12 May 2009, Cadiz, Spain.

During the night the wind got less and less and by the time we approached the pilot station it was calm. The swells were still running but as the port is inside a shallow bay, the swell is stopped by a long breakwater and inside it was as flat as a mirror. The weather forecast for the day was uncertain but in the end it was bright with sunshine all day. The approach to the harbour is very peculiar as the green buoys on the right hand side are located well inside the reefs and the reef buoys on the port side when going in, are over in the fairway. So if you would hug the green buoys when going in, what you normally do, then you would be aground almost at once. So when going in and when going out you have to favor the red side of the channel. That means that Port Control keeps an eagle eye on all the ships going through the channel as you do not want to create collisions with this peculiar setup.

Staying on the red side makes sense as the turn into the harbour basin is almost 90 degrees, so the wider the turn you can make, the easier it is. The piers are named after Spanish Royalty and so we had the Princessa Sophia pier and the Alfonso XIII to name but two. We were docking at the latter one and it is almost the closest berth to the town. Almost; as we had to leave some dock space for a local ferry that was arriving later in the day. The beginning of the pier is a container terminal but when there are more cruise ships scheduled for the day, they delay the cargo traffic to accommodate the cruise ships. We were however the only one and thus there was not much of an issue about where were going to dock and about taking a berth away from a cargo ship.

Apart from being a cruise and container port, Cadiz is also very important as a ferry port with daily departures to the Canary Islands. During the winter time it is mainly cargo traffic that is being ferried over but during the summer time the ferries are full every day with tourists. Especially Tenerife gets a lot of car traffic in the form of SUV’s and Campers from the Northern parts of Europe. At the moment the season has not started yet and so we only saw lorries with containers driving on (Roll-on) and driving off (Roll –off)

When we arrived there was a whole flotilla of fishing boats coming out. It seems that in Spanish ports the whole fleet leaves at the same time, somewhere between 5 and 6 am in the morning and it looks as if an invasion is taking place but in the opposite way. For navigators that have never seen this before, it can be a bit un-nerving. You are just lining up the ship for the pilot station and or the leading lights and out comes, at full speed, 50 or 60 boats on exactly the opposite course. The initial reaction is then to get out of the way or to stop the ship. In this case not the correct thing to do, as the fishing boats do not expect you the do anything. If you did so you would only confuse them. Thus the larger ships keep doing what ever they are doing and the fishing boats swerve around the ship on whatever side they prefer. Some times so close, that you could easily hit them with a beer bottle. However due to lack of beer bottles on the bridge we have never tried that.

We had an early arrival of 07.30 due to the tour departures and with the cooperation of the local authorities they were ready to go at exactly that time. As I had swung the ship around on arrival; departure was a straight forward affair. Sideways off the dock and off we went, speeding up as quickly as we could. It is a tight schedule for us to make Almeria, our next port of call on time, as we have to slow down while sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar. Slow speed is advised due to the presence of Whales from April to October. The scheme is not compulsory yet but it will be in the future. That going slow for two hours affects the average speed that we have to make, so every minute helps by getting out of port quickly.

The weather for tomorrow is a bit un-settled. There is a strong wind blowing in the Straits but it should be nice on arrival Almeria. If the wind shifts later during tomorrow, it might get windy and overcast in the port as well. Spring always brings unstable weather in the Med., as we have seen in the past few days, so each day with good weather is accepted with gratitude.