Knock-knock-knockin’ on Gibraltar’s door

The day after I got back from my scamper to and from Barcelona was our last day in Malaga, which we set aside for a day trip to Gibraltar. We researched the border crossing before heading out on the two hour drive, and felt comfortable we’d be able to get in (and out) due to Anya having a British passport. We’d been to 18 European countries in the past few months and had exactly zero resistance at any of the borders. In a lot of cases we wouldn’t have even known we were crossing a border if it weren’t for seeing it on Google Maps, but given the unique nature of Gibraltar being a British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of Spain, we knew the crossing would be more formalized. We definitely didn’t expect the face palm we received by the Spanish border agent as we attempted to cross on foot. He was adamant that if we went into Gibraltar, we would not be allowed back into Spain…Anya was welcome to come and go, but he assured us that those of us with only U.S. passports would be stuck in Gibraltar if we crossed over. We tried to argue our point that families of U.K. citizens were as welcome as the U.K. citizens themselves, but the agent had made up his mind, so we stepped out of line to have a quick family huddle about what to do next.

As we circled up, we were joined by a man who had been right behind us in line, and who turned out to be from California. He and his wife were in the early stages of a 3-year trip around the world traveling on a catamaran they bought in France. He had stepped out of line with us after hearing our discussion with the border agent and offered to give us a ride to Gibraltar on his dinghy. His sailboat and dinghy were parked in a marina that was just a few minutes away by foot, and he showed us on a map that there was another marina on the Gibraltar side, just beyond a rock barrier that we could cruise around on his dinghy. He told us that they had docked in several different marinas already on their trip and that the passport controls were very loose for those arriving by sea. My adventure-loving family was all-in on this plan, so I swallowed my skepticism and we thanked our new friend, Michael, for the offer and agreed to give it a try. The plan was to park the dinghy in the Gibraltar marina, spend a couple hours looking around, and then meet back up to take the boat back to the Spanish side. What could possibly go wrong???

We followed our unexpected guide to his catamaran where he began preparing the dinghy. We all got to pitch in pulling in the lines to the dock trying to move the larger vessel in a certain way to be able to get the inflatable raft in the water with enough room to steer it out. The catamaran was huge, so it took us 30-45 minutes to situate it how we needed to, and during that time Michael was so kind and trusting, letting this family of six he had just met explore his new sailboat as we pleased. The trip to the Gibraltar side was pretty uneventful, but as we pulled into the marina we were met by a man from the “Reception” building who was wearing a scowl that informed us he wasn’t very interested in receiving us at all. Between his demeanor and yelling “illegal” at us, we ascertained that our second attempt at seeing Gibraltar was foiled. Michael did try asking if we could just park for a couple hours and look around, but the marina man repeated his “illegal” chant and so we bid him farewell. As if this whole event weren’t memorable enough, the water was really rough on the way back and we got completely soaked with bucketloads of seawater spraying into the boat. We were all laughing through it, though, and completely enjoying ourselves.

It was too bad we didn’t get to explore Gibraltar, but we at least got to see the Rock and had a much more memorable adventure than we were expecting. We also made a new friend and created some tighter family bonds taking a safe risk together. I’d say the day was overwhelmingly a success.