The rule of the 'Levante'
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| Wind predictions for the 20th of June |
We are still in Cádiz and it is because of the easterly wind which hasn’t eased for the last 5 days and still gusts up to F7 in the harbour. When you look at the weather map it looks much like the medieval representations of clouds in paintings blowing wind out of their puffed up cheeks. But here the strong wind accelerates through the Straights of Gibraltar instead. This wind is also scorching hot and there is not a cloud in the sky. It is difficult to find respite even in the shade inside the boat.
It seems that this heat wave is also all over central Europe at the moment: 37ºC in Paris, over 30ºC in London. Fires are ravaging central Portugal… is this one of those years?
Tomorrow is the day when the levante will (hopefully) finally cease for a while. There is a whole group of yachts all waiting to be able to leave, some sailing into the Mediterranean like us, others heading south to Madeira, Tangier or Cap Verde. All these destinations sound so inviting!
We have decided to sail in the afternoon to coincide with HW Gibraltar to make full use of the east going tide in the straights.
Unfortunately because we have spent almost a week in Cádiz we will have to sail straight to Cartagena (311NM) instead of visiting the ‘rock’ as Gibraltar is also known as. We will not even see it because we are going to sail past it during the night. But there is of course the way back…whenever that will be.
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the wonderful Mercado Central, Cádiz in the shade of ancient trees, Cádiz
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We have to be back on the 28th of June in the UK for a week and our flights leave Murcia on that day. I say ‘unfortunately’ but in fact we are looking forward to a sail lasting 3 days. We went shopping for food this morning and now we will prepare Easy Rider for tomorrow.
I have just finished a book by Deborah Levy entitled ‘Hot Milk’ which was centred around Almería. It was a very good read, but what excited me most is that we will sail past Almería (Costa del Sol) in a couple of days, past the barren landscape of the Sierra Nevada featured in the story. I hope that it will be during the day.
Here are some additional expressions of Cádiz before our ‘escape’…