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.

Made port in Portugal=vital repairs needed

So...

I am delivering a yacht from France to Tortola in the BVI´s..

This is unfinished I have some videos to attach and some other interesting facts and videos (esp good is my cooking in a storm like Gordon Ramsay...I´ll add these here when I can)

I made it to France, Les Sable DÓlonne

http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=les+sables+d%C3%B3lonne&sll=53.799303,-1.551791&sspn=0.190198,0.439453&ie=UTF8&ll=46.500519,-1.771374&spn=0.055418,0.109863&t=h&z=13&iwloc=addr

--found the boat (its a Lagoon 440) http://www.lagoon.co.pt/l_440.htm

and met up with the other crew.

Mike is 28 and is a sound engineer from Brighton and plays bass in a Reggea band.

Matt (age not specified=36) is the skipper and is a skipper.

We spent 2 days washing the water tanks out and covering all surfaces in the boat in case they got demolished and generally checking all the kit in case it breaks. I had to climb the mast to strap a radar reflector to the rigging (this stops big tankers/ freightships sailing over us)

This is me trying not to look a bit scared..

View of Marina

This is a shot down to the deck

We did other cool stuff but I dont have long and there´s lots to tell. We noticed that the generator was leaking into the internal bilge (inside the hull) so we would only charge the batteries from the motor (this means that no electricity if its windy). Apologies if this is a bit dry, I am wiped out...more on that below.

Our last night we ate on the boat (I made Meatballs and pasta) & went to town and had a few beers, when we came back the crew next to our boat invited us in for a drink, they were a bunch of crazy Frenchmen taking thier boat to Anapolis in the US.

This is they (Mike tuning thier Guitar in corner)

We left Les Sables DÓlonne on Sunday. There was a nice southerly and the sun was out. It was a bit choppy out of the Harbour and Mike decided to get sea-sick on top of being hungover.

I opted to take the first watch (a watch takes 3 hours, they rotate so you get 6 off then its your next watch). During your watch you are the helm and you keep to a certain course, and make sure everything is okay. At night this is made more interesting by the fact that there are trawlers and big ships which might run into you so you keep an eye open for them (you can see them by their navigation lights and different light tell you the size, direction and speed of the boat---yeah yeah boring).

So, my first watch was 6pm-9pm on the first night, I was in boardies the whole time, autopilot was on--I needed to adust it a few times to keep the sails going but it was very peaceful, lots of time to look at the massive expanse of blue and think about stuff--I am becoming very good at sitting and thinking about stuff. I watched a very handsome sunset, the first one I remember where the sun just plops out of view, I took a picture but I felt it didn´t do it justice and i´m sure you can imagine how it looks (big yellow thing becomes big orange thing, then isn´t as high up then becomes slightly bigger red thing then isn´t there), well it was so pretty and I was so happy with the whole situation that I stood up and had a little clap "Bravo, bravo" just then Skipper came and relieved me of my watch (off to a good start).

So, off to bed, nice little quarters in the front Port hull (thats left for the non-mariners) and I share a head (toilet) with Mike. The Galley (kitchen) links the 2 sides of the boat.

My second watch started at 3am through to 6am. And the highlight here was that I almost hit a lobster pot since you can only see 10meters in front when its pitch black. That morning the auto pilot broke.

It was quite a nice sail really, the only things to note are that we saw a Whale on our 2nd day and dolphins saw with us all night most nights--more of this later.

The next few days passed fairly nicely until the wind started to build on Wednesday, I took the 6am watch from Mike and before long it had built up to a 20-25 knot howler. Mike can´t helm in those conditions (yet--I´ve since been giving him free lessons--during my watch too) so Mat and I were alternating 4hour shifts. Its really tough steering a massive cat. in these conditions but its fun you have to try and get both hulls to roll the waves at once, when they smash then you flex the entire hull and cracks start to appear...

Me cooking sitting on the floor so as not to drop anything in the waves.

Me at the helm...on a nice day..

Anyway after 2 days of this we had broken--

-The reefing for the Genoa (the whole sail had to come down, at 3am in the massive surf, i had to fight just to keep mat from being washed off the foredeck)

-2 of the 3 reefs for the main (these just tore in the big stuff)

-the topping lift (we hit a calm in the middle of the storm and looked up to notice it had just gone, just smashed off the shackle and blown away!!!)

so we dashed for port in 30+knots of wind in the rain using a sat nav and alot of hope, by this time I had helmed for 9 hours straight since 3am

Visibility was down to 200yards vso you can imagine the colourful language when a small seaside town loomed out of the mist, we were 200yards from shore, I guess we can add the depth meter to the list of the broken items. I headed back out to sea the Port was 16miles south...

We finally limped into Port Lexicon? I´m not sure if this is the right name, but its near Porto.

We didn´t leave until Sunday in the end. We needed rope and there was nobody open on the weekend.

The port we were at had the Oporto sailing club attached, we met the President who knew of a Chandeler. He was in town for a wedding and would be there until Sunday lunchtime. El Presidente offerred to give us a lift in the morning.

We met the guy outside the Yacht club and he drove us at about 90miles an hour through the sunday morning traffic to the old part of Oporto, its absolutley beautiful, the lanes are about 5metres from one side to the other and all the houses lean over onto the lanes. I recommend to anyone going there---also check out the new park in the city. They also surf on the beach.

The Chandeler was a really old salty dog of about 75, his wife and he were really lovely, everything I said they fell about laughing (they thought I was Canadian??¿¿), but we got our ropes and the extra shackels to repair the broken genoa halyard, incidentally the Redbull plane people were in town that weekend..

Back to the marina and back up the mast for me. When you go up the mast you have to strap into a harness, this thing is designed to slowly and painfully rid you of your manhood whist making your feet turn blue. Added to my healthy fear of heights it isn´t a nice experience--especially right at the top when the halyard starts making funny jerking motions...but we got the genoa fixed and the new reefing lines threaded.

up mast hijinx

marina

So a final farewell to the marina bar and its off to sea. We were making for the Canaries. Surely all the bad weather was behind us¿¿

cooking at sea

how to stay sane on a long quiet watch