06 Jun Spain “Blockades” Gibraltar to Prevent Escape of U.S. Treasure Ships
In its relentless quest to recover the underseas treasure recently 
found by a Florida-based company, the Spanish government has instructed its Navy, pursuant to a court order, to detain to U.S. ships belonging to that company. Those ships are currently in Gibraltar, but apparently, they will be boarded and seized as soon as they leave Gibraltar and enter Spanish waters. I’m a little fuzzy on the geography here (maybe the attached map helps?), but assuming that crossing Spanish waters is necessary to leave Gibraltar, the two U.S. ships are out of luck. On the other hand, the treasure has supposedly already been flown back to the U.S., so maybe the Spanish are just on a fishing expedition searching for evidence to support their lawsuit back in the U.S to recover the treasure. Will the U.S. ships be able to escape? Stay tuned!
The only clear thing is that the boundaries of the territorial waters are NOT clear, so it is impossible to say whether you have to cross Spanish territorial waters to leave Gibraltar.
Neither is there an agreement on the Spain/Gibraltar maritime boundary, nor on the one between Spain and Morocco. Given that the Strait of Gibraltar is 8 nautical miles at its narrowest point, you would have to cross the territorial sea of either Morocco or Spain.
Complicating the delineation of the latter maritime boundary is the existence of the Spanish outlier Ceuta (not marked on your map, it’s the peninsula at the bottom right but the territory extends further inland as well) plus several small islands off the Moroccan coast claimed by Spain, including the infamous Perejil Island.
An escape towards the east and the Suez Canal could be an idea, but as there is no delimited boundary between Gibraltar and Spain, it is yet another murky situation. How wide would the detour around Ceuta have to be? No one knows…
Alas, if only states were to delimit their maritime boundaries!