Los Piratas de Tarifa

Loafing on the beach today when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I spied on the horizon what appeared to be pirate galleon. I casually mentioned it to Don Duende and Señora Comecocos. They looked at me as if I was poco loco. Minutes later there was a thunderous roar and canon balls started landing on the beach next to us. I dropped my camera and ran for cover in a small cave. Don Duende and Señora Comecocos dived in after me. Thankfully the sea was quite shallow where were and the pirates couldn't land. They had to land further up the coast which was jolly lucky as we were then able to get back to the car and race away to safety.

Factoid: Barbary pirates, or corsairs, were pirates that operated out of Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Salè and ports in Morocco, preying on shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea from the time of the Crusades as well as on ships on their way to Asia around Africa until the early 19th century. Their stronghold was along the stretch of northern Africa known as the Barbary Coast (a medieval term for the Maghreb after its Berber inhabitants), although their predation was said to extend throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard, and into the North Atlantic, purportedly as far north as Iceland. As well as preying on shipping, raids were often made on European coastal towns. The pirates were responsible for capturing large numbers of Christian slaves from Europe, who were sold in slave markets in places such as Morocco.

Barbary Pirates, those wolves of the Mediterranean who had been for ages levying tribute on every sail that passed in or out of the straits. Gibraltar itself gets its name (Gib-al-Taric) from a famous chief of the pirates, and the word "tariff" comes from Tarifa, the seaport where these robbers made their headquarters.