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11 unusual facts about Strait of Gibraltar


Al Bahraoyine

Al Bahraoyine is a small coastal town bordering the Strait of Gibraltar and it is a rural commune in Fahs Anjra Prefecture of the Tangier-Tétouan region of Morocco.

Albrecht Brandi

To get to his destination Brandi had to traverse the heavily guarded Strait of Gibraltar.

Battus I of Cyrene

Colaeus and his crew were anxious to reach their destination as easterly winds prevented them to travel to Egypt and they were driven as west as the Pillar of Hercules (modern Strait of Gibraltar).

Charles Wager

Following the death of Queen Anne, Wager was still listed as a Rear Admiral and he was ordered to take charge of the ships at Portsmouth, and in later to go out to the Strait of Gibraltar and assume command of the Mediterranean Fleet.

Gunter Jahn

On his second patrol he broke through the Strait of Gibraltar and went on to become one of the most successful U-boat commanders in the Mediterranean Sea.

Ocean's seven

Ocean's Seven is a group of 7 long distance swims scattered across the globe: Irish Channel, the Cook Strait, the Molokai Channel, the English Channel, the Catalina Channel, the Tsugaru Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Pola Flotilla

The flotilla was made up of U-boats dispatched from German home ports, which travelled via the Atlantic and the Strait of Gibraltar, and coastal type UB- and UC- boats, which were moved in parts by rail to Pola and assembled there at the See-Arsenal of the Austro-Hungarian Navy (Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine: KuK).

Tangerine

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "tangerine" was originally an adjective meaning "Of or pertaining to, or native of Tangier, a seaport in Morocco, on the Strait of Gibraltar" and "a native of Tangier."

Teddy Seymour

After a two month 2,000 mile (3,200 km) journey, Seymour passed through the Strait of Gibraltar with $38 worth of food and headed for home.

Tricolia miniata

This species occurs in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean off Portugal, off the Strait of Gibraltar and in the Southern Mediterranean Sea, found on brown algae Cystoseira tamariscifolia (Hudson) Papenfuss, 1950.

Yto Barrada

Her Strait Project, begun in 1998, describes the static and transitory life of her hometown, the border city facing Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar.


Carrier Air Wing Eleven

The carrier group got to visit Naples and Toulon, and instead of returning through the Suez Canal which they had used to transit to the Mediterranean, USS Enterprise transited through the Strait of Gibraltar and cruised the southern cape of Africa before venturing across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific back home.

Conrad Shindler House

Beyond his role as a carpenter, little has been recorded of his life, yet one account puts Fouke at the launch of James Rumsey’s steam-powered boat on the Potomac River in 1787 where he exclaimed, “Why, sir, she could navigate through the Strait of Gibraltar.”

Curtis Barnett

On his return through the Straits on 24 November 1731, he encountered a French merchant ship, which fired at Bideford, taking her for a Sallee rover, only to be forced to apologize after a short action.

Russian battleship Oslyabya

The ship sailed for Port Arthur on 7 August 1903, but Oslyabya ran aground in the Strait of Gibraltar on 21 August and was under repair until November at La Spezia, Italy.

VF-114

The carrier group made subsequent port visits to Naples and Toulon, and instead of returning through the Suez Canal, transited through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Atlantic, and then past the Cape of Good Hope before continuing on to Perth, Australia for another port visit before continuing across the Pacific to its home port of San Diego.

Volta do mar

Lack of this information may have doomed the thirteenth-century expedition of Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, who were headed towards the as yet unknown Canary Islands and were lost; once there, without understanding the Atlantic gyre and the volta do mar, they would have been unable to beat upwind to the Strait of Gibraltar and home.