Joy of Shamrock Quay

Well we had a great fancy dress party last night with fellow ARC+ participants.  A last minute dash to the fancy dress shop late afternoon after some very good seminars, and we were sorted. For three very unenthusiastic fancy dressers, we danced all night and were the last ones to leave ha ha, and haven’t laughed so much in ages. Check out the pictures (our crew mate Graham is the one with the ears!), Jez started the evening with stick on eyebrows, tash and goatie, and as the night went on the tash came off and the boys played a trick on me sticking the goatie on me in different places and moving it around without me knowing!!  When I finally discovered it stuck on my shoulder, they owned up to it being on me for some time!  By the end of the evening Jez’s eyebrows had made it down to his upper lip and he had lost his cape. This morning we have laughed heaps too at the photos on my phone, you can judge the timing of the piccies throughout the evening by how much facial hair Jez has left, and where it is!   Top night.

Today the boys went over the rigging in great detail, checking everything and making sure we are good to go.  I even went up the mast as a practice, my first time up so I took my camera for some pictures.  It was a bit scarey but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Early night tonight, we have deliveries of drinks and dry goods arriving tomorrow then a farewell party in the evening.  Final last minute bits to do Saturday, and then across the start line Sunday lunchtime.

Our crossing from Fuerteventura to Gran Canaria was awesome, sailing on a beam reach with 15ish knots of wind and we flew along.  We made landfall at Las Palmas as we needed to drop a sail off for some adjustments before the Atlantic crossing.  We spent a couple of days in the huge marina  (already a lot of ARC boats here), mainly trying to track down some filters for our watermaker (no luck, of course we have non-standard sizes – we like to be different), then we set sail again along the East coast looking for an anchorage.  The East coast looks very commercial and built up, but we found a reasonable place to anchor off at Taliarte.  Sailing downwind most of the way, around the fish farms before Maspalomas on the SE tip, and found a beautiful anchorage on the South coast in Bahia de la Melonera by the cliffs.  It was so peaceful here we stayed a couple of days before moving on further along the coast to Puerto de Mogan, a traditional fishing harbour which has embraced tourism but in a very tasteful way.  The harbour is lovely and clean, beautiful buildings and colourful plants and cacti everywhere.  We anchored beneath the cliffs for protection and had great snorkelling around the rocks although it was rather choppy at times with all the tour boats and jet bikes roaring past.

Our Aussie pals Steve and Angela, who we had met in Almerimar on the hard,  arrived in their  yacht Pannikin a day or so after us, and we spent a great couple of days with them at Mogan eating, drinking and pondering over whether or not to get to Tenerife as there were strong winds forecast.  After advice from a ‘local’ Frenchman, Michel, who has lived here for 20 yrs, we decided not to go as there are apparently not too many sheltered anchorages in Tenerife and our 25-30 knots forecast could get up to 50 in the acceleration zones between the islands. So we stayed put.  Whilst sitting on deck having breakfast one day, we spotted what we think was a young Peregrine Falcon diving down from the cliff top and chasing pigeons and then a poor little tern, not having any luck with his hunting skills he returned to the high cliffs hungry.

On Monday morning we sailed in tandem with Pannikin a few miles back east, to Anfi del Mar, where we anchored in a very pretty spot with a few other boats.  We snorkelled to check the anchor as usual, and the holding is good in about 8m over sand. Perfect!  We caught a fish that afternoon too,  only a tiddler of a mackerel, so with him as bait Jez and Steve ventured off in Mr Slappy (their dinghy!) towards the breakwater to try and catch some dinner for the BBQ.  A couple of hours (and beers) later they returned empty handed, so we had pork curry for dinner.

The following day our fishing improved somewhat with a tip on bait from Steve – a glue made from flour and water with a bit of mackerel added and rolled into a ball.  We caught four more little mackerel type fish which went on the BBQ for a starter.

We also caught the bus with Steve and Ange into Puerto Rico, a large touristy town further west. We had a pleasant stroll around the harbour and after a chicken and chips lunch with a cold beer we returned back to the boats only to find a large choppy swell coming into the anchorage and both yachts horsing about.  Joy was making rather a meal of it as her bow buried itself into the waves and she pulled back on the anchor. It proved rather difficult getting back on board from the dinghy, and so instant decision made we got anchors up and went in search for more shelter.

We sailed further east for about 5 miles and tucked ourselves in behind the large cement works harbour wall, it was like a different day.  Flat calm sea, great protection and a sandy bottom for a good hold.  No other boats here except for a few small local fishing boats on mooring buoys and there was a small beach and cliffs behind us. Although the cement works is a little unattractive, noisy and dusty, the water was crystal clear and made excellent snorkelling, lots of fish over the rocks and we even spotted a turtle swimming beneath us which we had a job keeping up with!  At about 2ft wide he swam gracefully and apparently with little effort, but outswam us both and he disappeared into the blue.  We saw many more turtles the following day from the boat, and with a reasonable forecast we said our goodbyes to Steve and Angela and headed off back towards Las Palmas for the ARC+ preparations.

Pannikin

Unfortunately we encountered rather large swell and not enough wind to beat into, so it wasn’t a particularly pleasant trip back but we arrived in Las Palmas marina Sunday afternoon and checked in with the ARC+ office.  Now it is becoming a reality, our Atlantic crossing is getting closer and the final week of preparation is underway.  Graham our crewmate from Dover arrived Monday and with seminars and inspections (oh, and parties) during the week we will be kept very busy until we cross the start line Sunday lunchtime….

We left our anchorage off Playa de las Mujeras, South Lanzarote, yesterday morning after a lovely swim, cool but surprisingly not cold and very clear.  The anchorage had sand patches with lots of boulders, and whilst the anchor had a good bite, our chain made quite a noise overnight dragging across the tops of rocks as we swung around.  Still, it was a beautiful and well protected anchorage.  We crossed the small channel to Fuerteventura, and as I was putting the preventer on the main we gained another crew member.  At first we thought we may have an illegal immigrant arriving from Africa, but then noticed Percy, as we soon named him, had an electronic tag around his ankle so we knew he was just on his way home (did I mention he was a racing pigeon?).

After a drink of water, some Alpen and corn flakes (I keep mentioning I ought to get some bird seed ‘just in case’), he found his sea legs and had a wander around deck before falling asleep. Then hopping confidently onto the handrail, Percy was back in the race, leaving behind just a few little reminders on the deck which needed a hosing off!

We sailed down the east coast of Fuerteventura with a steady north easterly and we kept up a good speed constantly tweaking sails, and as we rounded the headland towards our intended anchorage the wind picked up, katabatic wind blowing off the cliffs. We sailed towards Las Playitas but thought that the one boat in the anchorage already didn’t look that comfortable, mainly because the wind was creating a short chop, so we continued on to the bay east of Gran Tarajal marina where we dropped anchor as we were beginning to lose light.  Unfortunately this bay was affected by swell rolling in, side on to the wind, so we (and all the other boats anchored) rolled around all night, lurching from side to side.  The first choice anchorage would have been much better infact, as there appeared to be little or no swell coming in.

We left reasonably early for us and sailed, well bobbing at first as the winds were light until 11ish when they picked up to 20 knots, further down the coast to a little bay just west of Punta del Cacarol where we stopped for lunch and a swim, and then decided to stay the night. We have both caught the sun, Jez is now wearing his hat for the first time since purchase a few months ago. There is only slight swell here as the small headland and reef seems to take the brunt of it so we are quite comfortable and the holding is good in 4.5 metres over sand.  The coastline is very black and mountainous, and we have spotted goats on the cliffs and on the small black beach we are anchored off.  Monsieur le Tomate is cooking pork curry as we watch the sun go down.

We have had a fantastic 600 mile sail to the Canaries, arriving NE Lanzarote late Thursday afternoon after sailing for some 4 ½ days. With NE winds pretty much all the way, 20-25 knots at times, we enjoyed downwind sailing and we only had to motor for a few hours when the wind died completely on day 2 and as the weather report showed stronger winds further offshore we motored out until we picked up the wind again.  Trying every downwind combination we could think of, day 1 was asymmetric with main and mizzen, so that we could test out the snuffer – works a treat.   With a short 2m swell making sails flap a bit as we rolled around, we tried goosewinging with a poled out genoa and main on a preventer. This worked well, although we are unable to get the boom very far out due to our shrouds being in the way (and we have a rather saggy old main sail).  Next was twin head sails, the smaller inner gib poled out one side and the genoa poled out using the boom on the other side.  We kept the main and mizzen up for a while and as the wind picked up we got the main down and left the mizzen up as a steadier and found a very comfortable down wind combination, very easy on the helm too.  We averaged about 5.5 knots over the whole trip, but consistently achieved 7’s and 8’s when the wind was good.

We also tried out our towed generator to top up the batteries, we found it generated about 4 amps which is about a ¼ of our usage when all electronics are on and we are using the autohelm,  so this will help along with the solar panels to keep our beer cold!  We did have to keep a sharp look out for fishing buoys, as on our first night despite being some 40 miles off the Moroccan coast the prop of the generator hooked onto an unlit plastic can which then dragged fishing nets. We noticed our speed quickly reduce from 7 knots to 3 and shone the torch behind us to discover the generator hanging on by only one rope. We furled the genoa and depowered the main and mizzen, then attached a line to the generators rope so that we could haul the generator back to a winch and started winching the lot back on board. Then we heard a motor and shouting and a flash light was shone at us – no navigation lights at all. There was a tiny fishing boat out there with no lights other than a torch!   Our winching gained speed(!) as we took it in turns until the 30m rope came onboard to reveal the plastic can and nets hooked on the prop!  We cut them free, genoa came back out in a flash and off we sped away from some very angry, but unlit, fisherman! A good thing we are long keeled with skeg hung rudder as the outcome would have been two very angry sailors aiming more than a flash light at the fisherman!!

On day 3 we had a great dolphin display, they weren’t very big dolphins but they leapt clean out of the water in front of us as we sat on the bow seat, showed off their orange tinted bellies and then tail slapping against the water as they went back in. Great fun!

Our first sight of land was Roque del Este, a large rock off the NE tip of Lanzarote, and from there we sailed into a large bay near Arrieta where we dropped anchor for the night. There was not much swell to disturb our sleep, and a whole nights sleep was very welcome.  This eastern coastline is beautiful and the volcanic mountains are spectacular, we enjoyed our sail to the south of the Island anchoring on route under Castillo de San Jose near Arrecife then on to Rubicon where we took a berth to top up with fresh provisions.  The staff are very friendly and welcoming and the marina is very clean, they even have a swimming pool for berth holders, and there are lots of bars and restaurants to choose from.

We are, however, happiest when at anchor and one night attached to a pontoon was enough for us – our anchorage tonight on the south east tip of Lanzarote overlooks Fuerteventura and this is where we will head next.