Left at midnight as planned...beautiful balmy night with shooting stars, moonlight and dolphins. Acceleration zone was great, especially when it was only blowing 5 knots.
I went down below to check (just in case).......water was pouring through a plank seam in the hanging locker, on the water line. More washing!
Ready About.
We returned to La Gomera with our tail between our legs for more work on the boat.
Wooden boats. Who'd have 'em!
Safely tied up on the pontoon at San Sebastian Marina at 5.30 am. I suppose we had a lovely night sail, makes a change from a day sail!
It looks like we will be unable to make the Cape Verdes this year as its getting late for us to tour the Caribbean, but we will visit earlier in the season next time and spend some time visiting all the Islands.
Wednesday 30 January 2013
Tuesday 29 January 2013
Off to Las Calmas Sea
We have spent a month in La Gomera, the longest we have stayed anywhere so far on this trip.
Lovely marina, beautiful blue skies, warm, friendly people and in spite of repairs to the boat, its been fun.
Our friends Nico and Chris and their beautiful leather work, hand made on their beautiful Maurice Griffiths boat, Mew Gull.
We took a bus journey to Valle Gran Rey through the National Parc of Garajonay.
The palm trees looked a bit sorry for themselves but appeared to have coped with the fire better than the Laurel and pines.
Valle Gran Rey was very chilled out, has a 'secret beach' and feels and looks like a resort from the '70's, including many of the inhabitants, John Lennon look a likes. It's escaped the development of many areas and oozes relaxation.
We have provisioned for over a month and its surprising Meriva is still afloat.
We are finally self sufficient...reminds me of the film about Hawaii..'Live life like you were in a canoe'. It is just as well as there appears to be very little from here on for a while.
Later this evening we are off to El Hierro... a trial sail to make sure everything is OK...in the dark!
I've taken my stugeron ( I haven't sailed for over a month) and we are off to La Restinga, the site of the major eruption 12 months ago in search of restingolites washed ashore from Las Calmas Sea.
Lets hope the sea lives up to its name!
Lovely marina, beautiful blue skies, warm, friendly people and in spite of repairs to the boat, its been fun.
Our friends Nico and Chris and their beautiful leather work, hand made on their beautiful Maurice Griffiths boat, Mew Gull.
We took a bus journey to Valle Gran Rey through the National Parc of Garajonay.
A huge area of subtropical rainforest was destroyed during the summer by fires. I was quite shocked by the scale of devastation, and felt for the people whose homes were destroyed.
The palm trees looked a bit sorry for themselves but appeared to have coped with the fire better than the Laurel and pines.
Valle Gran Rey was very chilled out, has a 'secret beach' and feels and looks like a resort from the '70's, including many of the inhabitants, John Lennon look a likes. It's escaped the development of many areas and oozes relaxation.
We have provisioned for over a month and its surprising Meriva is still afloat.
We are finally self sufficient...reminds me of the film about Hawaii..'Live life like you were in a canoe'. It is just as well as there appears to be very little from here on for a while.
Later this evening we are off to El Hierro... a trial sail to make sure everything is OK...in the dark!
I've taken my stugeron ( I haven't sailed for over a month) and we are off to La Restinga, the site of the major eruption 12 months ago in search of restingolites washed ashore from Las Calmas Sea.
Lets hope the sea lives up to its name!
Wednesday 16 January 2013
Out with the old and in with the new.
We left Las Galettas, Tenerife on the 30th December 2012, with the wind howling a near gale, but with relatively flat seas. However, it wasn't long before we were surfing down waves as we rounded Punta Rasca towards La Gomera.
We had our friends Euan and Nona on board for their first sail. It turned out to be a baptism of fire. Fortunately when we sailed into the lee of South Tenerife the sea turned to glass and the wind stopped dead, as if a switch had been flicked.
Bottlenose dolphins played in the bow wave for a while and we saw pilot whales in the distance travelling south east.
We were becalmed and drifted in the heat over lunch, then the wind completely changed direction and we were heading straight into it, which wasn't very comfortable.
We ended up motoring, as the genoa halyard had parted... rather annoying as this was replaced along with the rigging by Mylor before we left! We think they used unsuitably thick line rather than trouble themselves to get the right size. To add insult to injury we also discovered that the planks had opened up in the heat, during the previous weeks in Las Galletas. We were taking on quite a lot of water through the top sides as we rolled along. Tristan did his best to reassure our friends that they shouldn't worry.....not too sure how well he did!
We made San Sebastian, La Gomera just after sunset and tied up to a pontoon, much to the relief of everyone.
New Years Eve was spent mopping up! Not the usual trip and rather annoying that the boat had turned into a saltwater shower. Fortunately the towels were in the way of the leaks and most of the other stuff had been packed in good old plastic boxes.
Tristan made several trips up the mast to try and draw the halyard through the mast to no avail.
New Year was lively. We danced the night away to Meringue band which went on until 4 am, but then a nightclub took over, playing EuroPop music loudly across the marina until 10.30am , New Years Day. Not much sleep was had, but it was certainly a memorable start to 2013.
The repairs to the boat have taken longer than we had hoped and we had to order a replacement halyard from Tenerife.
Tristan has spent days caulking seams mainly around the shutter plank, but at least the sun is still shining.
I have applied several coats of varnish to the brightwork. It made a real change to have it dry in less than 24 hours!
We are enjoying being in San Sebastian...the marina is close to the town and there is a good market for fresh fruit and vegetables,
Photo says it all.....food, sanding, beers and vinyl gloves!
I have used the time to take stock of our provisions.
My tin store reads like a marine food web: 19 tuna, 6 salmon, 4 squid stuffed with themselves (don't ask), 8 sardines, 3 cod, 5 scallops, 1 cockles, 15 squid in ink, 2 mackerel, 4 razor shells, 1 crab meat, 1 baby squid, 8 octopus, 2 anchovies, 1 kippers and Tristan insisted on a tin of pigs trotters (for when he's on watch).
We are hoping to catch fish but haven't so far so I'm hedging my bets!
On 16th January, after several weeks working, we applied a coat of top coat to the repairs on the hull and headed off for the hills to Vallehermoso. This was a beautiful bus ride with spectacular views over the edge of a precipitous road into the barranco's.
The North of the island supports terraces of bananas, avocados, and cut flowers.
One speciality desert is very sweet sickly palm syrup with smoked goats cheese which explains the extensive number of palm trees grown on the island. We shared one but the sugar hit was too much.
La Gomera has spectacular volcanic plugs but there have been no eruptions for 2.8 million years.....really want to go to El Hierro!
This was Vallehermoso, but viewed from the bus the volcanic plug was in the centre of a huge volcanic crater that has weathered over the years.
The Romeria for San Sebastian is today, Saturday 19th January. Actually it started on Friday and the celebrations were still going on at 5 am....so tonight will be even later. We are going out for a dance later.
Families were all out together..... and not a grey hair was in sight.
We were becalmed and drifted in the heat over lunch, then the wind completely changed direction and we were heading straight into it, which wasn't very comfortable.
We ended up motoring, as the genoa halyard had parted... rather annoying as this was replaced along with the rigging by Mylor before we left! We think they used unsuitably thick line rather than trouble themselves to get the right size. To add insult to injury we also discovered that the planks had opened up in the heat, during the previous weeks in Las Galletas. We were taking on quite a lot of water through the top sides as we rolled along. Tristan did his best to reassure our friends that they shouldn't worry.....not too sure how well he did!
New Years Eve was spent mopping up! Not the usual trip and rather annoying that the boat had turned into a saltwater shower. Fortunately the towels were in the way of the leaks and most of the other stuff had been packed in good old plastic boxes.
Tristan made several trips up the mast to try and draw the halyard through the mast to no avail.
New Year was lively. We danced the night away to Meringue band which went on until 4 am, but then a nightclub took over, playing EuroPop music loudly across the marina until 10.30am , New Years Day. Not much sleep was had, but it was certainly a memorable start to 2013.
The repairs to the boat have taken longer than we had hoped and we had to order a replacement halyard from Tenerife.
I have applied several coats of varnish to the brightwork. It made a real change to have it dry in less than 24 hours!
We are enjoying being in San Sebastian...the marina is close to the town and there is a good market for fresh fruit and vegetables,
Photo says it all.....food, sanding, beers and vinyl gloves!
My tin store reads like a marine food web: 19 tuna, 6 salmon, 4 squid stuffed with themselves (don't ask), 8 sardines, 3 cod, 5 scallops, 1 cockles, 15 squid in ink, 2 mackerel, 4 razor shells, 1 crab meat, 1 baby squid, 8 octopus, 2 anchovies, 1 kippers and Tristan insisted on a tin of pigs trotters (for when he's on watch).
We are hoping to catch fish but haven't so far so I'm hedging my bets!
On 16th January, after several weeks working, we applied a coat of top coat to the repairs on the hull and headed off for the hills to Vallehermoso. This was a beautiful bus ride with spectacular views over the edge of a precipitous road into the barranco's.
One speciality desert is very sweet sickly palm syrup with smoked goats cheese which explains the extensive number of palm trees grown on the island. We shared one but the sugar hit was too much.
La Gomera has spectacular volcanic plugs but there have been no eruptions for 2.8 million years.....really want to go to El Hierro!
This was Vallehermoso, but viewed from the bus the volcanic plug was in the centre of a huge volcanic crater that has weathered over the years.
The Romeria for San Sebastian is today, Saturday 19th January. Actually it started on Friday and the celebrations were still going on at 5 am....so tonight will be even later. We are going out for a dance later.
Families were all out together..... and not a grey hair was in sight.
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