Arrecife

So, Anne and Sabine have flown in from the big Germany for a few weeks in the Canary Islands. Here we are in Arrecife. A safe anchorage, supermarkets. Tried to sort out one of our auto-pilots, but the blown MOSFETs are a bit hard to find here….

Playa Francesca, Graciosa, Canary Islands

a few views from anchor..

I like it here!

and from a walk to the top.

585 miles to the Canarie Islands

North Atlantic
It's so nice to be in an ocean with long low swell after the nasty seas of the mediterranean! Lovely weather doesn't hurt either. Two days out from Gibraltar, we've had good sailing, but wind has dropped away and motor's back on. A couple of whales, perhaps Minke, came over to have a look as they swam north. A little migrating bird, like a thornbill size (Philip says it's a Chiffchaff!, and the one that came inside the boat is a Barn Swallow) flew straight to my knee for a rest. The rigging is festooned with spider parachutes. They are coming from Africa flying over the waves but I don't expect they will make it!
Caught the first Atlantic fish, a tiny stripey tuna, delicious grilled with ginger etc. (recognise my shirt Bo?)

Gibraltar to Canaries, day 4
At least I think it's day four… It's turning into a longer hop than hoped. Instead of a 5-10kn tailwind we have 2 -3kn headwind, so motoring at 4kn. Yesterday was not a happy day. The big autopilot failed, and after spending half the day head down finding and replacing blown fuses and running tests, I think it's the servo motor on the hydraulic pump, so another expense… Noticed the wall of one of the water tanks is leaking into the cupboard where Navman lives. I've not been able to use sailmail since day two, so I've seen a few emails from Anne, but can't download them. Did manage to send a short one to her. I'm sure the SSB radio should be connecting at this distance, so having attached some loose connections, replaced some cables and installed a pile of clip-on ferrites I still don't have the ocean communication I planned. AIS stopped working again, should have bought the new antenna, but I fiddled till it started up again. Then found the batteries weren't charging from the motor… This is part of an ongoing saga of battery problems, which I thought might all finally be sorted, but.. no! Don't know if it's a problem with the VSR or the Mastervolt or another mystery. Stopping and restarting the motor made the responsible bod behave so they are all charged up again.
However, after some good sleeps, today got off to a rousing start with a nice dolphin fish… didn't manage to land it, but just as well, it was too big for the two of us. So beautiful! I sat down with my morning coffee and made up a short gaff from a big fish hook and the remains of the stupid Italian gaff, so ready for the next one. Pulled out the genaker (that's a sail) and hoisted it while there was no wind. Sorted out where it and it's ropes will go. We'll probably use it a lot in the coming weeks, so good to have it prepared. It's a glorious day, weather is much warmer already, there's a pilot fish hitching a ride on our bow-wave, glassy sea, turtle, lot's of migrating birds and only 176.4 miles to go!
and 10 miles later… we landed a dolphin fish. Sabine (that's the beanie she knitted me) found a the plastic remnant of a lure on the rocks in Italy, I put some hooks on it, and today it finally caught something.

day 5

Morning starts well as some wind finally comes from behind, motor off and away we go. Then away go both reels…. The cheap reel doesn't let out much line, but the TLD25 has braid screaming out despite drag on fairly high. Andy is fast asleep, boat is happily sailing alone at 6kn and it's not going to be easy to stop it. Braid keeps going out so I push up the drag even further. Half the line is out.. push it over into the black zone where it's never been before, hoping to break the lure off but still it goes. Wind in the small fish, it's a nice size mahi mahi, lift him on deck, he unhooks himself and dances a way then up and over the side before I can hurt him. Oh well, one less problem. Braid is still going out, I hold the rod for a while and try to break the lure off by holding the drum with my thumb. I get hot, fish keeps going. Finally he slows so put rod in holder and get some clothes off, by the time i'm back the rod is slung between it's safety rope and the fish, not a pretty sight! The next 40 mins I just hold on, getting the odd six inches of line back then losing it. Fish is having a nice swim, he does lovely white streaks through the waves, 300m from me. This is where the marvellous e-bay Patagonian Toothfish Hook came good. Finally he released himself and I could wind back my line. Thank heavens I wasn't using a Triple SuperGrab NeverLose hook!

Later that day… well it would be good to have a small fish to eat for the next days at anchor? So put them back in and… off go both reels. Braid screaming… then braid not screaming as the ratchet bit flew off the reel and into the 2800m depths! This time I managed to lose the fish before he got much line out, but the cheap reel had a medium fish, and since it hardly works I spent half an hour getting him up from the depths. Patagonian Toothfish Hook then let me go. So arms and legs are seriously sore and I might just use some heavy crash lines for a while!

and there at the bottom is Lanzarote, we've made it to the Canaries. See Martin, it is not yellow!!

Goodbye Europe

We're struggling up the Gibraltar Straits, by sticking to a bit of favourable current we're managing 2.8kn into a fair headwind... Hopefully only a few more hours of this and the Mediterranean will release us. Oops, spoke too soon, down to 1.5! Better go back up and find our stream again.. Morocco looks awesome!!

Well it's after 10pm, seem to have escaped. Doing 5 or 6 kn in the right direction. It's rather wild out here, not the sea but the people. Ships all around zooming off to other ports with their important cargo, high speed ferries dashing from Europe to Africa. Channel 16 is a bunfight. There's a dozen French yachts who need to talk to each other almost constantly, but the big noise are fishermen shouting at boats who are heading towards their nets. They must have their nets right where we all want to go as it doesn't stop. And they are not polite.....

La Linea

Andy moonlighting on the neighbours mast. Two irish guys who 'don't do heights, could we borrow your crew?'

desalinating Sabine's keyboard....

and the future...

Blog entries will become infrequent now. Leaving Gibraltar for Canaries, in a week if weather allows, about 6 days at sea. Leaving Canaries towards the end of November for Martinique, 3 weeks at sea.

Gibraltar

Another weather window said go now, so we went the 240 miles or so in one big hop. It was a very easy journey, nice winds behind us, we sailed most of the way. 4 on board to share the watches so sleep was good. We had a lot of dolphins on the last day and saw another sunfish. The wildlife highlight, however, was of a most grisly nature. I was fitting the windvane steering blade, which involves kneeling at the back with arm deep in water and threading the blade back up it's shaft, then securing with a bolt, all with water rushing by.. it's really quite fun. So I notices an eel like tail brushing my arm back and forth but ignored it till the job was done. Manu was determined we should catch the tail's owner, so I pushed the landing net under the stern and brought out this lamprey. A nasty piece of work. They make their living by latching onto fish, grinding through the skin with those toothy things in it's mouth, then sucking out the juices. You would think other fish would bite them in half to rid the sea of such a scourge, but…. Lamprey produce copious slime when irritated, and not just any old slime. Then they tie themselves in a knot, pull through and leave a big glob of gill clogging slime to kill the fish. So only birds and mammals can eat the lamprey. Apparently they only attack humans when starving!

I'm sorry your honour, but I was feeling a bit peckish.

Cartagena

Not sure how many more photos of rugged coast this blog can stand….. but that's what we see out here! Captain is looking pretty rugged too these days. Cooking standard is lower without the family, just a piece of Sardinian dry bread and a lump of Menorcan Coinga cheese.

Captain might be brave when it came to jelly fish, but it was Andy who went up the mast to investigate the faulty wind indicator. He found two wires and rubbed them together and now it works again! Thanks Andy.

Boat is full tonight, as Manu and Nadia have hitched a ride.

bye bye Mallorca

So we had some nice days at Mallorca, moved to Las Illetas for a couple of nights and bused into Palma for some shopping. The big low gave in and we sailed (and I mean sailed, not motored) overnight to Espalmador where we anchored for a little sleep, then sailed another night to Cartagena on the mainland of Spain. Great sailing, first night was only gentle breeze but we went on a flat sea at 4 or 5 kn all night, very easy. Next one we did 6 to 7kn all night and half a day on a mostly calm sea, and the last few hours had a gently breeze AND a current behind us to help into Cartagena. My highlight was seeing a sunfish, swam right next to the boat! Sorry, no photo, you just had to be here!

Porto Colom, Mallorca

Andy and I have made it to Mallorca, Porto Colon. About 60 hours, a truly horrid crossing, 25kn behind us with 3m seas for the first day and a half, no moon, so a rather tough start for Andy! Then no wind and 3m swells which gradually died away so when we arrived it was nice and calm.

We are sitting here in the centre of a huge low, often there is a nice circle of sun on our harbour, but all around are huge clouds and lightning flashes every night. A bit of swell is starting to work it's way in and the harbourmaster wants us all to leave before the next big wind so he doesn't have to pick up the broken boats. Daryl, our neighbour on 'No Rehearsal', a rather comfortable and flash catamaran, says harbourmaster just wants to drive us into the marina and we should all stay put. It's nice to have a range of opinions!
This is the apparently rare Audouins Gull, he seems quite relaxed about it, perhaps the rarity is exaggerated?

Cagliari, Sardinia to Porto Colom, Mallorca

Anne and Sabine hopped on a plane to Germany to visit the big Sabine and Andy arrived the evening before to take over. A weather window was calling yet again and this was a long leg, so with no chance for Andy to get his sea legs we set out!

This is Andy pretending to wash up so Anne won't worry about the boat's hygiene.

This bird stayed with us for a night and a day, hopping all over the boat and us, picking up bits of food and paint. Philip… what kind of sparrow is this?

UPDATE Philip says it's a SongLark....

And here is the tattered genoa, still moving us as we arrive at our port.