Monday, April 30, 2018, Rock of Gibraltar/Cruising the Atlantic

Unfortunately we passed the Rock of Gibraltar after dark last night due to being a half hour late leaving Malaga and strong head winds and waves.  The pictures in this blog post were copied from Wikipedia so their quality is marginal.

The Rock of Gibraltar, is a monolithic limestone promontory located in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, near the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.  It is 1,398 feet high.  The Rock is Crown property of the United Kingdom, and borders Spain. Most of the Rock's upper area is covered by a nature reserve, which is home to around 300 Barbary macaques.  These macaques, as well as a labyrinthine network of tunnels, attract a large number of tourists each year.  Gibraltar is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and has no contact with the Atlantic Ocean.

East side.  Today, the Rock of Gibraltar forms a peninsula jutting out into the Strait of Gibraltar from the southern coast of Spain.  The promontory is linked to the continent by means of a sandy tombolo with a maximum elevation of 9.8 feet.  To the north, the Rock rises vertically from sea level up to 1,350 feet at Rock Gun Battery.  The Rock's highest point stands 1,398 feet near the south end above the strait at O'Hara's Battery.  The Rock's central peak, Signal Hill and the top station of the Gibraltar Cable Car, stands at an elevation of 1,270 feet.  The near-cliffs along the eastern side of the Rock drop down to a series of wind-blown sand slopes that date to the glaciations when sea levels were lower than today, and a sandy plain extended east from the base of the Rock.  The western face, where the City of Gibraltar is located, is comparatively less steep.

Calcite, the mineral that makes up limestone, dissolves slowly in rainwater.  Over time, this process can form caves.  For this reason the Rock of Gibraltar contains over 100 caves. St. Michael's Cave, located halfway up the western slope of the Rock, is the most prominent and is a popular tourist attraction.  For more information, go to Rock_of_Gibraltar

CRUISING THE ATLANTIC.  Once a divider of continents, the Atlantic Ocean today brings nations together.  Medieval Europeans believed “there be dragons” beyond the ocean’s glaring horizon.  Once they considered that another world lay on the other side, the Atlantic became an avenue of conquest and trade.  The ensuing crossings altered the history of the world.  The Viking Leif Eriksson was the first European to make the voyage, stepping foot on North America around the year 1000.  Columbus journeyed there nearly 500 years later, followed by countless explorers who would bring their cultures to the New World.  Today, trans-Atlantic cables on the ocean’s bed allow for instantaneous communication and jets “hop the pond” in a few hours’ time.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceans with a total area of about 41,100,000 square miles.  It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area.  It separates the "Old World" from the "New World."

For detailed information, go to Atlantic_Ocean