra the wind came from the east. We didn’t hear the jets and thought it a delightfully peaceful place.

Ayamonte

After a day walking the long, white sandy beach and eating lunch on the island, we made an early, pre-dawn start for Ayamonte, Spain, 35 miles and one full tidal swing up the coast. Leaving on the turn of the low tide set us up for arriving at the crest of the high tide. Perfect for navigating the shallow entrance to Ayamonte’s otherwise excellent marina.(The sailboat in this photo ran aground at low tide.)

As the sun broke over the eastern horizon, a pod of dolphins swam towards us. Having just discussed safety at sea and the protocol for donning lifejackets, we also said everything goes out the window when dolphins show up. As the others rushed to the bow, I manned the helm and shouted useful things like, ‘Look – over there!’.

October in Ayamonte sees vanishingly few foreigners. That doesn’t mean the place isn’t lively. Far from it. In the clear, balmy evening we wandered along streets crowded with families. Parents sat at small tables enjoying wine and tapas while keeping half an eye on their kids. Their kids ran noisily around the streets playing tag or chase in the feral way we used to. You know, back In the days before nannying know-nothings decided children should be sequestered in front of the television instead of burning off energy outside.

Catching the next afternoon’s outbound tide, we sailed for an anchorage at the mouth of the river leading up to Huelva. A spot we’d stopped at in May 2023. It was dark by the time we dropped anchor in the exact spot we had two years ago. Such is the benefit of a chart plotter with an eidetic memory.

Chipiona

Come morning, we looked out and saw ourselves surrounded by fishing boats slowly dragging their nets up and down the shoreline. The forecast looked promising, providing we could beat the southerly Levant winds before they whipped up the coast north of Cadiz. For it was Cadiz we were heading. Winds from the northeast built gently for the first part of the morning and we sailed happily as far as Chipiona.

Then things changed. We missed the wind shift by an hour and short, choppy waves built quickly off the bar. The wind picked up to 20 knots directly out of the south. A north-bound current further slowed our progress. It became clear that the 16 nautical miles remaining would turn into 25 or 30 with tacking. In other words, far longer than we had the energy or stomachs for. It was time to quit.

Turning Aleta around, we dropped our anchor outside Chipiona’s marina in 24 knots of wind blowing straight off the beach. It held fast in the sand, and we settled down for the night. Water continued rippling along the hull with enough force it sounded like we were still sailing. By morning, though, the gale was almost a flat calm. In a few hours we were snug in our berth in Cadiz’s Puerto América marina.

Most large towns and cities along Spain’s southern coast have a marina owned and operated by the state of Andalusia. They do a good job keeping the facilities in working order and mooring prices reasonable. This being the off-season, we paid just under 20 euros a night including water and electricity. Damned reasonable by any standard.

Silke

Overnight we had acquired a passenger. A female seagull plunked herself down on Aleta’s foredeck and stayed there overnight and throughout the passage to Cadiz. A quick Google search confirmed what we suspected, that she was probably as sick as a parrot. Healthy seagulls shy away from humans (unless they’re stealing their ice cream cone). Poorly gulls ruffle their feathers and stand about looking forlorn. They also harbour a surprising number of diseases including avian flu, psittacosis, histoplasmosis and cryptococcosis. Lauren named her Silke.

As captain, the job of taking her off the boat and putting her on the dock fell to me. We fed her some sardines and fresh water. After a rest on the dock, she slipped into the water and vanished like a Viking taking her last voyage out to sea. We never saw her again. (Well, we might have, but to the untrained eye gulls look an awful lot alike.)

Cadiz

With a stroke of good timing, Lauren added another card to her Spanish Virgin bingo game. Since the 16^th century, Cadiz has celebrated la Fiesta De La Virgen Del Rosario Coronoda on the first weekend in October. The entire city turns out to watch and participate in parades with marching bands. Burly men haul around palanquins with icons of La Virgen. Sitting in the square beneath the gleaming white cathedral, we drank beer and ate olives as the bands tuned up and got on their way. Having seen plenty of religious fiestas in Cartagena, rather than following the crowd we instead headed in the opposite direction in search of a quiet dinner. We found it at Casa Cánovas. An Italian restaurant with great food and wonderful staff.

Our final task before leaving for our last stop in Spain, Barbate, and onwards to Tangier, Morocco, was to check out of the EU. Cadiz is a cruise ship magnet and an EU immigration frontier, perfect for stamping out. With our time limited to 90 days in 180, we need all the leeway we can muster. With only a momentary administrative hiccup, we were finally ready to enter the Orca’s Kitchen. The belly of the beast. The question was, which way would we go? Follow the ‘safe’ route by hugging the shoreline and staying in waters 20 metres or less deep? Or would we take the advice Lord Nelson gave Admiral Thomas Cochrane and “Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them!”?

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Next: Into The Orca’s Kitchen…

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