Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria 17/11/2013 -23/11/2013 (Richies log)
Its so great to be here! The feeling of excitement is building
daily! One of the first things you notice when you arrive at the marina in Las
Palmas, apart from the huge number of boats (including a few very impressive,
serious-looking, massive racing yachts!) is the quayside wall! It is covered in
wall art (graffiti) left by boats crews over the years as they prepared to
cross the Atlantic ocean! We just had to add our own contribution to the mass of
fantastic tags left by sailing folk from all corners of the world, we
democratically decided to leave the Liver bird as our
symbol.
Our relatively small boat is berthed next to a boat called
Albatross which is skippered by a German fella called Manfred who is taking 9
fee-paying crew + a couple of mates with him! Our neighbour seems to be pretty
famous around here, this being his 19th ARC! There are often
television and media crews coming down the pontoons, (theyre all over the
marina) to try and capture the scenes. They all stop to interview Manfred, we
have been trying to listen in to try and gain any tips, as you do, but anyway we
shall chart his progress as we go.
They do the best gin and tonics around here! With shreds of
cucumber and juniper berries in them delicious!! We've had a couple of good
nights out in the old town, once to a very interesting restaurant in a big
open courtyard accessed by a big,
heavy wooden door in the wall of a narrow cobbled side street. The food and wine
was excellent! I had duck. Thursday was Tapas night which I thought was cool
just experiencing the Spanish / Canarian culture, tables and chairs outside all
the bars and people just enjoying life at such a leisurely pace. That night
ended in a night club at 4:30am, see not too old to party through the
night!
Other events worthy of note were the fancy dress party and the
send-off party. The biggest surprise at the costume party, as they called it,
was Alex who turned up in one of mums dresses! Our crew mate Alex has a similar
sized chest to Arnie Schwarzenegger so you can imagine how that looked! Anyway
Alexandria and Crocodile Dundee (thats me) had a great night out!
I just wanted to also mention the official send-off party. The
fireworks display across the port was huge and spine-tinglingly good and served
to remind me of the magnitude of the voyage I and all the others around me were
going to undertake. This was followed by an exotic, carnival style dance and
drum spectacle with some beautiful girls at the pool side. All in all this week
has been a tremendous send off to an epic journey which we have been looking
forward to for over a year now!