Still here in Las Palmas!

We are still here, preparing for the next step. We think it will be Brazil somewhere, if we are not stopping at the Cape Verde Islands. But first we must do a few things, like installing an extra solar panel, repair some scratches on the bow.., change a broken piece of the watermaker, hook up the SSB, install the Hydrovane... And Ingeborg and Thorstein have a period of more intense studies as we don't know how easy it will be while we are underway. Well, we have to know where we are also, so last week-end we rented a car to see more of the island. We drove down to the south where we had been with the boat earlier. Walked around in Playa del Ingles and in Arguinegin together with all the tourists. Then we headed north, through the mountains and found some of the very "scenic routes". Some road blocks were poorly marked so we ended up with some detours. But it was a wonderful landscape, strange rock formations and the view over to Tenerife and Teide behind clouds and mist. A remote finca had put up a stall by the road where they sold wine, honey and various other of their produces. We bought a bottle of wine but haven't tasted it yet. I'm afraid it won't gain much from storage.. so we'll taste it before we leave. We have also seen that there is a museum presenting the original inhabitants of the islands here in Las Palmas, Pueblo Canarias. I hope we find time to visit before we leave.

Gjertrud

Las Palmas!

We have arrived safely in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, after a smooth sail from Gibraltar. Originally we planned to stop for a day in Lanzarote, but after a couple of days at anchor south of Isla Graciosa we decided to go directly to Gran Canaria. Anniken, Ingeborgs friend will arrive tomorrow, and we didn't want to have a too tight time schedule. The summer has arrived also, with a forecast of sunny days and 20 degC all of next week.
As indicated the weather has been good for sailing over the Easter week. Even if the first days were a bit too calm and later it was a bit rolly with the Atlantic swells. But all in all within the limits of what is good sailing conditions. We have tried the cruising chute and the mizzen staysail for the first time. Really, colorful and nice sails for the light winds of the first days. We have seen a lot of dolphins, and even observed how they were surfing just below the surface when the waves was big enough.. It looked as if they had a real good time, too!
More scary was it to encounter a fishing boat that must have sunk just before we came. Only the tip of the bow was above the surface, while another fishing boat was patroling the area to make sure no-one would hit the wreck!

Setting sail again

After almost 3 weeks in Gibraltar, we are now setting sail again, this time our destination is the Canary Islands! It will be the longest trip yet, at 688 Nm, but if the weather doesn't misbehave it should take about 5 to 6 days. The island we are aiming for is Gran Canaria.

In Gibraltar

We are now moored in Ocean Village Marina, Gibraltar, after a pretty hard trip from Cartagena. We did get the wind with us this time, but when it reaches storm strength, it isn't that comfortable anymore. It took 3 days. All crew were well when we came to port.

Then we experienced another storm yesterday night. This time our boat was struck into the concrete pontoon, which we obviously couldn't let happen. The anchoring rope also fastened itself in our propeller. Some english guys came over and helped us out so that we got a line from another pontoon directly behind the boat, holding us off. This whole thing took a few hours, and we didn't get to bed before around 3am.

Leaving for Gibraltar

We are leaving Cartagena today, going towards Gibraltar. If the weather is anything like the forecast says, we should be able to get there in a few days. If the weather goes bad we'll find a sheltered anchorage (we are sailing along the coast, so there's bound to be one close by). It's about 225 nautical miles to sail.

Hasta pronto!
Thorstein

Cartagena!

We arrived in Cartagena on Saturday after a days sail from San Pedro. Not too much wind, but we had fog! It was the first time that we were navigating with the aid of a fog horn. We heard the sound from the light house at Cabo the Pelos far ahead of us as the coast landscape disappeared, and we could easily recognise it as we passed. Of course, we have all the other means of knowing where we are, map, GPS, radar, but it was comforting to hear that we were on the right track!

Cartagena has lots of history and so far we have barely started exploring it. We visited the new Museo Arqueologico Submarine this morning. And have picked a few others for tomorrow. But we have had visiting friends from Norway on board, and we will visit them in their holiday home today! Teenagers even, so it is great for Ingeborg and Thorstein.

When the new ceramic top for our cooker arrives from England we will either sail on to a new destination or stay to finish the repair. It depends on the weather most of all.

A bumpy sail to San Pedro de Pinatar!

We arrived on the peninsula, by Torrevieja just after midnight on the 22. The trip should have taken around 40 hours if we could have sailed a straight line.. The weather forecasts were not too bad before we started, but it turned out they were too optimistic! We sailed almost twice the distance and spent more then 80 hours at sea. The wind direction was not NW as we had thought it would be, but SW.. Met a gale south east of Ibiza that gusted up to 40 knots.. This was our first sail after the dismasting so we didn't like it very much.. There were thunderstorms visible on the sky to the west, so Ibiza did not seem like a nice rescue either. After heaving to for some hours, to see if things would change, we decided to turn around and go north of Ibiza. We had reefed down as much as we could, and had reduced the speed to 4-5 knots. It was sunny and the conditions were not too bad on board. But the appetite for food was reduced.. Poor Ingeborg was sick, and ended up sleeping in the cockpit all through the second night. North west of Ibiza we tried to steer as close to our destination as possible, but the wind kept blowing directly in our faces. We expected lighter winds, and maybe from a different direction closer to the coast and steered a northwesterly course towards Valencia. As we approached the coast we realized the wind was rather stronger than lighter. To avoid being trapped north of the cape separating Costa Brava and Costa Blanca we decided to turn around and sail in the SE direction. Eventually the wind died down a bit and it was time to start the engine. We could relax after a tough "come-back" at sea. The appetite was back and we enjoyed delicious meals of hot sausages with bread, coffe, cereals and bisquits.. The last distance was split by a night at anchor off Torrevieja. We enjoyed a good night sleep and could arrive in a quite good shape in San Pedro the day after.
All in all it had been a good sail, even if it was a bit tougher than we had wanted for testing the new equipment..