Canada here I am...

So…
Here we are in a basement apartment in Crescent Heights in Calgary. But exactly how did I get here?
Do you remember the thing about never doing it the easy way? How about the thing where my presence prompts extremes of weather? Well this is all in store because I have a lot of catching up to do.

FLYING START:
My little brother Tom kindly dragged himself out of bed at 2.30am to help me catch my 8.30am flight, the drive over was great, we got to have some final giggles and listen to some good music in the car (who knows how long my I Pod was going to be with me on my trip), but it took us at the longest 2 hours which meant I had 2 hours to kill on my own before proper check-in kicked off (if you find yourself wondering why we set off so early you need to remember that Mum was still in charge whilst I was under her roof---HI SUE).

I flew to Toronto from Manchester on a TransAt flight, it was cheap, the food was rubbish—I didn’t even eat that much of it, they played Hulk and Hancock on the flight which was great (the ending of Hancock is a bit dumb and it has the fella off Game On as the main baddy). Its true I could’ve flown straight to Calgary and saved myself the hassle of feeding/ watering and protecting myself, but I thought that it would be a missed opportunity if I didn’t catch a greyhound across the Great Lakes and the Plains.

Well it was lots of fun. Where to start. Off the plain, i mean of course the plane…
It was normal temperature, it was grey, and it could’ve been England. Except, all the people were nice (you’ll need to get used to me going on about this) all the staff were bending over to help you out.
I had the usual guilt prang in my guts whilst waiting in customs. My mind kept creeping back to the hassle Mike and I had had in the Caribbean. Forget all of that Jo; I had all my paperwork in order I just had to not make a fool of myself.
I presented myself at customs and it took the guy about 8 seconds to scribble on my customs paper and say, “enjoy your time in Canada”, “thank you ever so much mate” I replied in a wave of relief. I was in...

No I wasn’t: as I left that room down a corridor I looked down at my customs paper. The first thing I noticed was that he’d used red pen, alarm bells were ringing already, I attempted to decipher the scribble as I neared the guards on the door, then I convinced myself that he’d stressed “YOUR TIME”, he was going to get me pinched. In a terrible moment my mind found the patterns in the scrawled text, “get him out”, I looked up just as the (heavily armed) Customs guards diverted me away from the other happy free people and into a cold dimly lit room to the left.

This room had 6 people behind desks along the wall; only 2 of these people were seeing people. I think the others were reviewing torture pictures on the Internet. I had to wait in the queue for a while. In this time a lady interviewer started giving a Korean guy a really hard time “exactly when did you last see your sister?” “Sir I must be firm with you, you keep changing your mind!” I was packing myself.

I was called over to an Asian chap; I got all my paper work out. What is the purpose of your visit “For an adventure”; he coughed “Sir?” “Sorry I’m here to live with a friend, he lives in Calgary”, “and Do you intend to enter into paid employment whilst here?” “Yes”, “Will you be working in Toronto?” “No in Calgary, I’m here to catch the Greyhound over to Calgary”. At this the customs guy looked at me for the first time, I got a frog in my throat. “You flew here to get the greyhound”, “Yes, err I thought it would be a bit like the early settlers, y’know Wagons West and all that”, “I’m sorry I don’t understand”, “Well you see I’m meant to be having an adventure”, he coughed again whilst maintaining eye contact. He looked over my papers again.

All I could hear was the Korean guy having to explain again that his sister was married and he hadn’t seen her in 10 years, he was noticeably sweating. My mind was wandering trying to imagine the worst possible scenario: My Mum had said to be careful, was I being careful? I started thinking that I wished Dan were here.

“What is the status of your friend”, “He’s an engineer, I think he’s single and he’s a pieces” (I kept thinking Dan is single, I’m sure, I mean he’s good looking but I’m sure he’s single. He looks a bit like a TV star. Then I started singing the theme tune for the OC in my head ((for those old enough to know better OC is a show about rich handsome people in LA)), “Sir?” “He’s single?” “No is he British?” “Oh, no, well half, his Mum is from California, so that makes him half Canadian”, “Sir?” “Oh God, his Mum is from California, I mean Canada, yes that’s it she’s Canadian”, I was making such a mess of this, “How do you know this friend”, “Oh from University”. His face changed from that of a man listening to the ramblings of a fool to one who suddenly understood the meaning of life. “I see, you have his address?” “Yes I do”. BANG, BANG, BANG, he’d stamped all my stampables. “You enjoy your time in Canada Sir”, “Thanks Mum” I said.

Okay, now I was in.
I found myself at the bus depot and got myself aboard a bus going to the Greyhound station. The bus driver was pretty much the happiest man on earth, he sang the whole journey which was about 25 miles round the houses dropping passengers off all over the town centre.
There was a nice looking girl about 18 boarded and she was the subject of most of his songs. Every 10 mins he’d stop and say “S’cuse me Beautiful Lady”, no answer “S’cuse me Gorgeous Lady” ,no answer “Young Lady” “Yes Malcolm”, “same stop as usual Young Lady”, “Yes Malcolm” I wonder how long that had been going on.

THIS HOUND IS GREY:
So…
Got to the Greyhound Station, I had about an hour and a half to kill so I went to find out where my bus would be leaving and was introduced to a senario that was going to become a daily staple, it goes like this:
Jo: “Excuse me”
Canadian: [SMIRKS] “Yessir”
Jo: “I wonder if you could tell me (insert important required data)
Canadian: [ADOPT AN AIR OF OBVIOUS KNOWLEDGE] “Yessir its right over there just like it says on this enourmous neon sign behind me”
Jo: “Of course it is, thanks ever so much”
Canadian: “Have a great day”,“Where you from?”
Jo: “I’m English”
Canadian: [WHILST CHALKING A TALLY LINE ON A WALL NEARBY] “Oh, long way from home”
Jo: “Yep”

I went to my stop an hour early because I wanted a front row seat, not because I’m a geek but it makes for better videos if I’m in the front, and I decided that I could chat to people who were going to be getting on my trip.
Enter Marg, a middle aged woman of about 5 foot nothing with hiking clothes on smoking a rollie. We got into the “England”, “Beatles” , “Rolling Stones” conversation, my information that I had once lived on The Penny Lane flew right over her head and narrowly missed a pigeon.
It turned out Marg was in the clear after surviving from an aggressive cancer and had promised herself that she was going to finish a trip she’d started but had to abort in Thunder Bay (cool name number 1) on route to Vancouver. To me these were places on maps, but I did my best to portray admiration and we continued to make chit chat.

I’m just going to point out that there are going to be a lot of odd characters coming up and I didn’t remember all of their names, but I did give them all my blog address so if they read this and its wrong; comment on the blog and I’ll either change it or ignore it if I think the new name is better.

Next up is the first of our First Nation characters, First Nation is what you’re meant to call people that less PC people call Native American or god forbid American Indians or even worse Red Indians (seriously this last one is pretty out of order so change your habits at once).
I’m not about to judge them either way, all I can do is explain my experience and get on with the adventure.

So we’ll call this lady Winnipeg. This is were she was going and she was the second of the other passengers to arrive but she had more luggage than everyone in the Isle of Man put together. In the UK we would call her a bag lady, she was nice enough, she didn’t speak much English and children were very wary of her but she smiled all of the time, I even checked up on her a few times in the night(s) and she smiled when she had her eyes shut (I wont say sleep because there is very little sleep to be had on a Greyhound).

The most interesting thing about Madam Winnipeg was her concept of time. It became apparent very early on that she was going to Winnipeg, we left Toronto at 4pm on the 12th, we wouldn’t be in Winnipeg until 10pm on the 13th and that included a 1 hour time loss or gain or whatever it was. But she asked every stop “what time eWinnipeg?” and I’d go back to her seat and show her my timetable with Winnipeg underlined and say “Its going to be another 18hours I’m afraid love, sit tight eh?”

So off into the wilderness of Great Lakes Country we were in this country for 2 days and its really pretty. Lots of trees. Bollocks, that’s a disgusting understatement, there are just so many trees its impossible to comprehend. It got dark early on which was a big shame, its much harder to keep your bearings when its dark. We went through places like: Orillia, South River, Sturgeon Falls and Sault St. Maria all in the dark.

I had some movies on my I Pod (cheers Tom) and I made the most of them now. In between episodes of South Park whilst nodding off I was listening to Arcade Fire (ooops topical), and I was thinking, this sort of soft rocky anthem stuff is great for driving to, I was in the middle of ‘Keep the Car Running’ when the driver stopped in a snowy icy parking lot and said “There’s washrooms here but we aren’t here long, 10mins max, I’ll keep the Bus running” to which I had a little laugh and everyone eyed me suspiciously.

Early on day 2 we stopped in Wawa. I bought a map and started writing all of the cool stuff I’d seen on it. A few hours later in White River I bought a Bacon And Egger at an A&W restaurant.
When we got to Marathon the scenery became fantastic. Its on Lake Superior and the road keeps nipping off into the woods while the giant lake goes and hides, then all of a sudden ‘Voi La’ there is the Lake again in all its grey vast superiority, at points you can’t see the other side even though your hundreds of feet above it.

Its an interesting point to make that the Greyhound is a bit like a postal route aswell, the bus stops off quite often but in very small places where there aren’t facilities. Its also important to note that even most of the more important stops are in towns of only a few hundred people and they all look more or less identically the same, one gas station a few diners. A small supermarket and gift shop (open in summer) and a campsite—remember I only passed through so this is what you can see from the highway (there maybe more to the story).

All the while it was getting colder and there were more and more smatterings of snow.
Just after Nipigon the driver slowed down on an empty road and two huge Moose walked across not 50 metres ahead. They were perfect and I’m pretty sure they only made an appearance for me (so that I could watch, mouth agape for 2 mins, then when they were well and truly out of sight--go for my camera).

YOU’RE MY FIRST COWBOY:
So…
To Thunder Bay, now if that name doesn’t stir your loins then we need to have words. Except, of all the towns we stopped at Thunder Bay was the pits. It was ugly, its right on the waters edge and they have all of their industry right on the waterfront, as an urban designer in a past life I was gutted.
I went into my first Sears here, basically I have nothing nice to say so I will say nothing.

Except, I met my first real life COWBOY. But first. Do you remember Marg? She was coming here to alight and finish her trek? She had been looking more and more grey the closer we got ( I was keeping my eye on her), after my gorgous jaunt to Sears and back across the arse end of nowhere I had expected her to be long gone.
I was late for the bus but I sat down and asked what was going on. She was choacked up. “I’m really scared”, “Yeah so what?”, “there is loads of snow predicted, I’m not going I’m buying a ticket back to Toronto”, “What? Are you telling me you just sat on your bum for 2 days, only to get spooked and sit on your bum for 2 days?”
“yeah”
I went for the cheery approach
“well that’s ridiculos, aren’t you Canadian?”, “yeah”, “well a bit of snow should be the least of your worries, the US is on the other side of the pond and I’m sure they can smell your oil” (laugh-good)
“come on, there’s no point giving up before you’ve begun, why not start, then you can decide in a few days if things are crummy, you can bugger off back east?” (she was thinking, but there was colour coming back)
“nobody is going to think any less of you for trying and failing, but not trying is a big shame isn’t it?”
“yes, you’re right”
“so buck your ideas up and go to your hotel and get your head in order”
“yeah thanks”
“don’t mention it”
We said our goodbyes. I boarded the bus. It really snowed a bloody lot over the next few days so I kept away from the newspapers in case there was a story about and ex cancer sufferer who had perished in the snow. Yikes.

Now, shut your eyes and imagine a cowboy. He’s more or less the Marlborough Man isn’t he? (unless your really odd and there’s something like the milkybar kid in there). Imagine how excited I was to get back on the bus and find a real life 70 year old cowboy called Clive on the seat where Marg had been.
I worked on him, said hello a few times over the next few stops. By nightfall I was sitting next to him having some awesome banter. Some of his stories were so good I’m sure he got them out of cowboy books. Stalking wolves, chasing bears, sleeping rough for weeks, loosing horses in flooded rivers, knife fights in bars… I lapped it all up, before long he was sharing his hip flask with me and I was having to write really fast to keep up with the old timer. I asked him if it was moonshine in his flask, he told me it was actually Scotch, Jura to be precise, hands up who’s sailed a yacht around Jura (when 13)—he was dead impressed..No he wasn’t he didn’t even know where Scotland was.
Clive had the hat, the boots, the scarred hands, the funny smell and the big moustache (perfect for getting beans stuck in it). He had a far away look in his eyes, I tried to convince myself it was a look aquired out of years on the plains, a look that meant he knew where the next watering hole was, he knew that there were Coyotes in the next valley, but I think I might’ve been more like he’d had quite a lot of scotch towards the end.
I told him he was the first cowboy I ever met. He gave me his phone number and told me I was the first Scot he’d ever met. Clive got the driver to drop him off at the roadside somewhere west of Virden.

DANCES WITH WOLVES:
So…
lets rewind back east to Dryden. Here I called my brother and got a sarnie. All the road along this stretch was alongside the railroad which I expect was there first. I remember waking in the night to the low sound of Viking horns, “what the hell is that noise I asked the driver”, “look over to the left son” he turned out the Bus headlights and there was a huge bohiemouth of a train not 50m to the left, it was travelling a bit slower then us. There were 40 wagons from where I noticed it, god knows how many were behind in the dark, the engine was honking and honking and when we got level the drivers came out and waved. I got it all on video, it was great. A few days later I decided to do you all a great disservice and pour coke on my camera thus destroying all my footage. Sorry.

And so to Winnipeg, and goodbye to Winnipeg. I helped her unload her bags, it was really late at night but she got off away okay. We had a bit of a wait so I went and got a drink. There was a drunk First Nation fella kicking up a fuss in the seating areas.
I made a gamble and plugged my ipod in behind a vending machine and sneeked off to get a wash and change my keks in the toilets, sorry Washrooms.

Okay, sensitive readers ought to skip this paragraph. People that know me know that I have a 5 pint bladder, meaning, in the pub I don’t need to use the toilet until there’s 5 pints in me. I’m quite proud of this fact, in fact I think its on my CV, sorry Resume. Well I had been saving up to spend a penny in Winnipeg, I had just begun when the First Nation fellow entered the toilets. He came to the next urinal to me (there were 16 so I took this as a bad sign), I began to force my motion to speed up. He started looking at me. I didn’t gulp but by god I wanted to. He turned, mid flow and tried to pee on my boots. I had managed to get things more or less over so I took a dive backwards and to the side. Then he started after me, pushing me and talking in really a really scary accent, all I could say was, "calm down mate, we’ve all had a few drinks”, but he kept coming. My saving graces were two fold. First he had on a rather large body warmer, sorry, vest, which I got a good old hold of and swung him around twice before hurling him towards the pissers. Then I legged it, straight past the waiting security guards, to whom I shouted “He’s been pissing at me!”
The rest of the stop passed pretty peacefully, nearly forgot my ipod behind the thingy though (Its okay Mum, HI SUE).

After Winnipeg, it gets flat. And cold, and there’s a lot more to tell but I have stuff to do. So it’ll be up soon. Also lots has happened in Calgary and we do have pictures of this so expect a bumper update very soon.

Since I’m not there, give yourselves a nice big hug with one of those friendly pats on the back and take it easy.

Jo

And so to Canada...

So...
I was in the Caribbean, but was too early to sail, so back I came to freeze my kahunas off in the UK. My next plan of action is to go to CANADA to stay with a good uni buddy Big Dan Gunn...

Remember this name because it's going to be featured in alot of future adventures. Dan's Mum is Canadian, which means Dan is half Canadian, which means he's allowed to roam free in Canada.

Everyone; this is Dan..maybe he shouldn't be allowed to roam free?
















In the meantime I've been catching up with my family and mates from the UK, mostly the kids in Leeds, people like...

Rosie:










Who really digs her water

Teenwolf:









Who made my Halloween


Law:

Getting Thriller'd on Halloween

Emily:









With The 'Infamous' Zombie Hand



Dyl & Tom:
With margaritas in Sandanista










As Dangermouse & Penfold



And introducing Dyl to the heady delights of an Iranian special plate or two at 4am (courtesy of Kabals by the corn exchange), all washed down with 2 pots of Mint Tea---yummy!!

There was also time to up my Mum's (Hi Sue) stress levels by loosing my phone 4 days before I leave.

We had Mikes birthday party to sort out:
Me & Mike (NB Rosie playing up--again!)

And again!!!

So..
Here we are, my flight leaves at 8.45am tomorrow morning. I get to Toronto at 12ish, then I have 4 hours to stretch my legs and find the Greyhound depot before a 2 day (more like 2.5 day--its across timezones) journey across the plains to Calgary. This journey will be even more exciting bearing in mind that a few weeks ago a man was stabbed 50 times and beheaded on a greyhound bus on the route I am about to take (better pack my spare trousers).

But never fear I will continue to let you know of all the scrapes I get into, remember: "Jo never does it the easy way, he does it the exciting way".

All thats left to say is big thanks to everyone who helped me these last few days, Sue (Hi Sue), Dyl, Tom, Big Dan Gunn and last but not least Mike & Rosie--my surrogate parents since April 08...


Oh yeah, does anyone like Crunchies?

So,

I know, I'm rubbish I've done soo much and haven't stopped by to tell you the good bits.

I think its best we finish the trip....

3 weeks back we sighted land, it was St Martin (St Maarten to be precise, island has 2 sides, a dutch side and a french side. Dutch side is very US influenced and is full of casinos, French side is french (( for example one of the reasons this blog is so late is that one day in an internet cafe in Gran Case French St Martin at roughly 11.30 am, whilst updating my blog for you guys, at a very advanced state of affairs, the propriorter walked over to my machine and pulled out the plug: "English, LUNCH....." he said and walked off to lock up the shop----you have to love them!!))

We docked for 25 mins and filled the diesel up. Mike and I ran and bought a bottle of Patrone Tequila for $7!!!! (its important to note at this point that this was the first time I had tread dry land in 21 days, I was knackered)

Then we all had a celebratory drink and it was off to the Virgin Islands (90 miles away West across the caribbean, a very pleasant sail and it wasn't due to the sneaky drinks)

This took the best part of a day. We arrived and sailed in to Tortola in the dark. Mike and I spent alot of our days pouring over the charts, we're probably genius's at navigation by now so we were very excited so see names on the Tortola navigation chart like Mount Healthy, Skull Bay, and Shark Cove. My favourite was a stretch of cliff called "Pull and be damned" ( i think this is Pull as in row, meaning row and hopefully we can get around this bit of land before we smash into the rocks). It occurred to me that the entire world should adopt this method of name making, I'm a bit sick of all our Historic names. I'd like to have an address like this:

Prof. Jo Luke Giles

Apt #1: Tower of Death

Bone Alley

Howling Wolf Woods

Cannon Smoke Town

Teesside

TS BloodTooth & Nail 21

http://www.caribbean-on-line.com/bv/ttmap.shtml

Now here is an interesting insight...

My sense of smell changed somewhat out at sea. Before I could see Tortola I could smell it. A moist sweet smell with some kinda Cedar Tree in there. So watch out if you plan to make a surprise attack on me----I will smell you coming and counter attack...

Tortola is beautiful. At night it was pretty calm and the little lights were twinkling all up the hills. We sailed into Nanny Cay on the south coast, it is marked out in fairy lights on the trees and is very nice inside. We could hear the tree frogs in the night, something I really got to like when I was in Bermuda.

We tied up to the Cay, I couldn't help shouting "Make fast the boat you scurvy dogs", but I was excited.

This video is good for 2 reasons. 1) you can see what it looks like sailing at night, those 2 white lights are our nav. data. and the green light up front is the nav. lights...sometimes these are the only things we can see. 2) its funny to watch me sailing after a few drinks

We hit the sack and woke up to find we were in big trouble with the Harbour Master for not registering in customs on arrival. The British Virgin Islands is english speaking and the main point of call for yachts is Virgin Gourda (next island along). We weren't about to sail over there to register and come back so we nipped around the corner into Road Town to register.

Then because our Skipper Matt was a wimp and because he didn't want to go back to the marina to make repairs (the people we were delivering to would've seen that we were fixing stuff)it was up the mast for me to fix the topping lift, just anchored up in the bay (this means lots of wake from craft and lots of rocking and rolling) which took 1.5 hrs and cut my bottom in half on the harness, but I managed to fix it because i'm a bit of a genius....

Rest of the day spent cleaning up which was dull so I lightened the mood by fooling about.

Next day we were off the boat and fending for ourselves. Mat had legged it to Antigua and the UK. Mike and I found a hotel in Road Town and decided to do some exploring...

Tortola is beautiful, and the people are nice, but things take a while to happen...

Lets talk about my IPOD. I went to the DHL office because my Mum had sorted me a new Ipod and with the help of my brother Rom-Tom and my good friend Mike Rawlinson (Cheers Mike, you are a certified dude) stocked it full of lovely songs. But my Ipod was in the US. Next day it was in Puerto Rico. I went into the DHL office with the idea of kicking up a stink but they told me to "relax, I'm sure that your package will be here in the morning".....

I still haven't got it.

I came back the next day. The girl who served me in the DHL office was a very pretty black girl called Alice, with those amazingly long fingernails painted all glittery. When I walked in she started giggleing and called into the back in patois. Over the next 1 hr 45 mins, as I tried to get her to make my ipod come to me, 4 other girls came out of the back and had a good look at me, then made funny noises (like a tutting noise) and spoke in very fast Patois (to which Alice would say "Oh my gosh, you didn't hear that did you?"). I have a hunch, I think that I was hot stuff. But I have been wrong about such subject matter many many times in the past.

I tried my best to explain that I needed to leave Tortola because it was expensive, and that i'd really like my ipod to go to St Martin where I'd be (which involved calling my Mum Sue ((HI Sue)), when I rang off Alice shouted "Bye Mum" down my phone at my Mum????)

So I filled out the relevant forms. I gave my number in 17 combinations of Uk number + 00 44 + 0 44 0414+ + + ahhhhhhhhhhh!

She assured me that it would be okay. BOLLOCKS. Its been 15 days. This is the Caribbean...

Meantime in Tortola, Mike and I found some lovely spots...

Cane Garden Bay for example. Where we walked one night and enjoyed chicken and beer in an impromptu picnic

Okay, heres a funny story. For one reason or another we didn't hire a car for 3 days. We walked everywhere. Caribbean people don't walk anywhere, this is because its hot and mosquitos like a stoopid white fella who walks about half naked.

Mike got off lightly but I was eaten alive, I always forget that I am one of those people that get bitten. I am a medical phenomenon, when I get bitten I get a lump like a malteser under my skin which make me yelp everytime anything touches it, including air molecules.

One day we were on the north side of the island (best side=fact) and we found a little cool bar/ shack on the beach where people were surfing. It was called Bomba Shack. Its run by Bomba, its one of those places with sand for floor and is literally nailed to the cliff edge. Its great. Girls drink free if they're naked and you can write on the walls (pieces of driftwood and old crates painted luminous). All over are these strange poems written by Bomba about women and how much he likes them. Throw into the mix 900 pairs of knickers and bras hanging from the ceiling and a massive sound system playing very good Reggae. Oh I almost forgot, a Bomba Punch $4 is Dark Rum, fruit juice and magic mushrooms....they're very nice.

Anyway, at the bar the lady says to me "Oh you're one of the walking guys, right?"

I asked what she meant. "Oh, you guys are famous around here, people have seen you walking in the bush for 3 days. Two white guys in all the sun and Mozzies."

I hired a car the next day.

We left Tortola and headed for St Martin , which is cheaper. We have our good mates Russ et Carole to thank who we befriended all the way back in Gran C. We bumped into them one day and they explained that they had a new apartment out here and that they were sure thier friend Christof would sort us out. Which he duely did.

We were there 9 days and had a hire car and an apartment with a pool 2 mins from Orient Bay Beach for 450 Euros each!!!!!!

Its been lovely and I have some more funny stories to tell.

Russ et Carole, my heros.

Did I tell you about the time I got caught in a hurricane and spent an evening bricking myself in an apartment?

After we arrived in St Martin Mike was nearly arrested for not having proof of onward travel. Except that he did. He had already booked a flight out of Antigua in 9 days time. I didn't have any such plans---I was going to job hunt, but I was lucky, I think the girl from customs fancied me (there's a bit of a theme running here). So I strolled through customs to meet Russ et Carole and Christoph.At this time Mike was running around the airport having to buy an extra flight and prove where he was staying he had a stressful evening (but on this trip karma always came around).

The next day Russ came over and told us a hurricane was coming. We needed to buy supplies. We asked what to buy and he told me to imagine no power or water for 4 days. We legged it to the Supermarche. I had grand heroic ideas of windsurfing across the bay in the big stuff (Russ looked at me funny), well: to cut the story short it was a dumb idea since a) windsurfing is difficult in 100+ miles and hour winds, and 2) the police were on the beaches arresting all the idiots who were trying to be macho (they only do this during hurricanes, if you're macho you're free to Mach on the beaches anytime).
Mike and I settled in for the hurricane, we fell asleep. I woke up to lots of lightning and no wind. I fell asleep. I woke up as something hit our window ( i think it was a goat) and it was blowing its tits off (i'm allowed to say this as it is a certified Hurricane term for gauging how windy it is). It was pitch black and really windy, we had no storm shutters so we more or less had to watch.

Imagine getting your mate to drive at 100ish miles an hour, in the dark. Stick your head out of the window, but imagine the air is full of debris. Now imagine a thousand really evil and scary witches all screaming in unison. Thats what its like being in a hurricane. If anyone ever windsurfs in one I'll give them a mars bar...



I have been agressivley job hunting and been all over this part of the world been over to St Barts (ohmygoditsposh). But keep hitting the brick wall. "sure theres work come back in 3 weeks when the super yachts get here" I dont have the money for 3 extra weeeks!!!!

So...

The crunch point came on my day in St. Barts. It was 2 days till the cheap flight so it was my last chance to find further sailing work or cut my losses and come home. Same story everywhere I went. But in a last ditch attempt 1 hour before my ferry left back to St Martin I went and asked in the tourist information centre if she could think of anything....
"Sure try along at public beach, St. Barts sailing club are always looking for help teaching sailing"
I ran like the wind. I used to teach sailing and racing. The lady had said there'd just been a hurricane and they might be cleaning up.
So...whist you imagine me running along in the tropical heat wondering what to say when I got there--hoping my little french would work---a bit of back story...When I was a little kid I had a Canoe (it was really a Kayak so don't imagine a canoe) that was yellow. My Mum ((HI SUE)) let me draw on it so I wrote Jabberwocky on the side and drew a monster.

I turned the corner onto the beach (below) and guess what was sticking out of the bushes post hurricane????
A yellow Kayak called Jabberwocky, THIS IS IT, I'VE FOUND IT, there would definatley be a job there.
I ran up to the lady who was in the office. I explained my situation and she said it sounded great. I wanted to hug her....."Oh, wait, you need to have a police check to prove you can work with kids", "Crap, how long does that take?", "3 months, I'm sorry"

I walked back into town and called my Mum. I told her it was over time to give up, please could she book my flight out? She told me not to be sad.

But I was.

On our last night in St Martin we found a great little bar, we met Russ and Carole for some dinner to say goodbye. Anyone who knows me will understand why I liked this bar. Its in Gran Case if you're ever there..


So it was goodbye French West Indies...

And so to Antigua for one night and a day..



Antigua is a small English Village transplanted into a lovely Caribbean climate with a bunch of very happy Caribbean black people running things. I dont know what these guys are eating but its a funny place.
EVERYONE laughs, all day long. Everywhere.
Me: "Excuse me sir, where is the nearest ATM?"
HappyMAN: "Hehe he he ha hah, dont be stupid maaan, aint no ATM on this side of de Islaaand"
Its very refreshing.. (and was a fitting contrast when I got into London and heard my first grumpy Yorkshire accent).

We went into St. Johns and had a look around, everyone was so polite, all the girls said good afternoon (these ones didn't fancy us they were just being nice...or were they??)

We got to the hotel. And went to the nearest bar. Obviously the barmaid had to hold herself up laughing everytime I asked for a drink, but one thing happened that really made her laugh.

Hands up who knows what Hard Wine is?
Mike and I were sitting at the bar, we were enjoying our Wadwadli beers but fancied a change. We spied the Hard Wine on the back shelf. (little flask shaped bottle about 450ml) there was a picture on it but we couldn't make it out...



So I shouted the barmaid over. When she'd stopped laughing I asked for a Hard Wine, 2 glasses with ice. She started grinning and ran into the back. Came back with 2 glasses of ice giggleing. We poured the drink. She started to laugh...alot.
Barmaid: "You boys know Hard Wine right?"
Us: " No miss, what is it?"
Barmaid: laughing "It herbal maan, it make you bop de pole"
Us: begin blushing "Bop de what"
Barmaid : "De pole, maan it herbal make you feel seXUal. Bop de pole. I don't want you boys commin all seXUAl over here dem"
Us: " Ah I see" More blushing
Us: "Sod it, another Hard Wine please miss!"

And so we woke up on Friday. We went south to check out Falmouth Harbour and Nelsons Locker, sailing MEGA MECCA. If you're reading this and you're a sailor and you're wondering where all your wasted good moves, your good gybes, smart port end flyers, go to die; its here!!


This was my last day. I had kind of given up on a further sailing job, the sailing season hadn't started yet. But I had good contacts in Russ et Carole and I could come back. Low and behold I found an agency in Falmouth Harbour that finds positions for crews on racing yachts in racing season, on my final day.!!!

So enough was enough. Off to Pigeon Bay Beach to relax...



Do you remember the karma I spoke of?
After a nice final afternoon on Pigeon Beach in Antigua we went to the airport. I had been scraping my car for 2 days so I was terrified that I was going to be stung from the hire car people. But I got off scott free.

BUT, the nice people at the First Choice desk had no details of me for thier flight. Karma. It was my turn. Karma. They told me in a very un-caribbean way, that I was here to stay a while longer. So I decided, instead of waiting for the Caribbean to catch up and print out a more up-to-date list of customers, I would call my Mum in the UK ((HI SUE--she doesn't worry enough)), get her out of bed and make her email my reciept to the nice people from First Choice. After a hairy 45mins they let us through....we were going home.

Which is where I am now....

But never fear, I have another trip in mind..but more about that later

Peace

Some worthwhile text....everyone likes a bit of text

So..

I'm in St Martin now, looking for a yachty type job but there's been a hurricane. Jobs are a bit thin on the ground. Also whist I've been away all the banks in the world have been going loco, which means less gringos are holidaying. Add to this the fact that our US cousins do not vacation until after the new president is elected then we're looking at a scant few weeks.

For the record St Martin is generic Caribbean. I was in Tortola before this and its too posh, here is nice and scruffy in the way only a Carib island can be.

So...
Hello.
I think the best way to start this tale is to finish my last one.

Back to Gran Canaria everyone....

The last night we were there we headed back to the Cuban bar. Alas the nice barmaid n't wasn't working but we weren't about to let that spoil our fun. This night was a very odd one...The main point that i'd like to express to you is that this evening we met 4 of the oddest people to walk planet earth.

First up is a lady we're going to call The Fat Prostitute, mainly because she was fat and a prostitute.
When we got to the bar Mat wanted a cuban cigar...when we asked the owner he instantly gestured to a lady in the corner. She shouted to a skinny dude and 10 minutes later he was back with a tinfoil package of 5 cigars. After this she was our designated translator for the evening.
Mike was telling me that whenever he is travelling and people learn he's from England the instantly talk about the Beatles. With this fact in mind I asked the Fat Prostitute if she liked the Beatles. She replied, and I quote " I dont like the Beatles, they're homosexual. They have faggot floppy hair. I prefer David Bowie" (i couldn't fault her logic....

Next crazy hombre introduced himself pretty early on. At the start of the evening we had a toast to good weather. When we raised our glasses there were 4 hands involved. The 4th hand belonged to a guy were going to call Mick Jagger, as soon as he realised we were Ingles he insisted on singing Rolling Stones tunes to us. Except he liked to call them "Rollings Tones", for the rest of the evening all you needed to do was lift a glass and he was there toasting along. The best part is that he wasn't too clever on the exact lyrics, I wish I'd noted more but a highlight was " A can gecko, Salis Fashion". He explained that he was an ex-navy man and he'd fought in the the first Gulf war, and some of his best friends were americans like us...After a while he asked me to sing him some english music...he actually sat down and crossed his legs ready for a recital. So I did my best impression of Mick Jagger (those that have seen my mick impression know how good it is), but he wasn't happy about it at all...perhaps I was signing the words correctly...

Up next are the pool guys. At nobodys behest mid-evening some guy walked up out of the blue and plonked a small amount of what seemed to be dope on the bar in front of me. Grinning he turned to me and said "Now we play Pool Ingles", so Mike and I found ourselves playing the oddest game of pool against the 2 most drunk Spaniards in town...They didn't mind if you moved the ball to get a better shot and it also seemed asthough they didn't want to be tied down to a specific ball type. Sometimes they potted colours, sometimes stripes but always the white. In the meantime Mick Jagger kept coming up and shouting British Recording Artists at me "Queen, Freddy Mecury, Simplys Red"

At about 1am 2 guys turned up with surfboards...

All in all an odd evening.

We set sail early afternoon the next day, but it was about 6 hours till our last sight of Gran C. Here's a final view. Adios dry land for 21 days....having said that Tenerife hung about for a long time, that place is huge......

Early on the second day in I woke up for my shift and noticed the foredeck of the boat was covered in blood, during the night something had killed something right under our trampoline. It was to take us the beat part of 3 weeks to clean it all off!!

On day4 we had to re-organise our vegatable packaging system since the pathetic zukini's were rotting all over the joint...

For the first week there wasn't a breath of air, no wind at all. We were getting a bit nervous because no wind means no move which means use engines which means use diesel which means if it runs out were going to die out here. But every cloud...

How weird is this, at about 3pm one day we sail past a little buoy, floating along all on his own in the middle of the ocean (see pic). Mat called me up from below " Jo theres a buoy here with your name on it"

The buoy had Jo written on it!!

Now, we'd had our fishing lines over the back for days. We hadn't caught a sausage. But as we slowed to look at the buoy we saw hundreds of fish attracted by the shadow of the buoy. Within a minute we had a bite, I ran down and reeled in our Starbord line. There was a huge Dorado on the line. All I needed to do was haul him out!! He was very tasty

Next up is the dying birds. Every now and again a bird would stop by. Often it would land on our spreaders (the metal things that hold the mast in place). Sometimes on the deck. But they always died after about a day.

If you look in the corner of the spreader you can see a bird..

If you look carefully there is a little sparrow on top of the kitchen rolls in the corner of the galley

Now is the time to let you know that you need to forget everything you know about beautiful sunsets. There is nothing like a sunset at sea. Every night breaks your heart. My camera should be ashamed of itself and these pics are pathetic but its the best I could do...

Next up....

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am afraid of sea monsters. I'm not kidding I have a terrifying irrational fear of being eaten by a sea monster. Into the mix I'm a pretty scared of shipwrecks, anything rusty and in water gives me the willy's.

So imagine how much I was sweating when on day 15 in the middle of the Atlantic ocean at 3am the depth meter went from off the scale to 1.3meters for 20 mins!!!!! Cripes! I was happily sailing along minding my own business and then the depth alarm goes crazy, I turned it off but I didn't dare to look over the side, in fact I think I looked up for the rest of my shift. There was something under the boat, and it wasn't a fleeting debis this thing stayed with us at around 1.3meters for 20 odd minutes.... Just cripes

We had some pre mixed cakes in our fridge and a tin of peaches which we duly prepared for our 3000 mile party. At 3 grand we knew we were halfway across the ocean.

Check out the LOG 3001=cake time!!!

Now lets talk Thunderstorms...

But first let me explain fear...a few years ago my ex girlfriend drove me on a jet ski out to a shipwreck off the coast of Bermuda. I nearly turned inside out with fear. Imagine the most scared you've ever been, you know when your brain stops working and your ears are buzzing.

Okay with this thought in mind imagine being in front row seats when a giant clap of Thunder goes off..

Down here its hott and that means its prefect weather for thunderstorms to occur. One night I was doing the midnight 3 shift and there had been clouds forming all night. I had just loaded our Beach Boys CD when Thundercloud Winona came along.

Out at sea the sky is huge, if it isnt sea, its sky. Lots of sky. Now these Thunderclouds were black, the night sky was pretty black but these were even blacker, and all around.

About 30 miles off the clouds are flashing away as lightning hits the sea, then more flashes occur, but behind the boat this time-theres no noise since they're too far away. Then a cloud closeby flashes, it seems pretty close so I start to count to see how far away it is. "One One thousand, One One thousand, One One thousand" I was a wreck.

Just then a huge flash happens right next to the boat, "Won" I shout.

Then a bigger flash directly behind, "Noh!" I yell.

Then a 3rd flash which encompasses the entire southern hemisphere to my left " Nah!" I scream (Won-Noh_Nah....Winona!!!)

I start to plan my next course of action, I'm halfway between running downstairs to grab my wellies for insulation (i realise this is useless when i'm standing in a fibreglass boat) and crawling under the cockpit to hide when the beach boys kick in with "Wouldn't it be nice...."

We were the only thing for 1000 miles in all directions that was metal and its a mast and I'm helming us through 4 or 5 of the biggest thunderstorms to occour in the history of the universe whist listening to the haunting sounds of the Beach Boys...definatley a life experience!!

With all this fear flying about I needed to play some practical jokes to cheer myself up. Hands up whos ever seen a flying fish. I have seen millions, no billions! All day long they jump up and fly away from the boat, litttle ones like butterflys all the way up to pretty hefty fellas.

On a moring there's often a few dead guys on the foredeck.

When its hot we often sleep with our hatches open to let some air in. So whats to stop me taking a flying fish and dropping it in Mat's head? (toilet). Which I did several times, and he still thinks that he just had a special jinxed toilet!!!

toilet plus fish

Anyway, lots more to tell but I'm off for a bite and a cold one. I can't leave you on a picture of a toilet so here's a picture of a beach Mike and I had to ourselves in Tortola, actually thats a lie, we shared it with 3 sharks.

i'm a tagger at heart

more text tommorow gang but couldn't leave cafe without showing off my latest graffitti

who else in the world has thier name atop a 70ft mast?

up the mast....again!!

the amazing effects of carib beer

racehorse you say....nay says i...

welcome to the caribbean

Update from French St Martin

Text message home,15.10.08
Boo Boo Jam Bar on Orient Beach, French St Martin. Have dented my 4x4 in rush to panic buy ahead of hurricane Omar. It is raining more than you can imagine. I have secured a 4.5m rig for a windsurfer. I intend to sail across Bay when wind hits 60mph. Will post video of attempt

Return of the dancing sailor: Whitestripes PT I

RAIN

RAIN!!

Aint no wind, gulp!

We were roughly 6 days out of the Canaries. Very much in the middle of nowhere. And the wind wasn't playing...

Deep Sea Dolphins

These guys swam with us for about 20mins. I have a bunch of videos but haven't the time to add them. There was a big guy with scars all over him, all of a sudden he dove straight down into the darkness and everyone followed pretty sharpish.. Wonder what he saw???

Mid atlantic bath time (Non-adult version)

Washing at sea, do not fall off!!!

I'm here dudes!!!!

So,
a serious amount of news/ stories and gossip to tell. Seriously there is some very funny stuff coming up.

I'm in Nanny Cay Tortola, British Virgin Islands. We managed to get across the Atlantic, but there were some hiccups.

You wont be surprised to know that its pretty damn hotttt out here. Milk was a bad choice......

Will get the info up here soon.

Peace.

Where is he now?

Satellite text messages home

19.9.08. Hello mum. This is Jo aboard Tulsi III. Guys tell Caribbean to put kettle on will text position when poss. Maybe you can put on my blog.

23.9.08. Could you look up a weather forecast for us? 23deg33N, 24deg25W heading 225 SW all night. Pressure and co-ord would be capital! High spirits just no wind 4 4 days – slow going. Tom I caught 1^st open ocean fish. Big bastard durado for tea. We’ll be within 200 miles of those co-ords 4 24 hours heading SW. Any forecast useful. Lots of stories to tell. PS we bang right but this aint Grafham!

28.9.09. Ahoy from 18deg49N, 34deg37W. Bit more wind. Pod 15 huge dolphins played in bow wave yday. Could’ve touched them, mesmerising!

30.9.08. 17deg30N,40deg1W

3.10.08. Ahoy 18deg20N, 48deg11W. Nice sailing.Terrifying thunderstorms.
Posted by Sue

adiós a los canarios

So....

It is with a glad heart that we bid a fond farewell to the Canary Islands. Our next leg is to the Caribbean, hopefully we´ll find Tortola in amongst all those islands.

Do you remember the list of things that´d broken? Well I have a few new items to add, we left Lanzarote and got here on Monday morning, we phoned the Raymarine specialist--"Nester" to come and help us fix our autopilot.

Just a point of interest, here in Gran Canaria they use the ´mediterreanan style´of tying up to the dock. There´s a little rope on the pontoon. You come in head/tail first and pick up this rope, as you pull it out of the water it leads to another thicker rope about 50 yards off and attached to a parallel chain to the pontoon. this way you can tie your boat perpendicular to the pontoon, thus creating more space (and a lot more cosy it is too) we´ve had loads of people on board for drinks, namely due to my fantastico selection of music on my ipod....

the marina in Las Palmas

In the meantime we set about getting the boat shipshape, washing the decks and cleaning up etc. There was a lovely catamaran next to us in the marina, and I saw this tall rather hungover looking fella on board getting ready to go to the showers. As he walked past Mat shouted to him, this guy turns around and goes [adopt South African accent] "oh my good god men", turns out they´re old buddies! SO Mat goes off with this big fella to the bar all day.

When he´d got back we were eating dinner at about 8ish, Mat was a bit merry, and Don Nester turns up. We open the hatches at the back for him to have a look at the autopilot mechanism, when he notices something a little odd down there...

for the uninitiated that is a smashed rudder housing, basically for an unknown amount of time we´d been steering without our Port (left) rudder. I had to jump down there and wrestle with that broken round thing to get the smashed bolt out of it. But my wrestling is really coming along so I got it off before you could say "Uno Cervesa Tropical pour favor"

This is the yacht club and yes, that is a giant picture of the front of the yacht club around the back..

During the day Mike and I went for a wander around town, we found the beach and had a coffee. The gentlemen on the beach out here really do prefer the tighter swimming garment. I´m not sure why because some of these guys look like its a real struggle getting into them.

We found a supermarket with a Grande selection of hams which were well worth a photo:

Mucho Jamon

So we had a little night on the town on monday night, we found a great little bar on the way from the main drag to the beach front. Its a cuban bar and the staff loved us, something to do with all the Euros we were handing over. Mike and Mat got themselves some cuban cigars (I have little confidence in the authenticity of this). We got back at about 3am an had a nightcap out on deck, we hit the hay at about 5am.

When we woke the next day we´d been boarded in the night and someone had nicked my ipod (major disaster....all my music [of course its not backed up], my only copy of fotos of my ex and hols in bermuda all my favourite podcasts, my audiobooks, music people I dont even know gave me....just a major disaster), but they also took our stereo fasica (so no music for 3 weeks), Mats mobile, PSP, Mikes mobile, our satellite phone charger (we need this to stay ahead on hurricane data), Mikes first watch in 10years, oh and Mikes new chapstick! Why they stole the sat phone charger and not the sat phone itself or our passports or wallets I do not have the answers for.

So we´ve been waiting for a replacement Sat phone charger for days. And we´ve discovered that our autopilot is not going to be fixed. Yesterday we figured out that out batteries aren´t charging properly (Me and Mike now have degrees in Lagoon Electronics--we had all the batteries out and tested them with the voltmeter) so we aren´t getting enough volts to get all our nav. systems working at once. But we shall soldier on...

We have changed the oil in the port and starboard engines (I did it all myself [satisfied grin]), we cleaned the oil filters.

What can I tell you about Gran Canaria? Well outside of the marina there are no other Ingles which is nice, its pretty scruffy in that nice dusty spanish way. The town centre is very nice and the Chiquita are very pretty. They like to smoke, alot. And they siesta from 12 till 3 because it gets very hot. I wonder if the dialect here is funny to the mainland spanish people. I like to imagine it is, and that when these guys call the mainland, people put them on speakerphone so everyone in the office can snigger at them.

Here´s a funny story. But first I need to tell you my method of getting by without speaking the native tongue. I have a vast selection of Jo Giles approved "International Hand Gestures", which have been rather successful in getting me onto flights, trains, fed and watered. For example if you make your hand as though you were holding a cows utter, and do a pulling motion whist Moooing, people soon realise you want some Milk.

Yesterday while we were trying to fix our steering I went to the marina gas station to get some Transmission fluid, this old guy comes over to help me, I tried to tell him I was ´Ingles, so he goes "Non espanol", "Si, si". I showed him my piece of paper and he took me to the ATF fluids. I said I needed 2.5litres. Somehow, during my international hand gesture description of 2 and a half litres I think he took the idea that I wanted a Spanish lesson. So he took me through all the engine Fluids section descibing each item in spanish, then giving me the name and looking up at my face with this big smile waiting for me to pronounce it correctly. Brake fluid is "líquido de frenos" if you were wondering. When we moved over to the drinks aisle i let him get through the Aguas section and cut him short. But this didn´t dissuade him too long.

I went over to the checkout manned by a lady who I can only assume was his wife. It came to 22Euros, I had a 50bucks note and 2 20´s. I tried to give her the 50, she shook her head, I gave her the 2 20´s she said "yes, very good Ingles", then she explained in spanish why the 50 was no good. By this time the old man had made his way over and he was prodding me and smiling, he wanted me to copy each sentance his missus was saying. Anyway it all got a bit complex and after she had counted out all my change and got me to pronounce each coin value I made a run for it.

So I think thats all the interesting stuff I have time to add for now. We just need to fill up with water and diesel and then point ourselves West and press go. We´re hoping it´ll take 19days. We´ll be sailing through Hurricane Alley, the part of the ocean where tropical hurricanes are born. I got told off last night because I admitted I´d quite like to get into a hurricane, which is very bad Ju-Ju, but it´d make very good reading at the other end.

We have no meat apart from salami and eggs since our freezer needs to be off due to the dodgy batteries. We do however have some serious fishing equipment so were hoping to have a piscine diet.

So adios for now, fingers crossed and lets hope for some nice weather....

a funny carrot

mike in the cuban way

back by popular demand: The dancing sailor, look for my rock eyes expression.

Ola from the Canaries

So...

What was i saying about the nasty weather?

We had a quiet night after leaving Portugal, I had the late watch again, Mike and I call it ´the gravyard shift´, I´m not sure as the science behind it but the bay of biscay is really good for Phosphorescence, and there are a lot of dolphins. You´ll be sailing along and its quiet, I mean you can hear ship engines that are beyond the horizon, then you hear a ´ffffumpt´and there is a dolphin swimming alongside. Which can be a bit daunting at first, they look like torpedos heading straight for you. You see you can´t see the dolphin itself but the glittering Phosopour particles it displaces so you´re really seeing its outline.On a good night you can see its tail wagging up and down and they shoot underneath you. I think they like our nav lights on the front. The sardines keep pretty still but when we come along they move away in shoals, as soon as they move of course the make the sea glitter and the dolphinbs are straight in there feeding.

I made some weights our of bottled seawater and if you kick them at night it sparkles.

That night i had a school of 4 or 5, I named one Stomper as he was jumping up and splashing our boat to scare the sardines even more. Mike has had a 50+ school!!!! with babies too.

We get really beautiful sunsets. So I devised a marking scheme so Me and Mike could score all of our sunsets and decide which was the best one.

Colour of Sunset-some are a rich orange, some pink etc

Range of Colours-So we could have a high scoring orange, but few other colours, this gives the weaker coloured sunset the chance to claw back vital marks

Cloud Choreography-The sun on its own can melt your heart, but get some clouds in on the show and were talking caberet!!! But poor cloud action can throw a lovely sunset out of contention

Sea state-we want either: peaceful, (ah that is very relaxing dont you think Mike? I do high points there) or, End of the world rough.

Glitteriness-Sun action on the sea, plenty of glitter is good for any goodbye parade, this counts for a good sunset too.

Poetry-Are all the above items working as a tight unit. If there is good vibes a poor sunset can really come back here. Does this look like a sunset from a moving opera? If so top marks here

X-Factor--This category was added to mop up any external items not already covered, for example, if an Orca whale jumps just at the point of sun disappearance, I think we´re both going to be giving it extra points. Good for a last minute turn around but highly unpredicatable.

So we had a nice few relaxing sunbathing days. But the Barometer was dropping; 1021 soon became 1020, then 1019. We tried to put on a brave face but we all could see it in one anothers faces, we were in for it again.

It started kicking off on Wednesday, it was from the north so we were sailing downhill but it was building big. It was RELENTLESS, I would come up for my next shift and Matt would be sat in the galley saying "its GOT to stop soon", this guy has done 9 similar trips and never had more than 1 days of nasty stuff. here we had 2, 4+day periods of it.

me eating eggs in 40 knots

i made mike take a pic too

The peak was on Thursday night when I got a 40+knot gust, then waves had been building for 2 days, across the atlantic so they we huge. I have some videos but when it was really bad it was all we could do to hold on nevermind video footage.

Needless to say it was lots of fun, very scary and very tiring (wrestling with the wheel is now going on my CV) but seriously exciting. I got 3 massive waves linked together and came out at 19knots on the other side, we weigh about 10tons!!!

like driving a frieght train straight into hell

On friday we decided to head for Lanzarote, it would mean holding our course which was favourable as we were taking a pounding on the other gybe. On the plus side we make very good time. We got to Marina Rubicon on Saturday lunchtime. We had a night out...it was needed.

welcome to lanzarote

Yesterday we left for Gran Canaria, there is a Raymarine specialist who can fix our Autopilot for the long haul west to the caribbean. We´re here in Las Palmas now I´m waiting for the Spanish to finish their Siesta so we can wash our clothes.

P.S. I forgot to say, last week, when I was sailing into Port Lexicon, I was standing on the back of the cabin trying to push the water off the sail reef, we hit a big wave and I backflipped off the cabin. Somehow i caught the back rail and swung underneath the ceiling and landed on my feet but my little finger is demolished, I have to tape it up before helming. But it was worth it for the gymnastic prowess.

Take it easy.