31 – Dakhla, aaaahh Dakhla…

“where the dunes meet the sea”, “kite and wind surfing paradise”, “fantastic setting”, “anchorage in the bay”, “Morocco at it’s best”, … all things we had heard about Dakhla, placed on a half island in an enormous bay in the very south of Morocco.

Difficult landing in Dakhla

After 55 hours of crossing from El Hierro, we had entered the access channel into the bay and were fighting with the engine against a strong wind and quite choppy waves. This was unexpected as it’s a closed bay. But the wind was strong and the bay is long enough (approx.. 35 km), so that the waves anyway manage to build up.

After a couple of hours struggling into the bay, we passed the huge fishing harbour and then the military port, keeping Illika in the indicated “deep” channel, as the moving sandbanks mean unknown shallow waters left and right. A small dinghy came belting after us and stopped us going further into the bay: the Royal Marine. We were “invited” to go to the fishing harbour first for clearance and ask for an authorisation to go up the bay as it was now a military territory… Hence, we went all the way back and docked alongside a towing boat that had beautiful black truck tyres as fenders. So much for our freshly cleaned hull and our freshly washed fender covers: all nicely black again… Great start!

Clearance

What followed then, was the usual customs clearance as we experienced everywhere in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia but this time including search dog (we are glad it did not pee in a corner, it was so excited!), royal marine control, police, harbour master, customs, all visiting our boat. Each of these authorities took pictures of all the passports and boat registration papers very carefully, filled up forms (by hand) with again all the ship’s details… So, good two hours went by, more than 12 local functionaries involved! Nonetheless, everybody was very nice and welcoming.

After the usual drone confiscating, we were told how to apply for a special authorisation to be able to anchor in the bay, which we needed to apply for at the region’s governor. So the next day we did as said and in the meantime, we were allowed to anchor just next to the fishing harbour.

What’s floating in the sea?

The stench was terrible, but that’s to be expected, I suppose, in the most active fishing harbour of the country. But that was not the worst… We were shocked and sad at what we saw: thousands of dead fish (mainly mullets) were floating all over! The harbour was a rubbish dump and the beach (we went there with the dinghy the next day) was consequently not only covered with dead fish, but also with waste, so that you had to watch were to step. We learned later from an Italian biologist, that they suspect a certain algae, that gets toxic when the water’s too warm… which is fact at the moment in a large area covering the south of Morocco and Mauritania, and which kills the fishes.

On top of that, guess what! Rain is extremely scarce in this area, but we had bad weather nearly all the time, including 2 full days of rain. At least the boat got rinsed!

Let’s get positive!

Fortunately there were positive things though, too:

When we landed on the beach with the dinghy for a stroll, we went to assist some fishermen pulling their net to the shore. The net was so full of fish, they were glad we came to give a hand. We ended up with about 6 kg of fish that they insisted to give us. For the transportation of this present, they recycled a beautiful blue plastic bag, which probably had been on the beach since months😉

Furthermore, every time we went into the fishing harbour by dinghy, the fishermen all greeted us warmly, helped towing up the dinghy safely and guided us getting onto the peer passing over several towed-up boats. Quite an exercise, the harbour wall being at 2-3 meters above the water level.

Dahkla town

In town, not true that there’s nothing: we found our way several times to the market (always in 2 taxies, as they are allowed only 3 passengers!) with a nice choice of fresh stuff as well as olives, bread, tea, meat and fish. Ok, not to compare with Agadir, but enough for what we needed. And not to forget, we, yet again, enjoyed the typical Moroccan food, couscous, tajine and their wonderful flat bread.

No answer, but a great excursion around Dakhla

The days passed by and then the weekend came, and we wouldn’t get any answer about the authorisation before Monday. And guessed rightly, we didn’t get an answer on Monday or Tuesday either, despite our multiple reminders by phone.

In the meantime, we decided to make a tour with an Italian biologist (Dakhla Rovers), who took us in a land rover to the two “must-see” places around Dakhla: Imlili’s “sabkahs” and the White Dune. It was a super interesting tour, as she was able to explain all sorts of things which I will not go into details, but it was the best thing we could do.

Burst dreams

We had hopes that, coming to Dakhla, we would have a possibility to have a go at kite surfing. But that suddenly became very complicated. Firstly, we were not anywhere close to the happening, not being allowed to anchor further up in the bay. Secondly, people coming for this sport, book into one of the upper class bungalow resorts whereas the backage includes the kite courses or equipment and the transfer to the water, which is in most cases a long drive over a very flat beach. Thirdly, the winds were very strong for beginners. So, all seemed complicated in our situation…

Quick decision

As good sailors do, we can’t stop ourselves checking the winds on Windy regularly. The wind was going to be good taking off from Dakhla for the next two days and then would drop completely. There was not much choice: either we would have to stay in Dakhla for over a week waiting for the winds to come back, or we had to leave as quickly as possible to Cap Verde.

Slightly disappointed of this stop in Dakhla, this second option was ok for all of us, specially that we did not have an answer about anchoring in the bay. And the idea to be stuck in this… uhm, interesting and lively but very smelly harbour, did not motivate us to stay… Hence, we announced our departure, Jean-Luc and the boys went to pick up the drone, I precooked the first two meals, we docked against the towing boat again, in order to get a second layer of black on our hull, to be checked again by the police and customs, and off we sailed.

The next 5 days we were at sea, 585 Nautical Miles, our longest crossing yet! It was an amazing and peaceful journey 😊! Check out Alexander’s little post – sailing at night!