We left Lisbon on Monday evening and made our way South. At breakfast time on Tuesday we altered to an Easterly course in order to line up with the Straights of Gibraltar (the westerly entrance to the Mediterranean Sea).  By  lunchtime we could see the North African coast from our balcony – our cabin is on the starboard, or right side of the ship.  We tied up in Gibraltar at 4.00 pm and by 4.30 we were sitting in a minibus for a tour of Gibraltar the highlight of which was the WW11 tunnels inside the rock. Our driver gave us a very comprehensive tour including the Barbary Apes; there are over 400 of them in the wild on the rock. I had not been to Gibraltar for about 30 years — wow, what a change.  It used to be a pretty shabby, run down place.  Now it seems to be thriving with lots of reclamation, new buildings and much improved infrastructure.  There was a flamenco show on board later on, one of the guests referred to it as a flamingo show, I’m not quite sure what he was expecting !