All boats are sinking........

After several,'when are you leaving?', 'Manana'. We eventually left. Its always hard to leave a place you have enjoyed , and El Hierro was a very special place.  We decided to leave at 4 am with the aim of arriving in our next destination, Tazacorte,  La Palma, before nightfall.

It was quite an experience following the coast in nautical twilight and being able to orientate yourself to places you had walked in the previous weeks.

The smell of the pine forest was evocative of the taste of El Hierro's honey and we had a stash of yoghurt's  and quesadilla's for our journey.



The sun rose as we approached the  Meridian and Orchilla Lighthouse. We had been on the Sea of Calmas  and as soon as we rounded the southwest tip of the island, we picked up a North East wind.

This was the area where the recent swarm of earthquakes had hit El Hierro .....and we sailed right over the spot , tacking towards  El Golfo.

       The wind was flukey and one minute we had the gunnels underwater making 7 knots upwind reefed down, the next we drifted and had to resort to using the engine.

This certainly gave Meriva her 'trial' sail after all the recaulking but Tristan was torn between adjusting the sails and pumping the bilge.




We were unable to buy a replacement electric pump on El Hierro so we always new this might  be a strenuous trip.


                                                                   







We were joined by a pod of dolphins.
I clung to the genoa as we bounced into the rising seas....in the end gave up photographing the dolphins as the motion of the ocean was 'challenging'.  I had to concentrate on sailing otherwise I was threatened with a swimming lesson.

The seas were very 'confused'  but Meriva was brilliant at sailing upwind.  Our concern was there was still water coming in,not from the repairs but from around the mast-step where we were unsure whether work was needed. Turns out it is needed! It  did not put us in danger and was not unmanageable but we felt we needed to address the problem once we arrived at our next destination.

It took us longer than we had anticipated  and after 22 hours at sea without a break we were both exhausted. Its amazing how your eyes play tricks on you when you are entering a port at night. Tristan was calling the sailing directions to me, but on the horizon it looked like the other way was the right way. These 'false friends' would have spelt disaster.....the next morning the hotels and artistic structures did not exist, in fact they were cliffs, submerged rocks and banana plantations!

We finally tied up to the reception pontoon at 2 am and  I took a brandy as my comfort, Tristan a large bar of Turon!  Sleep was the easy bit. Waking up the next morning to put the boat onto a pontoon berth was difficult, although we had plenty of choice as the berths were empty.  We had a lot of mopping up to do......the hatch had leaked again, and the hanging locker was not totally dry.  Its not such a problem......out with the washing lines and buckets. I've quite a routine going on now, and as Tristan says, 'All boats are sinking, its just a question of how quickly'.