Yet again I find myself writing this in the very early hours on my watch!

On arriving at Gibraltar (the rock looked impressive from the sea but not as impressive as all the big ships anchored off) we discovered that the large marina was closed as there had been a shipwreck accompanied by an oil spill there! We anchored off La Linea (Just on the Spanish side of the border) and had to dig out the Spanish courtesy flag again! Ellen and Anna were very good on the trip and after a nights sleep we were all recovered again. The next day we went on a day out, walking into Gibraltar through customs (all very exciting) and then going on a cable car up to the top of the rock (I kept my eyes shut) to see the Apes. There were lots of warnings about keeping food zipped away and not touching the apes, but despite that, one woman had an open packet of biscuits in her open bag, which an ape promptly removed and sat down to eat! John saw a 'guide' putting monkey nuts in someones hair so apes jumped on his head to look for them, and also putting nuts down a womans bra and getting the apes to 'fish around' for them!! All very odd!!!

Ellen and Anna enjoyed watching them, and we sat and watched them eating and playing undisturbed for a while, before walking (a lovely walk) down the rock to get the cable car back down. A playful ape ran past us and tickled Anna on the chest! She thought it was funny bit a bit scarry!

We also bought half of the early learning centre, some new dvds for the girls and some more school books while we were there (as well as a new camera for ourselves) and dragged it all back to the boat, stopping at a play park on the way where Ellen discovered that the kids spoke English! Very pleased!

The next morning we set off to cross the channel to Ceuta - a Spanish enclave on the Morrocan coast. John pretty much sailed it single handed as I was inside watching the new DVDz with the girls. It went smoothly except for a very very very close encounter with a large ship (they were very nice on the radio when they said they couldn't get out of our way could we stop please), and we arrived in Ceuta and were give a berth next to our friends who we had met in Cartagena (French family on a boat called Nuage - Louis the little boy is 18 months and is very interested in Ellen and Anna/.

They said they were planning to go to Rabat in Morocco - we were puzzled as lots of French people had said the same to us, and every time they did we looked it up in our pilot book to see one of the hardest looking entries on the coast, with sandbanks, breaking waves and all kinds of difficulties. We mentioned this to them and discovered that our pilot is out of date and there is a brand spanking new marina there with new dredged entrance, so we changed our plans (as Rabat is by all accounts a great place to visit) and are currently heading there.

We managed to leave the Mediterranean behind and got through the straights of Gibraltar ok (some impressive tides but nothing to the west of Scotland) and are now in the atlantic for the first time on Double Helix.

Ellen and Anna have been briefed on not dancing round the foredeck naked in Muslim countries (why again mum??) and I have been practising my French so should all be good! We are looking forward to seeing Morroco.