Blog 7 - Porto Santo to Gran Canaria
With a weather system building that looked like it was going
to close any passage out of Porto Santo for at least a week the three remaining
crew took the only window available and
pushed off on the evening of 25th Oct.
In spite, of having permission to stay on for the last leg
of the trip from his real boss (the high priestess of his shrine to a mortgage),
Stuart flew out from Maderia to, I believe, start preparing his own boat for the
ARC ’13.
The other ‘Limey’ Andy (and boy can he suck limes through
the neck of a Corona bottle) managed to secure a place on board ‘Rafiki’ for
the ARC. Consequently he was upgraded to
a 47.3 for a shakedown to the Canaries.
I bet his new companions won’t frolic naked in the surf, in the early
hours of the morning, giggling like little girls, after copious amounts of Rum
& Coke. “Oooops… did I say that out loud?”
Speaking of Andy, you may remember from a previous blog, he
mentioned a bird that took off for Africa after we were hit by a squall? Well….. it didn’t make it to the dark
continent. Apparently, it must have
thought it would be more comfortable behind the ships cooker. When we found it, “light of heaven and the
blessings of the baby Jesus, his mother and all the saints and angels above”,
it was buried at sea…... without ceremony.
We spent the night of the 26th at anchor on the
east side of Selvagem Grande and with the crew well rested we pushed off at
1000hrs the following morning in light and variable winds. Motor-Sailing in a flat sea allowed chef
prepare a delicious Pasta Bake containing fresh tuna, caught during the day with
“The Rainman”, and chorizo (pronounce it with a lisp if you must).
The following morning (28th) saw us still Motor-sailing
in no wind and a flat sea. We swapped or courtesy flags to the sound of
the French National Anthem…. nobody had
the Spanish one on their MP3/Phone or other device. “The Rainman” landed another sizable tuna
which ‘the young feller’ (Jurjen) learned how to gut and fillet and will
receive instruction on how to cook for this evening meal.
Now safely berthed along-side in Las Palmas we will close
the blogs until the race and continue to fix, adjust and improve ‘Dulgie’, with
some sortie test drives to the other islands.
But the remainder of this day will be spent checking out the “zones of
convergence” …… BEER O’CLOCK!!!
John
OVER