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.