A three mile wide thunderstorm crossed our path due south of Cadiz so we struck the main and sailed the wind.  The resulting position after the storm passed put us at the mouth of the inner passage through Trafalgar.  The wind was 15-20 from 270, so we decided to take the inner pass instead of sailing out to the western point of the shoals in order to arrive in Gib before dark.  Once we rounded Trafalgar, the seas flattened.  We jibbed several times to make Tarifa and then sailed parallel to the Spanish coast and roared through the Straights at 9.5 knots with the current and flood.  Once at the reception dock across from Marina Bay, we learned that the anchorage north of the airport runway was closed due to the Madrid bombings.  The sun was setting at 8:30 so the customs and immigration officials suggested that we move to the Spanish anchorage inside the hook for the breakwater north of the airport runway.  They reminded Chris to replace his English courtesy flag with the Spanish one before anchoring.

We left on a Friday, a general no-no for superstitious mariners like us.  We raised the sails and Chris tied down the main and mizzen boom with preventers.  Within minutes the aluminum weld on the main boom snapped off. This was a new lateral attachment point for the main preventer, never used and contracted in Rota.  So much for leaving on Friday.  We planned to run around the western most tip of the Trafagar shoal.  The seas and swells were only 1-2 meters but the sea state was hectic.