Lanzarote? We can’t quite make it out, it seems to be lacking in something but we just can’t put our finger on what that something is. We have had mostly very grey, hot and humid days, which have made us and many around us rather lackadaisical, I have picked up a tummy bug and living on a boat is not the best place to have one of those, perhaps these things are all colouring our feelings. 

We have spent most of the week mooching about the marina. Marina life is rather odd, Raya is moored directly below the walkway by the restaurants, so we are permenanently on show and frequently the background of people’s photographs. We in turn watch back, as people seemingly from another world enjoy their holidays. We feel out of place trudging through the tourists, dressed to promenade or dine, loaded down with laundry or shopping or walking to the showers towel around your neck and hair dripping. But Marina Rubicon is better than most, we can swim, eat and shop all within the complex and on Saturdays and Wednsedays there is a lively handicraft market. Not too bad a place to be stuck feeling a bit below par.

After our arrival Friday, Ricks first job was to check out the hull for any damage caused by the mystery collision on the passage over here. He donned his scuba kit and braved the rather murky water. Thankfully the only thing he found was a insignificant mark on the keel.

On Tuesday we hired a car for a day to explore the island and visit some of its tourist spots. Being a volcanic island that had its last eruption less than two hundred years ago, a lot of the interior would not look out of place among the pictures sent back from the Mars Rover Mission. It is incredible, barren and harsh and not a sign of life for mile after mile. Unfortunately the only way to tour the interior of the Timanfaya National Park is by coach with its accompanying bad audio guide in Spanish, English and German. Coach tours are one of my husbands pet hates, his stony expression inside the bus was almost as severe as the landscape outside.

View over looking Timanfaya National Park.

We stayed with the volcanic theme but with a brighter note, visiting a couple of sights where large air pockets created in the lava from eruptions 3000 yrs ago have been converted by the sculptor, architect and island hero Cesar Manrique, into useable spaces. At the Jameos del Agua an open tunnel through the lava has been converted into a garden/restaurant/concert hall. Inside the tunnel is a dark shallow pool containing a unique species of blind albino crabs and in the Jameos, a crater formed by the collapse of the tunnel roof, the garden was full to bursting with palms, cacti and succulents all surrounding a crystal clear blue pool.

Jameos del Agua

Our next visit was to his home where he had imaginatively created rooms and incredible outside spaces in the bubbles that had formed in the lava. It has been preserved as an attraction and holds a collection of his work and pieces of other artists including Miro and Picasso that he had gathered during his life time.

The red bubble at the Cesar Manrique Foundation

We have ourselves been dabbling in the art scene this week, finally buying a picture for the salon wall. As yachts aren’t really good places for fine art we decided we would use it as a place for a rolling display of the pictures, fabrics etc we pick up along the way. Well that was all good in theory but hard to fulfill in practice, a blank space has been staring at us since Raya became our home in March. Then a couple of days ago the oil below caught our eye in a local gallery, it fits the bill exactly.

Rick practicing his stony face

We did plan to sail onto Las Palmas tonight but I’m still feeling a little fragile, so we have our feet up and our books out. We shall sail tomorrow.

Tuesday 15 September

Our current position is 34 degrees 40 minutes N, 7 degrees 21 minutes W, 40 miles off the Moroccan coast. The log reads – Tuesday 15th, 2pm, sea calm with 1m Atlantic swell, wind F1-2 from NW, engine plus sails, no other boats within 10 miles. We are relaxed, but despite the African sun we have socks on, it was a cool night and we are only slowly stripping off as the day gradually warms up. Rick is reading while I write, we both keep watch of this deserted piece of ocean for any boats not appearing on our AIS. There is nothing, just us at the centre of a wide open disc of undulating blue. 

We pulled away from our berth at one yesterday afternoon and headed for the fuel dock. We had enjoyed our time in Gibraltar, Queens Quay Marina turned out to be a very sociable place and it was nice to leave with many wishes for a good trip. Our plan was to leave Gibraltar Bay at about four, an hour before high tide, to give us a bit of assistance against the current running into the Med.

When we were in Gib in June the fuel dock was a nightmare with at least a two hour queue of boats milling about, too much hassle, we sailed on. This time around we were keen to wait it out, to ensure, with our record lately, that we had enough fuel to get us to the Canaries if necessary and to take advantage of the ridiculously low prices. So it shook up our plan slightly when we arrived to find all three docks empty, a polite and efficient attendant to take our lines and a super quick service. By two pm we were heading out to sea, dingy safely on the davits, emergency Magnums purchased and in the freezer and both our tanks topped up with 36p/l diesel. We were to have an eventful first twelve hours. 

We emerged from the behind the fuel wharf straight into the path of the huge cruise ship Aurora, who had also just slipped her lines. We took a quick right turn only to be confronted by two 600 ft tankers, Gibraltar Bay was very busy. Cargo ships on the move and at anchor, tug boats plying back and forth, motor boats and sailing boats all milling around the same small bit of sea. To complete the picture, the Rock dominating, stood high above us on one side, the mountains of the African coast loomed on the other and a pod of lively dolphins leapt between it all.

We, of course, paid for our efficient departure with at least 2kts of current against us all the way out of the straights. At its worst we were battling against 4kts racing around Tarifa point. We emerged only to be met by an area of overfalls – a phenomenon created when wind, current and tide combine to produce, sometimes, very rough water. Luckily today they were reasonably benign and it was more entertaining than anything else, a bit like sailing through a boiling cauldron. 

However, we were on our way and we did manage to cross the busy traffic separation zones while it was still light. TSZ’s are enforced in narrow or busy parts of the ocean to create motorways for large ships. They run in places like the English Channel, around prominent headlands such as Finestere and here in the narrow Straights of Gibraltar. Marine rule states that you should cross at right angles so everyone is clear what you are doing. Raya suddenly feels very small and a bit like the squirrels that dodged between our car on the roads in Biddenden. Rick’s brow is furrowed in concentration, calculating when to press forward and when to turn around the stern of the oncoming tankers.

Just as we got across and were breathing a sigh of relief our chart plotter suddenly started to scream at us – vessel position lost! We reset the system and all was well for a few minutes before it failed again, this happened repeatedly for about half an hour. There was no obvious reason, we were passing a Morrocan Navy vessel who was sat monitoring the Straights, possibly he was emitting something that was interfering with our GPS signal. Whatever it was, our back up systems all seemed thankfully to be working OK. It did, however, highlight our dependence on our electronic systems and made us think how we would cope without them, it even stimulated me to break out my Astro Navigation book – not holding our breath on that one.

The next challenge was rounding the northeastern corner of Morocco and its infamous fishing fleet. They drag long nets, hundreds of meters in length between two trawlers, scooping up everything in their path, including unwary yachtsmen. It was nightfall by the time we saw our first couple, they were better lit than we had expected and the fishermen had powerful torches to warn you off if you came too close but still the lights were difficult to fathom as you approached in the dark, we needed to keep focussed. During his watch Rick spent the whole three hours battling with them and was relieved to see the sun rise.

Things have calmed down now and we have survived, one day down, three to go.

Sorry to put in another sunset photo but Tuesday night’s was truly spectacular, the whole 360degrees of sky were lit up. Far from the sun the clouds were a soft baby pink gradually turning to this incredible flaming scene where the sun had just set. 

We arrived in Gibralta a couple of days before National Day. A day to celebrate the referendum held on 10th September 1967 when there was a resounding vote to reject joining Spain and keep Gibralta British. So it was with more than a little embarrassment that we chose this week to mess up on flag etiquette. We sailed into Gibraltan waters and right into the marina still flying our Spanish courtesy flag. When in foreign waters you must fly your country’s ensign off the stern and on the starboard spreader a small courtesy flag of the country you are visiting. We have been in Spain for so long we had completely forgotten it was there!

We have had a very pleasant week here. National Day was on Thursday and it was one big party with absolutely everyone dressed in the national colors of red and white. Having made such a faux par earlier in the week we searched the boat for red and white outfits and joined in the fun.

Many of the boats around us were dressed in full national regalia and all the marina restaurants held special events and we were entertained by live bands all afternoon.

To end the day there was a Grand fireworks display. It was set off from just outside our marina entrance so we had a perfect view. The fireworks were great but the most striking part was the echo of cracks and bangs booming off the Rock, the whole bay seemed to be shuddering.

As we near the Canaries and the beginning of the ARC we are meeting more and more boats that will be crossing with us and this week have enjoyed comparing notes and sharing a glass of wine or two with the crew of Euphaxia a Discovery 55, a very similar boat to ours. We have met some great people on this trip and it is going to make for a very good time when we all reconvene in Las Palmas.

With the ARC in mind Morrisons has hosted us for two visits as we restock the cupboards with British goodies and start to provision for the three weeks crossing of the Atlantic. We still think the freezer is not quite right but as it has been behaving recently we have risked putting some stuff in there. However, we need to ensure that we have enough protein to sustain us if the freezer fails and we have to eat all its contents in the first week. As neither of us or our crew have ever fished before there is a possibility that fresh tuna might not make it on to the menu and so it was we found ourselves at the canned meat section of the supermarket buying such blasts from the past as Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney puddings.

There is a huge list of preparations and information required by the World Cruising Club that run the ARC and we are slowly plowing through them. Rick has been working out the size of our sails, neither of which are standard and which we have no information about, but the WCC requires their size to work out our handicap for the race that is not a race, so the tape measure is out and calculations have been taking place. I joined together 40 flags, the whole set of international flag codes, ready to dress the boat before the start as stipulated, hopefully in the right order and correct orientation. And we have double checked we comply with the long list of safety requirements.

We have also been preparing for our more immediate journey, the passage to Lanzerote in the Canary Islands. It is about 650nm which should take us 4-5 days and will be the longest we have sailed in one hop and more than twice the time we have sailed just the two of us. It should be mostly down wind, Rick has been making sure everything is ready to set the sails easily, fingers crossed it will be a pleasant sail. I have plotted our route, not difficult – out of the Straits, turn left down the west coast of Morroco, until you bump into Lanzerote. The trickiest bit will be leaving Gibraltar, trying to minimise the amount of current and wind against us in the Straits then successfully negotiating the busy shipping lanes on our turn South.

We had planned to leave on the afternoon tide on Sunday but the wind looks much better for a Monday departure so that’s what we are going with. Today has turned into a free day and very relaxing it is to.

 
Sunday 6th Sept 2015

We left Almerimar yesterday lunchtime to get ahead of the high winds forecast to funnel down from the east towards the Straits of Gibraltar, but find ourselves this morning, as for the whole trip, sitting in very light winds from the northwest! The sea is very calm, the air heavy and it is spookily quiet. There are no other boats in sight and just a few cargo boats showing up on the AIS, it is just us, the sea and the dolphins. Of which there are plenty, one pod has just joined us to swim in our bow waves. They were so close we could almost touch them, they stayed with us for about half an hour and finally we got some good photos.  

Dolphins , with Ricks reflection captured by the calm waters.

As our time in the Mediterranean draws to an end we have been reflecting on the great time we have had over the last couple of months and gathering our thoughts.

Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to mind as we sit motor sailing yet again, is that in this part of the Med at least, you would do better to have a motor boat, for the majority of our time here we have not had enough wind to sail in. When we have had some, there has either been too much or it has been directly behind or in front of us. Since turning the corner at the southern end of Portugal at the beginning of June we have logged over 2000nm, clocked up 300 hrs of engine time but only had decent sails on about eleven days!

Next, we can report that the super rich are alive and kicking. The amount of money sitting in marinas and in the anchorages around Ibiza, Forementera and Mallorca is staggering. We have seen stunning sleek 200ft sailing yachts, huge 450ft motor yachts, sexy Riva launches and ugly stealth motor boats. What we have been surprised about is that they all cling together in the same places, surely having wealth is about exclusivity. The only conclusion is that being seen bathed in your wealth is more important.

There has been a distinct lack of fish around the coast as I mentioned in my last blog but deeper waters must still have plenty as we ate great fresh fish in almost every restaurant we went to and the abundance of dolphins would suggest that too. We have drank more wine, mojitos and large gin and tonics than is probably wise and consumed platefuls of Serrano ham and Spanish cheese. Are clothes fit a little more snugly than when we arrived.

On a less positive note we have been very disappointed by the fruit and veg. Passing now back down the coast of Spain and remembering how we sailed, a couple of months ago, past the acres of plastic coverings with fascination, we look at them now with regret. There has been little of that great Mediterranean sweetness and intense flavor we were looking forward to, especially in the soft fruit and tomatoes, all we can think is that they are being grown too quickly in the false environment of the polytunnels producing the wishy washy flavours we get at home.

The sea has been fantastic, despite the abundance of floating rubbish. Crystal clear, every color of blue and turquoise and warm, beautifully warm. There were evenings when the wind had dropped and the sea was perfectly calm, when we swam it felt like we were gliding through silk.

Silky smooth waters.

Northern Mallorca was a revelation from the sea and from onshore, we loved it. We really got to grips with anchoring and had many fabulous nights in its stunning Calas. Our substantial anchor and meters of chain allowing us to anchor deeper than the crowds.

We have learnt about living on board and being at sea for days at a time, how to get quality sleep, provision efficiently and manage our water supplies. We have mastered and love our chart plotter and auto pilot. Rick is at one with his yacht and I can now run around with fenders, throw lines, tie knots and stand night watches. We are beginning to feel prepared for the bigger challenges to come.
Finally, we have learnt that you can’t trust the weather forecasts in this region, the forecasts have definitely been more wrong than right. Let’s hope their accuracy improves as we head out into the Atlantic. Next stop the Cannary Islands.