In The Firing Line

We rounded Cape Trafalgar today, on October 21st 2026, exactly 221 years to the day the famous naval battle was fought, and won, by Admiral Lord Nelson and the British Navy. Despite having fewer ships, 27 British ships compared to the 33 ships in the French/Spanish fleet, their speed, flexibility and an unorthodox and risky attack strategy resulted in a convincing victory.

The human cost of the Battle of Trafalgar was high though, with 458 British killed and 1,208 wounded and from the enemy ships 4,395 were killed, 2,541 wounded and almost 8,000 captured. Nelson, a national hero, was fatally wounded on HMS Victory, passing away shortly after knowing his tactical plan had succeeded.

Two hundred years ago seems like quite recent history but modern warfare has changed so rapidly, especially in the last decade or so. This week Spain has been having military exercises all around the Gulf of Cadiz, where we’ve been sailing, involving troops from the Spanish Army, Navy, and Air and Space Force. The objective of Exercise ‘Atlas 26’ was stated as: ‘Testing advanced, multi-layer air defence technologies. Units will deploy both hard kill solutions (guided and unguided ammunition to intercept drone targets) and soft kill methods (electronic warfare/jamming)’.

We’d seen notifications of an exclusion zone south of the harbour we were due to leave on Monday but two dates had been given. The primary date was Friday 16/10/2026 with a reserve date of Monday 19/10/2026. No one seemed to know if that particular exercise, for missile-launch operations and gun shooting exercises in the Gulf of Cadiz, had already happened on the Friday. 

So we decided to set off from Mazagon Marina at the entrance of the Río Odiel channel to Huelva. No sooner had we left the channel than a large Guardia Civil RIB approached us and shouted to us a course we needed to take to avoid the target area. That confirmed, without a shadow of a doubt, that the exercise was still in progress. This course would take us back into deeper waters (orca territory) but we obviously followed instructions. Staying on the given course we passed a large Salvamento rescue boat but didn’t see another vessel until much later that morning. Far in the distance we noticed a single destroyer - we think that was what it was having my phone camera on maximum zoom.

The captain didn’t appear happy with our course and gave 5 short blasts on the ships horn - meaning ‘Danger’ or ‘I do not understand your intentions’. Dave changed course away from the vessel by 20 degrees. Still unhappy the captain gave another 5 blasts, so Dave changed course by another 20 degrees. Yet another 5 blasts so Dave changed course by another 10 degrees. We were heading well into orca territory now but the captain finally seemed happy!

We saw one military aircraft fly over and a number of naval vessels berthed in Rota, close to Cadiz. I guess we were expecting to see lots of ships and aircraft activity out in the Gulf of Cadiz but this exercise seemed more about testing the latest technology. Systems designed to be able to detect, neutralise and destroy drones and to test the latest advanced 5G, in the field, communication systems. Any future wars may well be fought with drones, cyber warfare and anti-satellite systems which will become the cannons, swords, shields and guns of modern battlefields.

Near Cape Trafalgar lighthouse is a simple memorial which has a quote by Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, from his book Trafalgar, which reflects on the tragedy of war and the hope for peace. 

"Before long, men of both islands must convince themselves that it is a madness to make such terrible wars, and there will come a day when they will embrace each other, all agreeing to form only one family."