Photo: Entering the Bouregreg River channel, with view of the Rabat's Kashbah and the public beach to the right of the breakwater.

Just a quick note to say we arrived safely in Rabat the day before yesterday, after an overnight trip from La Linea/Bay of Gibraltar. We had 30+ knots gusting to 40 in the Strait and even after reducing sail to just our staysail, we still zoomed along at 7 knots plus 2 knots of current. It was exhilarating! But once around the Cape and down the Moroccan coast a few miles, the wind suddenly shut off. We motored all night at 4 knots so as to arrive in Rabat after low water, since the chart showed a shallow bar at the entrance to the river. But they've been dredging recently and we saw no less than 12 feet two hours after low water.

We were escorted up the river by the marina's pilot boat, and felt like celebrities and ambassadors to America, waving to onlookers ashore. Several people shouted, "Welcome to Morocco." We tied up to the Customs and fuel dock, cleared into the country quickly and took on fuel, much cheaper than in Spain. A sniffer dog gave his approval that no drugs were aboard. Then we were ushered to our berth in the modern marina.

Strangely, the marina's wifi won't let us access gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail or FaceBook so we haven't been able to let anyone know we're here. They've evidently filtered all encrypted websites. We finally got a sailmail message out to our daughters via the SSB radio, and have now discovered we can post here on Sailblogs.

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