Gibraltar

Banu and Peter Meet in Gibraltar

Peter was on his way from Malta to Australia as skipper of s/v Mistral III, a McGregor 65. Banu had just sailed from Turkey to Gibraltar. DENIZE II was moored on a slip across the shower block and every time Peter walked by he wondered who the single woman on board the American flagged boat was. One day we started chatting…

Banu: Hi, are you Australian?

Peter: No, I’m from New Zealand.

Banu: Oh, too bad! My dream is to sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Peter: I have an Australian passport as well! We can do it!

After this conversation we went to dinner and convinced each other that sailing together might be a good idea! A few days later Peter had jumped ship and we were making plans to do the passage across the Atlantic Ocean together.

We started provisioning the boat while we were waiting for a good weather window. A northerly was nowhere in sight. Persistent south-westerly winds were directly on the nose towards the Canaries, making the 900 miles passage from Gibraltar to the Canaries quite difficult.

Banu’s good friend Bernie arrived in Gibraltar while we were there and we had a delayed Thanksgiving dinner aboard DENIZE II. Bernie’s job was to vet Peter to assess whether he would be a safe companion for Banu. After all, he could have been an ax murderer! Bernie gave Peter the thumbs up, and armed with his approval, we sailed off towards to Atlantic Ocean. Little did we know that our lives had forever changed and we would be a happy sailing couple for many years to come.

We decided to try an alternative route and sail down the Moroccon coast before heading west to the Canaries and left Gibraltar on December 12th 2009.