I’ve let the apartment in Alhaurin for another 6 months and spent the last two days settling back into Grehan. I’ve re-organised the galley, cleaned out the heads, sorted and stowed (most of) my clothes (Jim’s had to move over a bit!) and stocked up the beer cellar. Now I’m settled in the saloon with a cuppa, to check the emails and do a bit of reflection. Earlier on we dressed warmly, too warmly, and walked to Morrisons for a few provisions. Their shelves were fairly empty because of the holidays but we came back with enough root veg to make a hot pot for later and some fresh bread rolls and soup for now. We called in to see Mike, the metalwork man, (not to be confused with fire protection Mike and yacht brokerage Mike) on the way home and he promised to call round shortly.

In early March, while we were both away from the boat for a whole week, there was a gale through the Straits, force 11. Grehan survived it completely unscathed (the marina staff checked) but later on in the week, when the weather was better but still rough, someone untied BOTH our stern lines and BOTH the extra lines we put on before we left, and, without the marina staff noticing, she was left to bash her pulpit to pieces on the concrete pier. We can only surmise that one of the boats opposite got into trouble in the wind, hit our stern quite hard (there is certainly a deep gouge in the GRP where there was none before) and tangled itself up with our stern lines. Someone must have come aboard and untied all the ropes to get themselves free – and then just left, leaving Grehan’s stern free to smack into neighbouring boats, and, as happened, to push the bow into the pontoon! Morons! Should be keel-hauled! Anyway, an estimate has been provided to the insurers and metal Mike will put her back to rights.

Grehan has been in Gibraltar for nearly a year, during which time we’ve seen a few changes. Tower blocks are, well, towering up (Jim is working on one of them) and the demise of Sheppard’s Marina continues, with smaller boats being moved into Marina Bay, and elsewhere, regularly. The new ‘island’ for the restaurant is progressing very slowly, the earth being dug out, and put back, over and over it seems, as the piles gradually get hammered home. The border crossing has changed, coinciding with the new passenger travel agreement allowing Iberia internal flights to Madrid: a new customs building has arrived, and a new layout for cars on the way in requires them to choose ‘declare’ or ‘not declare’. The passport checking is cursory and much quicker, although Spanish customs can still slow things up on the way out. There is soon to be a road tunnel under the runway, so everything will change again when that happens.

In the marina, there are many live-aboards, mostly British, and a regular stream of craft arriving on passage from across the pond or going the other way. A canoeist arrived one day, purportedly all the way from South America, and of course, the youngest lad to sail alone across the pond, and his Dad, set off from here.

We ‘did the rock’ one fine, sunny Saturday in February, up the cable-car to the monkey (ugh) platform and café, and then higher and further south to St Michael’s cave and the big gun. The views from the top are stunning – one can really appreciate its strategic position – and well worth the effort. The cave too, is awesome: large, dripping, absolutely full of stalac-tites and -mites and known to mankind for at least 30,000 years. In recent times, there has been a hospital inside and now, a concert venue. There are many miles of tunnel in the rock as well, hewn in the various sieges and wars, but these were shut on the day we went. However, Jim saw his first hoopoe on the walk down in just compensation.

Elsewhere, on the walk through town, to the shipyards and slipways, and the beaches, dereliction and squalor prevail. Wartime builds of all kinds are still strewn about, in various stages of decay, and apartments thrown up in the fifties all need pulling down, before they fall down. Europa Point, a landmark I would have thought, is a wasteland of rubbish. Gibraltar is going to be the new Monaco, says the major developer here. It’ll be a while yet.