Dec. 16, 2007 - Lanzarote and it's sunny...

Has it really been so long since I updated this site? Obviously so. Anyway, quick update, now in Lanzarote where, guess what, it's sunny and warm! Sine last post I did a little cruise back over to Morocco, Tangier this time, then journey into the mountains for a few days in Chef Chaouen then round to Ceuta for a bit and back to Cadiz. Scribbled this about trip down here but never got round to posting it:

12th Novemeber 2007
Fantastic,Long trousers back in the locker probably for some considerable time. Left Cadiz finally last Tuesday with good friend Fine Sailor Ted onboard for the approx 580 mile trip to Lanzarote. With a final trip to the market and one last (obligatory) beer in the marina bar about 3pm we cast off and headed out to sea. Bye bye Europe. Nice breeze so we were sailing fast with lights of Cadiz dissappearing over the horizon after sunset. Bye bye Europe. The wind was getting up by now so main had a reef put in and genoa rolled away, reefed main and staysail, nice snug rig. By now it was dark so we couldn't see what the seas were like, Conachair is quite a dry boat but there were a few waves broke into the cockpit. You hear a hiss then a moment later it's like 20 people all throwing buckets of water at you simultaneously. But usually enough time to dive for cover under the sprayhood. Dodged some shipping but nothing major, bore away a bit to go behind one but apart from that we kept to course. 220 deg all the way. By now we were into our night watch system which was 3 hours on, 3 hours off from 9pm to 9am, during the day there was always someone on deck. Once in the lee of morocco the seas and wind died just a little and we were bowling along nicely, a billion of stars overhead, aries steering perfectly. By now the wind had went round to northeast from the easterly across gulfo de Cadiz and poled out the genny on the opposite side from the main, wing and wing. She rolled a bit when some bigger seas came through but not bad at all. I've read some horror stories about bad rolling going downwind across the Atlantic but if this is as bad as it gets then I'll be a happy bunny. Wednesday morning saw the wind slowly die more and about luchtime we played around with the spinniker - first time that sail's been out of its bag! Got it up but wind was so light that all it did was slat about so unfortuanately it was time to put the engine. No wind meant no aries so now there was always one of us chained to the tiller. Oh well, never mind, at least it was sunny. Always sunny here. Log entry shows sea temp of 20.1 deg and air at 25 deg.Quite pleasant for mid November really. This carried on through until friday morning at 6am when there was finally enough wind to sail faster than a slow crawling pace again. More dolphins on friday, always a joy. Playing round the boat, they really do seem to enjoy it, and the crew certainly enjoy their visits. I'd been playing around with the sextant for a few days and today the cover went on the gps. Lets see how we do with traditional navigation. I was getting between 3 and 10 miles error so far, not exact by any means but enough to find a big island if uncle George dubya ever decides to turn off gps for a few days while he invades somewhere. Now each day and night just rolled into the next one, watch the sea, have a snooze, cook, read, play around with the sextant. Completely isolated from the outside world, the only things that exist are the boat and about a 3 mile radius of blue ocean between you and the horizon. Saturday afternoon saw the wind die away to almost nothing again (actually a few knots from the northeast but with the boat sailing southwest the apparent wind was pretty much zero). So engine back on. And so it was until 11.30am next morning we dropped the anchor in the harbour of Puerto De Naos in Lanzarote. All in all a great 5 days.
Video here:  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bip6eDVyESU
And some piccys here:   http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24132&l=4aa58&id=689829947
And here:   http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24134&l=5ceab&id=689829947

So right now using free broadband in marina. Marina's a bit posh and heading towards 'full english breakfast/sky sports' but nice enough.
Shall prob stay here 'til after xmas then maybe round to Gran Canaria for new year, then, who can tell!