I’m about to do my first real passage plan. We’re out for a week on the water starting from la Linea, heading down to Ceuta. From there, we’re going back across the straits to Europa point and up to Estepona. I’m going to be planning the passage back to la Linea from there.

Passage planning is sort of like story telling; there’s a beginning, a middle and an end. Those roughly translate to “how do I get out of here?”, “how do I get from here to there?” and “I’m nearly there; how do I get in?”. The first is relatively easy, since wherever you are, you had to get there beforehand so you at least know what the place looks like. All you really need to do is plan your route out of the marina and pick a waypoint to start step 2.

Step 2 is a little more complex. You need to pick a waypoint outside your current berth, another near where you want to be, and then plot a course between. Now, bear in mind that this is all approximate with many sources of error, including the accuracy of the first point drawn, how accurately you can line up the plotter with the waypoints, how good you are at lining up the protractor with the chart, even the thickness of the pencil you’re using. And even if I did plot a perfect course, with the limitations of the ship’s compass, leeway blowing us off course, and all the bouncing around in the waves, there’s no way I could steer that accurately. But this is educational yachtmaster-land, where there’s a compulsion to get every heading exactly perfect…

Step 3 is the reverse of step 1; coming up with a plan to get into your destination harbour or anchorage. This is known as pilotage. Pilotage is the art of finding your way around using what’s nearby (as opposed to planning it all out mathematically on a chart beforehand), such as lights or landmarks you can see to take a bearing on, or depth contour lines.

So, my task; get us out of Estepona marina, do a drive-by pilotage into and out of Duquesa (I have to do a pilotage plan for a port I haven’t previously visited), and then get us on a course to steer back to Gibraltar in time to meet Zina. Here goes…