Gibraltar Rocks

Early start to catch the bus at 8:15 about 1 ½ to Gibraltar. To reach the Rock, we passed through Marbella (read as mar bay a ) which claims fame as being home to the members of the Saudi and Dubai royal families who have built huge palaces as well as Hollywood royalty including Sean Connery and Anthony Banderas.

Gibraltar is not an island. It is connected to the Spanish mainland by an isthmus at La Linea (which means The Line) where the Spanish customs checked us on one side of the border and Gibraltar on the other. There has history here and both sides protect their national rights. Once cleared customs, traffic has to wait for air traffic as the roadway cuts across the only runaway at Gibraltar’s airport. This airport was created by filling in the sea with the materials collected from the tunnels that riddle the Rock.

We booked two tours but we had time to check out the ‘duty free’ shopping and grab time for the eternal quest for coffee. We passed several British pubs offering ale and a full English breakfast; including the infamous black pudding. Stopped in a supermarket; formerly a Safeway but now a Morrison.

First booked tour was a boat trip out to the Strait of Gibraltar to visit with dolphins. The Strait is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Med with water continuously pouring into the Med, making up for evaporation, bringing in fish which the dolphins hang about to eat. The harbour on the Spanish side is huge and much container traffic passes through this port. After about an hour on the water, the skipper, Peter, told us that a pod of dolphins had been spotted. These waters have 3 different species of dolphins, common, striped and bottled nosed (which is like Flipper on the old TV series). The pod we were visiting with were striped which have been on the endangered list but are making a comeback. They are very beautiful, intelligent mammals who breathe air but have a 90% lung efficiency so can spend up to 15 minutes under water. They never sleep as they must surface to breathe so they have a way of turning off half their brain at a time called logging so they can rest. The pod had a number of young with their mothers. They are born live and are about 18 inches. These were very young (skipper thought they were as young as a few weeks old) as they were only about 2 feet long. Apparently, they are not disturbed by the boats as they have excellent vision and know of our presence before we spot them. Since they move at a speed which far exceeds the boat, they could and sometimes do leave the area. John tried to take pictures but may not have been successful due to their speed. He finally gave up and just watched the show. They are truly marvellous and a real privilege to see them. Unfortunately, they are much to quick to be photogenic. This our best try which is really not at all representative of their beauty. I guess you can figure, I liked them alot.

Second trip was on mini bus to the top of the Rock to visit John’s monkeys who are actually Macaws (spelling is likely wrong). First we visited one of over 150 caves connected by about 35 miles of tunnels used by the British military during WWI and WWII. The cave found by an Italian family was called St. Michael’s Cave after Michelangelo. The cave looked like a cathedral full of stalactites and stalagmites and appeared to being set-up for a performance as seats were in place and sound guys were working on their equipment. Upon exiting, there is a small gift shop and many monkeys which are thought to have been bought to Gibraltar by the Moors or the Spanish. I took several pictures of John with his minion. He is the one wearing the brown Vancouver tee shirt. We had a guide for this portion of the tour who was a local but he had spent 25 years in Birmingham as a lorry (truck) driver so he spoke English with an interesting accent. His name was Pepe and he was very charismatic and knowledgeable about his turf.

A picture of a monument to an evacuation in 1950 - 51 is added as I could not figure out who or why they left the Rock and I want to research it.

Early night as tomorrow we are headed to North Africa and our bus leaves at 6:30 Spanish time which means more 7ish.