Tanger - Essaouira
On continue vers le sud !

"La seul vérité est peut-être la paix des livres." - Courrier Sud

Le Rallye Toulouse Tarfaya poursuit sa route marocaine avec une étape reliant Tanger à Essaouira, entre ciel plus ou moins dégagé et vents atlantiques parfois soutenus. Les équipages ont survolé des paysages contrastés, des reliefs du Rif aux côtes sauvages balayées par l’océan. À l’arrivée, Essaouira dévoile toute son âme : médina blanche et bleue, traditions berbères et parfums d’épices portés par les alizés. Une journée entre performance, découverte et immersion culturelle.

En attendant, on s'active à Tarfaya pour déblayer la piste qui accueillera nos avions demain.

Ce soir, ce sont Julia et Graham, un charmant couple Britannique, qui nous racontent leur vol du jour. (Pas de panique, retrouvez la version Française plus bas !)

Déblayement de dune à Tarfaya

Bonjour from Julia and Graham. We fly G-CFLG a CRUZ/SportCruiser - a light sport aircraft with a Rotax 100hp engine.

This is our third Rallye.  Our first one was in 2018 to Saint-Louis and the second in 2023 to Tarfaya.  

Before doing our first Rallye, we knew very little about the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - and his fellow aviators. Over the last two Rallyes we have enjoyed learning about him and about the flying adventures of the early pioneers - they really were very determined and brave people.  Now we have a chance to follow in their paths. 

The forecast for today’s flight was good; a slight tail wind expected - around 20 knots. We looked forward with anticipation to a great day.

On arrival at the airport we learned a little more history - about Pierre Jaladieu, a pilot who was flying in bad turbulence between Toulouse and Alicante in 1928.  He was ejected from his plane, but the  passenger who remained was in the front seat sadly died in the plane.  It made us realize how dangerous flying was in those early days.  There is a plaque in his name at the airport of Tangier. 

After the briefing the first planes were ready to go - just before 11am.  We were one of the last planes to take off - at 12.15 - having to wait whilst commercial ones were given priority!  

For the first leg along the coast, we remained at 3,500ft, then turned inland and climbed to 5,500.  The visibility was poor - (in England we call that weather “murky”) and descended to 3,500 to maintain VMC. We came across rain clouds - so descended again to 3,000. There was quite a bit of turbulence during the journey, but conditions were calm again when we headed back to follow the coastline.

The landing was another interesting one with the wind gusting between 20 - 29 knots.  This caused a problem with our lightweight cover, but, as usual, Daniel was available to help - 3 pairs of hands were needed!

From the passenger’s point of view, this flight was enjoyable and we Rallyists are able to view the real Morocco that most tourists never see. The countryside changed a lot as we crossed the land…much of the terrain looked arid and then other parts of it were green, and the land was well cultivated.  It must be hard to farm and live in the area though as there are not many main roads linking the various farms.

From the pilot’s point of view….After the many adventures yesterday - from tranquil air at FL100 to multiple tours of Granada and crossing the Med at 700ft to minimise the 30kt headwind - today was straightforward. We flew direct Tangier-Essaouira in 3h40 and the routing worked well.  ATC communications were pretty good most of the time, and Essaouira ATC streamlined the landing traffic very efficiently.

I hope the photographs attached show the variety of landscapes that we saw - and the changeable weather conditions we experienced during the day.

Graham and Julia

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