Day 13 The Rock

Last night before I turned in, I captured the full "Pink" moon on the western horizon. Not sure why it is called that, but there it is.

We got up in good time this morning to enjoy a leisurely breakfast at The Restaurant. The sea this morning is the smoothest yet. T correctly pointed out that we need to get back into the early morning routine as we will be doing that most every day due to the shore excursions on the next segment of our trip.

After breakfast we attended a lecture on "The Gold in Spanish Art and Architecture" which basically followed the history of the plunder of New World gold by the Spanish and where all that gold ended up. This was followed by the last in a series of Shakespeare lectures, entitled "Fathers, Sons and the Supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth" which put both plays into context for the era in which they were written. It made me want to dig out my copy of Isaac Asimov's "Guide to Shakespeare" when I get home.

We spotted land around 10:00 am this morning. At noon, the Captain announced we were in one of the entry lanes to the Straits and that we were about half way between Funchal and Barcelona, with about 500 miles remaining in the voyage. There is a steady stream of ships passing us in the opposite direction, port side.

As we approached the strait, I was sitting on the veranda and spotted, what appeared to be, a killer whale heading in the opposite direction. I called T out and she saw just a dorsal fin on the stern. Shortly after she went back inside, there was a flock, herd, gaggle, swarm...whatever, of four or more whales that passed by. Of course, by the time I got T back outside, they had disappeared. Honest!

We passed through the narrowest part of the Strait of Gibraltar (about eight miles wide) around 2:00 pm and passed The Rock of Gibraltar around 3:00 pm. This coincided with our Madeira wine tasting. I took a lot of pictures, but they all look about the same.

Approaching the Strait of Gibraltar

Strait of Gibraltar, Spain side

Strait of Gibraltar, Morocco side (if you look really close, you can see Bing and Bob on the "Road to Morocco")

Rock of Gibraltar, Atlantic Side

Rock of Gibraltar, Mediterranean side

 At the Madeira wine tasting we were introduced to several varieties of this unique wine. How interesting! We liked all of them!

Dinner tonight was formal and delightful. The table consisted of ten people of which two were Brits and all the rest were American. I was fortunate enough to sit between the British lady (London) and another lady who lived 30 years in New Orleans (Algiers). I suggested to the English lady that they could keep Obama, who is currently visiting the UK (she declined). I related to the NO lady that I lived in the French Quarter and worked in Meraux for a couple of years. We found a lot to talk about.