Rock of Gibraltar

We made it safely to Gibraltar. The sand deterrent wasn’t needed and that should be the last we see, or hear, of the orcas until our return trip in 2028! My steady, dependable ‘rock’ Dave got me through my anxieties about crossing the Bay of Biscay and going through ‘Orca Alley’.

Motoring through the Straits of Gibraltar was really busy with lots of cargo vessels, ferries, fishing boats and pleasure craft on the water.

We checked AIS for information on one massive cargo ship we passed, laden with hundreds of containers, and found out it was German flagged, 400m long and 58m wide. We always have a laugh when in news broadcasts they make size comparisons with football pitches or Olympic size swimming pools. So to visualise the size of that ship we calculated it was roughly the same width as a standard football pitches but four times the length! Or 40 Seascapes long and 17 Seascapes wide. 

The coastline of Morocco on our starboard side seemed surprisingly close - at its narrowest point it is just under 8 miles between Europe and Africa. 

I’d already done the Gibraltar HM Customs Vessel Pre-Arrival Notification form online (stating no alcohol, no cigarettes, no drugs and no stowaways onboard!). By the time we’d completed the marina paperwork it was late afternoon so we set off to see how far up the Rock of Gibraltar we could get. When Dave first came here in the mid 80’s you could walk to the very top for free. In 1993 they introduced a charge to get into what they now call the ‘Upper Rock Nature Reserve’ and a ticket today costs £30 per person!

There’s a loophole though which means you can access most of the upper rock area for free once the ticket office closes. The guy was still sat in the office but as it was gone 6pm by the time we’d walked up to the main entry gates he waved us in for free. We got to enjoy beautiful views, saw the Barbary macaques, explored Douglas Path (which featured in the opening sequence to the 1987 James Bond film 'The Living Daylights') and explored an old watchtower and command post. Health data on my phone says I did 17,600 steps and climbed 52 floors. The sunset from high up on the rock was just stunning although I was moaning a fair bit as we walked back to the harbour in the dark! 

The marina we’re staying in is affordable (£24 per night) and diesel is very cheap (£1.42 a litre) as there’s no VAT here. But we’ve found other costs, cafes, restaurants and food shopping, are probably comparable with, or more expensive than, prices back in the UK. The pedestrianised Main Street has familiar high street names - M&S, Next, Pandora, Holland & Barrett, Starbucks, Cardfactory and Costa. Prices are in £’s and most people are speaking English. After 4 weeks in Spain and Portugal it felt a little weird.

Since July 2026 if you want to relocate to Gibraltar permanently you need assets of £5,000,000 (increased from £2,000,000) and the self-sufficient ‘pensioner route’ was closed in those reforms. There are other, equally selective, routes to entry if you wish to move temporarily or permanently in Gibraltar. I’m not sure the benefits of lower income tax rates, no VAT, no capital gains tax and no inheritance tax would make living in a tiny English speaking British Overseas Territory, 3 miles long and 0.75 miles wide, that attractive to me! But it obviously attracts the wealthy and tax savvy.

On entering the inner harbour, past all the cargo ships at anchor, my eye was drawn to this unusually designed 88m super yacht. It didn’t take much Googling to find out the ‘Olivia O’ cost $200 million to build and has annual running costs of $20 million. Custom built by Norwegian shipyard Ulstein Verft they patented the inverted X-Bow hull design. This military styling is designed to cut through the waves, reduce pitching and give a smoother ride - apparently inspired by how orcas swim! 

To bring to a close this particular leg of our trip I submitted our ‘Uneventful Passage Report’ to the UK Cruising Association website so they can add it into their data collection. That’s the last we want to hear about orcas for a couple of years!