I have just finished a five day course during which time we sailed from Gibraltar to Smir in Morocco, then across to Fuengirolla, then to Malaga where after one night we left to sail just 17 miles to Duchesa.  The wind at that time was blowing only 15 knots.  Two and a half hours later the wind was up to F8 from the east, and entry into Duchesa was out of the question because of enormous breaking waves on the approach to the entrance.  The same situation existed at the next harbour five miles further down the coast, and so I had to make a decision to go on to Gibraltar another 14 miles. We rounded Europa point in the biggest seas I have ever seen; we had a following wind and were pooped three times! It was with tremendous relief that we rounded Europa Point safely and found shelter in the lee of the rock on the western side.

We arrived at the Harbour Masters office about half an hour later where I was told that the wind was blowing Force 10 and gusting to 70 knots!  All the hotels on the east side of the rock with ground floor east facing windows had borded them up because of the height of the waves. There had been a great danger of us broaching as a result of being hit on the port quarter by a large breaking wave, in order to prevent this from happening we ran Henry Morgan's engine as fast as we could in ahead so that as waves broke across her quarter we still had steerage through the fast moving water.