More of Rabat...

As I said earlier Sale is on the other bank of the river and this is where the Marina is.  The present King keeps his boats here and there is a band of cleaners which always have something to do looking after them.  Next door to the Marina is a huge building site which will eventually be luxury apartments  and the facilities to go with them.
The present town of Sale is the dormitory area for Rabat. Together with its own shopping areas and Souk.  In my opinion a more pleasant place to shop with as much variety as Rabat.
     Thursday we tried to find the Palace Gardens.  An easy map reading exercise became a nightmare.  Imagine the scene...a very warm morning building to the usual  even hotter day, and uphill cycle into town and then meandering through the main roads to the site we are visiting.

   When we arrive at the first gate the security man tells us we need to go to the official entry gate, off we go , only to be told that this is the wrong one and we should be at ...we set off again (third gate lucky) and here the police guard asks for our passports we tell him they are on the boat in the marina and that we only have credit cards and our EU health card as identity (which he accepts!)  He tells us to continue. Just 300 metres down the road and a car stops to tell us they want us to move our locked bikes.  Back we go to complete this task  and the same security guard now asks us to go to the office to complete formalities. The civil servant here doesn’t really want to know (he is holding a bunch of passports so we don’t hold any interest  for him) he also gives us directions and off we go for the second time The whole area is enormous with wide roads and hardly any traffic.  Of course we want to get close to the palace and have a quick look.  Unlike other visitors we do not have a palace guide to explain the fact to us—I guess we didn’t need one for viewing the gardens ? So we are watched by : the security guards, palace guards and palace police (not to mention various sundry security men just milling around). No one approaches us so I’d say this is a good result!
 We take a couple of snaps and continue our walk. .  The Palace Gardens are immaculate. Not a blade out of place and many gardeners around doing their job. There are plenty of seats if only the public/visitors knew that it is a public Garden . Images are in Picasa.

Tour Hassan Rabat, Morocco.

Next visit we took a Petite Taxi (They are Blue  smaller than the ‘Grand white Mercedes and MUCH cheaper!) Anyway the destination was the Hassan Tower. With Grand Mosque and Mausoleum.  This had a mounted guard at either entrance and other foot guards at strategic doorways.  On the way home we found the Marjane supermarket which seems to be the only place to buy beers!
Writing all this up has reminded me that I can STILL only put one image per entry so please look on Picasa for the rest, however,since some avid viewers have had 5 invitations so far I shan't go there again for a while!

Rabat, Morocco.

What weather! Really blue skies and sun all day . This is more like it! Low 30’s during the day and low 20’s at night,  Just my cup of tea.  We had a day to recover our body clocks and chill out.  Then we set about exploring Rabat. Our first trip was though the souk (market) . A warren of tiny lanes for pedestrians which were packed with tiny shops . Some had a cooker and were preparing and serving food, Others had live chickens and were selling both chickens and eggs. Fish , herbs spices fruit veg , absolutely , everything.
Next we  tried looking for a tourist office - Ha! they didn’t have one but we were sent to the National Office of Tourism a (pretty major taxi ride) where the lady behind the desk told us that  the tourist office had been moved and kindly wrote the address down for us,  Another  taxi drive and we found that although it was called a tourist office it was just a desk.  At this point all we wanted was a map and the main tourist attractions.  She went to her cupboard and ooops no town  maps and no information-all she could offer was a map of Morocco-which we  took with a big smile. Hey ho back to the boat and after sorting the wi-fi  we printed our own  with the biggest attractions.
I was not happy about finding mixed information on the Lonely planets website.  At least 3 of the 20 attractions were to be found in Rabat (Malta!)

Next day we cycled to The Kasbah de Oudaias where we were lucky to be caught by an English speaking guide.  His name was Hassan and it was his day off school. He informed us that the whitewash and blue colours were symbolic of the Koran.  He took us round and pointed out the door knockers which had the occupation of the inhabitant depicted or a lucky hand.   It was tranquil and cool wandering around the oldest part of Rabat .  We had our picnic in the Andalusian Gardens.

Rabat the Passage

We left the anchorage in Portimao harbour for Rabat around lunchtime, after coffee with the Follies. Winds no greater than 10-15 knots were forecast for the first day and, with quite light breezes in the harbour, we sailed out with just 1 reef and full headsails. There was soon 15-20 knots from just aft of the beam and we were flying along, sometimes reaching 8.5 knots. We kept waiting for the wind to drop back again, thinking it was a coastal effect but it didn’t—if anything it was still increasing.  Finally, after more than 3 hours of  averaging 7-8 knots, we decided to put in the other 2 reefs and furl the yankee. This was a timely decision, as the wind was soon 20-25 knots and we were still doing 7 knots. We wanted to arrive off Rabat near high tide in the early afternoon of the third day but, at this rate of progress, we were likely to be far too early. We were rolling quite a bit in the big seas and neither of us felt like eating a proper dinner that evening, even though it had been pre-prepared. By the early hours, conditions had moderated quite a bit and I (Malcolm) finally ate the meal at  0400!! By mid-morning the winds had become light and rather variable and that remained so for much of the day. Occasionally we had to motor sail, when progress became too slow but generally it was a pleasant  relaxing day in the sunshine. It remained quiet throughout the second night  but the next morning we found we had been boarded during the darkness—by a flying fish, which was now baking on deck! We should have fried it for breakfast but somehow didn’t get around to it. The winds became ever lighter as we approached the coast - again we adjusted our arrival time by intermittent use of the engine when the going became too slow.
  Finally, at around 3 p.m .we arrived off the entrance to the Bou Regreg river and called up the marina to ask for a pilot to guide us in.  As luck would  have it they were just guiding another English yacht out, so were with us in a matter of minutes. The harbour bar is often very treacherous but we had picked the perfect day and time for our entrance and there were no waves breaking on it at all. Once in the river, we were warmly welcomed by all the fishermen in their brightly coloured wooden boats that we passed. Our first attempt at  mooring to the reception pontoon was less than brilliant but after a second approach we were soon safely tied up, to be greeted by a large group of assorted officials. They were all incredibly friendly and after less than an hour all the formalities had been completed, mainly in French but with a little English. The dog that they were using to check for drugs was a huge Alsatian called Wolf but  our companionway steps were just too steep for him, so they contented themselves with a quick tour around the deck. After all this was completed we moved into the perfectly sheltered marina and were soon tied up between 2 unoccupied German yachts. Our other neighbours were an Australian couple and another couple from the West Coast of the US, both of whom had been cruising for quite a few years.  While our pontoon was quite full, the next one had just 6 yachts on it—5 of them belonging to the King. Because of that, security is very good, yet not at all oppressive and the marina, part of an waterside village development which is in its early stages, is the best kept  one we have ever been in.