An older male macaque being groomed by some youngsters near the top of Gibraltar. With Barry's hip still acting up we took a tour up the rock rather than make our way up on the cable car and walk across the top of the peninsula.
There was a giant natural cave at one spot, during the Second World War it was used as a hospital and a place of refuge. They use it for a theatre now and have put seating in it, that was okay but the coloured spot lights they used to light up the stalagmite and stalactites took away from their grandeur in my opinion. There never was just natural white light on them.
The view from the top of the rock was spectacular.
Above is the east side of "The Rock" and below is the view to the Northwest.
There are very few single family homes in Gibraltar, due to lack of space, everything is built up. Gibraltar ends at the point of the breakwater on the far right. Everything to the right of the breakwater is Spanish territory, the Spanish believe that Gibratar should belong to them. Over 10,000 Spainards cross the border everyday to work in Gibraltar.
Our tour took us up to the tunnels that were blasted into the rock during The Great Siege of 1779-1783 when the Spanish and French tried to retake Gibraltar by cutting off supplies to the British. The tunnels were built in order to be able to defend one side of the island. The rock was too steep to mount a cannon so they tunnelled and just holes in the side of the rock face in order to shoot the cannons. If you want to read more this is a good overview.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Siege_TunnelsThis shot out of one of the cannon holes shows the runway which is British territory as is the airport building, the curvy one with the cream coloured roof and the black sides, the border is just the other side of the airport terminal. We were tied up at the Spanish marina, just to the northwest, a nice spot but a lengthy walk to anything you might need.
A few days later we took a local bus out to Europa point, the most southerly spot on Gibraltar. They have done the area up really nicely with an interpretive centre under one of the cannons and a nice esplanade in the area.
We hopped off the bus near the corner of Trafalgar street and visited the graveyard where several victims of the great battle off of Cape Trafalgar were buried.
We left Gibraltar and sailed overnight to get in some distance down the coast. This was our view as we left.
Barry's pain was manageable while he was on the drugs he was taking but once the prescription ran out he was suffering once again. We are at big marina on the coast south of Granada. He was able to see a doctor soon after we landed and was prescribed some different pills. We are hoping that the arthritic type anti-imflammitores like he was on before when he had his other hip operated on will be sufficient to manage his pain now. If he can not get it under control we will have to make some alternate plans as she can not continue to sail the way he is at the moment. I have been keeping busy, changed the oil, serviced all nine winches, and I have 1/3 of the boat left to polish. It is enough to keep me from fretting about the future, worrying about it won't make a lick of difference, we will just have to deal with whatever happens. Our life is in limbo for awhile and we just have to accept it,
