Beautiful Barbados

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The only cruisers that seem to come to Barbados are the ones that cross the Atlantic to get here. That’s because it’s off the beaten track out in the Atlantic to windward of the Windward Islands. But we did cross the Atlantic so there we were.

15284041_10207103445297431_3923450827266464016_n After turning on the motors to make the 8pm cutoff for Customs and Immigration, we made landfall just before dusk and made our way around the south of the island to the main port of Bridgetown. We got there around 7pm and had to wait for a couple of cruise liners to leave before we could proceed into the Shallow Draft Marina. One of the many advantages of the rally was the quick and (relatively) easy check-in. Jimmy and Pascal were there to greet us and had organized for Customs and Immigration to be right there at the marina. After successfully checking into Barbados and a quick meal on the town, it was up early the next morning and off to the Careenage, which was to be La Mischief’s home in Barbados, in time for the bridge opening at 8am – Barbados time. We arrived with music blaring in preparation for the night’s concert, just off the back of our boat. The Careenage is a wonderful location, right in the centre of town. Coming in was a bi15241819_10207135408256485_7132856256116527320_nt daunting, with about a metre each side as we came through the opening.

We quickly settled into Barbados, swimming and drinking Rum at the Yacht Club on the beautiful beach at Carlyle Bay. The Barbados 50 celebrations were in full swing and we took fu
ll advantage of the concerts and activities. One day we took a local “reggae” bus up the Eastern Coast – now that’s an experience.

Next day, Dee went touring the island with Trevor and Linka whilst I stayed behind to join the rally’s tour of the Mt Gay Rum Distillery. Wasn’t to be missed15259490_10207135409176508_6556172139913229074_oThe highlight of the Barbados 50 celebrations was a free mega Concert at Kensington Oval. We got there a bit early to make sure we got the lay of the land and after that we ended up outside drinking at one of Barbados’ many, many rum bars. With a few rums under our belts, we wandered back inside and marveled at the oval with the Gary Sobers Stand, the Three W’s Stand, the Joel Garner End, and the Greenidge-Haynes Stand –15241290_10207135410296536_1180799526136080429_n it’s a pity there were no cricket games scheduled when we were there. But I digress – back to the concert, which was opened by Prince Henry (more commonly known as Harry) and Rhianna singing the National Anthem. Then the music got underway working its way from the 1960s to present day, the highlight that stuck out for me was a jazz saxophonist who was one of the best in the world. We ended up leaving at 2.30am after giving up waiting for Rhianna who came on after we left as the last act.

15319062_10207135409296511_1333536728213769582_nFun times over, we set about leaving the boat in the Careenage, the small river basin that runs through the centre of Bridgetown. The only other option was the Shallow Draft Marina, but this wasn’t really a viable option because the local boats leave and go and anchor in Carlyle Bay whenever a southerly pops up and comes straight into the Marina.15267504_10207103537059725_7190857612757792791_n

 

Then it was off California and Western Australia.

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Coming back straight after X-mas, we spent a few days recuperating at the Barbados Yacht Club, making sure we were ready for a big New Years Eve Celebration. And what a celebration it was!!! Five remaining Rally boats plus Andy and Allison and some lovely bejans that we met in Miami saw in the New Year in style at the Yacht Club that put on an excellent buffet followed by lots of dancing at the beach with an excellent 10 piece band, singing all the stuff we love and an amazing fireworks show.

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day, Jan 1st, we took a taxi up past Port St. George to visit Garry and Marti, who own an old Plantation House called Colleton House whose foundations were laid in 1652. We met Garry (who started Cruising Helmsman magazine in Oz) and Marti, who is from Hungary, in Leros Marina couple of years back. It was great to catch up again. Garry took over the house from his Uncle who ran Oilsearch in Papua New Guinea and he showed us an amazing collection of PNG art in the stables building, better than I’ve seen in a lot of museums. The House itself was started by Sir John Colleton, an English Royalist who fled Cromwell back in the 1600’s.15825915_10207390765800264_6225945048796371929_n

New Years over, we then got ready to leave the Careenage. Whilst we were away, we had provided a home for a few million mussels and we needed to get a diver down to clear them from our props to make sure we could motor out. We also had left a hose in the water and this took some cleaning with multiple applications of bleach. Assante who left before us had to sail out when they couldn’t engage their motor.

It was good to get out of the Careenage and anchor in Carlyle Bay. We anchored near the cruising club out of range of the discos further up the beach. It was delightful swinging over clear sand with the odd bit of coral. We got visited by the turtles but didn’t get up early enough to see the race horses swimming around the boat.

 

Talking of race horses, we spent a relaxing afternoon at the races in the historic Garrison Savannah. Didn’t walk away with any fortune but it was an interesting crowd and some of the horses looked magnificent.

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There was one more thing I wanted to do on Barbados and that was to see the Concorde that was housed there. It was thrilling to get up close to this  magnificent aircraft  and see how passengers travelled in first class style. We got to walk around the aircraft and go inside as well. They showed us some great vintage footage as well. The aircraft remains in pristine condition and the tour guide was great.

But our time in Barbados was coming to an end as we looked forward to checking out 15873567_10207424599886095_6265663718596035678_n(some of) the rest of the Caribbean. We had originally decided to head south to Grenada but we’d blown a hose when we turned on the watermaker, and we cou
ldn’t get under the cupboard where the salt water was pouring out, so we decided to head for the Lagoon Agent in Martinique to get everything fixed. A good decision as he traced the problem to an outlet valve that was closed when the boat was left in the Careenage.
So off we went, leaving behind the beautiful people of Barbados, so friendly and helpful and safe.

 

Across The Pond

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And then all of a sudden after a few days back in Mindelo, we were about to cross the Atlantic. 

Heres a bit of a day by day account of our crossing.

  • WEDNESDAY (DAY 1)

The morning after the rally’s farewell party, the somewhat seedy skipper and his still faithful crew set off on a 2000nm liver cleansing exercise across the Atlantic. The wind was fairly roaring down the channel as we clocked up 9s and 10s. Several boats got into difficulties in these few initial miles and we heard that Bill and Jade had to turn back with some rigging issues. They joined a few other boats in Mindelo who had a delayed start waiting for crew and/or parts.

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We pressed on past the bottom of San Anteo and immediately ran out of wind. On came the motors as we tried to clear the wind shadow that the tall volcanic mountains of San Anteo created. It ended up taking 3-4 hours, during which we had a few false starts, at one stage putting up Hotlips, our parasailor only to find the wind dropping and completely changing direction. We had to get it down hurriedly before we took out Oysterbar who were still travelling in the somewhat more correct direction of Barbados.

We finally made it out of the wind shadow and got on a nice broad reach of 140 degrees on main and jib doing 6-7knots. We stayed like this all night throwing in the occasional gybe to keep on our course.

We had set our course to a waypoint half way across on the same latitude as Barbados according to Jimmy’s advice. He likes us to get down there half to two thirds of the way across so we can duck down further if any tropical depressions rear their ugly head.

Song of the Day: Sail Away by David Grey 

  • THURSDAY (DAY 2)

1859NM to go. 144NM closer than yesterday. 

Our broad reach was working well as the wind steadily increased towards the magic 20kts apparent, where we would have to reef. The swell was building past 2m and the sailing was exhilarating as we often cracked 12kts surfing down the waves.

This made fishing difficult and the one Dorado we hooked jumped off as we were going too fast.

Mid morning, we decided to put in the first reef and try to slow down the boat a bit. The apparent wind built to mid-twenties as we screamed down waves at 12kts sometimes. By mid-afternoon we put in the second reef as the true wind was topping 30kts and the swell was over 3m with a couple of monsters over 4m thrown in to make it interesting.

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We were sailing close to Stormbreaker and broke up the day chatting on VHF. They told us about Maggie Drum who were passed by a cruise liner, who somewhat mysteriously turned around and came back straight at them. Somewhat alarmed, Maggie Drum got on the VHF and asked if they where about to be run down. The Cruise Ship then told them that a passenger on deck thought Maggie Drum was in distress and tried to get them on the VHF. After no reply, he turned his cruise liner around so he could give assistance. With no-one in distress, all parties adjusted their course and went on their merry ways.

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That night Phil managed to surf down a set of three monsters and hit 15kts of boat speed. This was not what we signed up for but at least on a cat we were comfortable to the point we were able to BBQ on the back of La Mischief, albeit hanging on with one hand whilst flipping the meat with the other.

Well at least we thought we were comfortable until Phil went into his room and found a flood of salt water coming in. We thought it was the stanchion initially but we eventually worked out that the seam between the deck and the hulls was leaking.  And quite badly. Maybe it was from the pounding we had at Fogo, although we had three large fenders protecting that part of the boat – who knows. Whatever it was Lagoon will be getting a warranty call. Hulls aren’t supposed to leak.

Luckily we had a plumber on board. We had Sten hanging over the side in a big swell with a tube of sikaflex filling in the holes under the rub rail where the water was coming in. He did a great job keeping most of the water out and the next morning we got a mirror down there and filled in the remaining gaps.

Song of the Day: Six Months in a Leaky Boat by Split Enz

  • FRIDAY (DAY 3)

1694NM to go. 165NM closer than yesterday.

Friday saw the swell dropping a little bit but we were still barreling along at 8kts under 2 reefs. We set about drying out Phil’s room and washing all the salt out of his bedding. The sikiflex patch-up job seems to be working.

We talked to Stormbreaker on the VHF as they were close by and found out that they had a much worse night than us, getting constantly soaked and having gybed twice as a giant wave spun the back of their boat, breaking their gooseneck and two preventers. Ouch. So now they get to sail across the Atlantic without a mainsail, relying instead on their Pacific Booster. Hopefully they will be okay.

We were also a little concerned about Lady Rebel who had broken a traveller and had a rumbling noise coming from their welded in dagger board. It was good to hear later that all was good.

Song of the Day:  Riders on the Storm by The Doors

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  • SATURDAY (DAY 4)

1548NM to go. 146NM closer than yesterday.

Saturday began with the wind and swell dropping off enough to pull the two reefs out and run with a full main until everyone got up and had breakfast, before we put up Hotlips. You can tell we are not racing as sleep, breakfast and coffee came first.

With the parasailor up, the boat sat a lot better and the autopilots workload decreased significantly. What a great sail Hotlips is. We were doing 8-9-10s in 10-15 apparent and loving it. With Hotlips up and flying we went on chaffing patrol and covered up anything that could chaff a line.

It did make fishing a bit more difficult at that speed. Luckily we managed to snare a small-medium trevally type fish of the genus “got no idea”. Nothing like it seen in Australian waters but it tasted good and we are all still alive after it fed all five of us.

Another day, another boat problem. This time with the Raymarine chart plotters. Suddenly the chart plotter at the helm couldn’t talk to the chart plotter at the nav station. To get around this problem we made both chart plotters their own master. This seemed to work for a while until the Radar got confused and refused to power up. Bummer, the radar is sort of very handy when we have the parasailor up at night and there are squalls about.

Late in the day we passed by Xada and suspected we might not see another B50 boat on AIS for quite a while. Its a big ocean out here.

Besides the radar problem, the night sail was quite magical. We left the parasailor up under the moon light and cruised along at 6s and 7s. The radar made a couple of brief appearances but generally it was in the naughty corner.

Song of the Day: Radar Love by Golden Earring

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  • SUNDAY (DAY 5)

1384NM to go. 164NM closer than yesterday.

The wind continued to drop out and we were doing 6s and 7s in 6-10kts of apparent. We were passing our days reading, fixing things and organising the boat. Sten’s cooking prowess was on display making all sorts of culinary creations. Dee spent the day going through all the various manuals filing them away in order.

We looked forward to downloading the boat positions to see where everyone was. We also downloaded weather a couple of times a day and the forecasts are starting to look good – touch wood.

We’ve discovered a leak behind the water maker and also have freshwater leaking into the starboard bilge from somewhere unknown. Our resident plumber was onto both jobs today. We were still trying to get the radar to go – we found some corrosion in a SeaTalk box whose cover was left off by some workman in Croatia, letting some water come in when the front windows were left open as the main sail went up after a storm from Brava.

Phil meanwhile was trying everything (short of throwing the bananas overboard) to catch a fish for dinner. Lines were lengthened, lures were interchanged, teasers were deployed – all to no avail.

Song of the Day: Blowin’ In the Wind by Bob Dylan

  • MONDAY (DAY 6)

1225NM to go. 159NM closer than yesterday. 

Our second beautiful night of parasailing as we head down towards the latitude of Barbados. The Radar is making the odd appearance staying on for up to an hour before disappearing once again. The moon is going to be the closest to Earth since 1948 tonight (next one will be in 2034) so we will have good visibility from the supermoon and should be able to spot any potential squalls by just looking.

The wind dropped off for most of the day and our speed was down to 5s and 6s. The sun came out and it was a very pleasant day cruising along with just the Parasailor up.

Our lackadaisical day was broken mid afternoon when not one but three fish jumps on our lines all at once. The Mahi mahi that took our middle line with the teaser on it managed to jump off, but we managed to get the other two on board – one on each hull. The back deck of La Mischief resembled a fish factory as Phil went to town filleting both fish. He was a happy camper after a couple of days of inactivity in the fishing department.

We had a great feed of fish – identity unknown – nice red meat. We left the Mahi Mahi for later.

Song of the Day: Hooked on a Feeling 

  • TUESDAY (DAY 7)

1077NM to go.. 148NM closer than yesterday. 

We got a bit of wind in the morning and cranked her up to 7+ knots. We were 20 miles north of Barbados latitude so we decided to change course directly to Barbados whilst ensuring that we gradually slipped South the 20nm required to bring us in line with Barbados.

But by the afternoon the wind had dropped out and we were only doing 5s and the occasional 6. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were all looking forward to crossing the half way point later that night.

The speed seemed to be good for fishing as we got multiple hits on all the lines as we went through a couple of schools of Bonitos. Dee and Phil weren’t keen on Bonitos so back they went to live another day.

Night time came and we got back our radar. Seems to be working now we turned off and unplugged the Raymarine wireless Smartcontroller. Heres hoping as we got a little bit of rain but the radar showed no squalls and Hotlips stayed up for the third night in a row.  The wind picked up a bit and we managed to get into the 7s as we head directly to Barbados.

Song of the Day: Ride Like the Wind by Christopher Cross

  • WEDNESDAY (DAY 8)

935NM to go. 142NM closer than yesterday. Now well over half way there. 

The wind continued to drop out and we were down to 5s and 6s. But the weather was nice and the seas slight and we were enjoying the journey, not worrying too much about the destination.

We celebrated going past our half way point by BBQing up some Calamari and downing it with a glass of Spanish Cava each. First and last drink on our crossing.

Mid afternoon seems to be the time to catch fish and this time it was Wahoo Wednesday. Phil was very excited (as we all were) to finally catch one. With jacket potatoes and broccoli we are well that night.

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After 4 days and 3 nights we decided to take down the parasailor as there were ominous looking clouds about. Good thing to as we had to avoid a few squalls that night. As they passed we got a bit of wind to sail with before it dropped out again and we motor sailed most of the night.

Song of the Day: Stuck in the Middle with You by Stealers Wheel

  • THURSDAY (DAY 9)

811NM to go. 124NM closer than yesterday.

Where has the wind gone?

We got the parasailor up again and spent the day dodging squalls. Our radar was working again (for the moment) so we were able to see them come up behind us and usually cross from North to South. First the wind was light then as a squall approached it picked up and gave us a kick, but usually had us tracking south. We weren’t making much VMG and we were now south of Barbados’ latitude.

Meanwhile we were sailing through lots of sargasso weed and the water was a horrible green colour. Not much good for fishing either with all the weed about.

With a couple of hours of daylight to go, the last of the squalls passed us and we kept our speed up as the angle straightened and our VMG improved. We had tried a barber haul with Hotlines and this allowed us to sail at 140 degrees to the wind, an extra 15 degrees, so we were pleased with this.

We pulled the parasailor down at dusk and managed to go along at 7 knots using the white sails. With the wind with some north in it we had a beautiful reach through the night and made up some of the ground we lost during the day.

Song of the Day: Sailing Nights by Bob Seger

  • FRIDAY (DAY 10)

671NM to go. 140NM closer than yesterday.

Another good day with the parasailor up all day and all night.

Another two fish added to the ever filling freezer – a small Trivially and a medium sized Mahi Mahi. It was proving a little difficult to get the bigger fish on board when doing 7kts under spinnaker. Phil would disappear down the back steps in his lifejacket and harness and gaff them on board. As well as the two we landed , we hooked a monster but after about 5 minutes he throw the line.

As Andrea and Ian noted in their book “Letters from the Caribbean” , we are also one Sydney to Hobart away from the finish.

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With the wind from the North East we needed to deploy the barber haul to go due west. At one stage Sten had La Mischief sailing along with a wind angle of 127 – not bad for a parasailor. Generally we kept it at 140 as its really quite comfortable there.

Song of the Day: “SAIL” by AWOLNATION

  • SATURDAY (DAY 11)

530NM to go. 141NM closer than yesterday.

In the morning, the water colour is back to a wonderful blue colour after a couple of days of weedy green.  It doesn’t last and by the afternoon its back to a weedy green colour.

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Its Saturday night so we decide to leave the parasailor up for a second night. We are making some miles in good time now and we start to think about getting to Barbados on Tuesday rather than our previous guesstimate of Wednesday.

Song of the Day:  Another Saturday Night by Cat Stevens

  • SUNDAY (DAY 11)

367NM to go. 163NM closer than yesterday.

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I’m up early as I feel the boat accelerate. Looking out the back we see a rain squall approaching. We let the parasailor fly higher and we accelerate to 12kts in 19kt of apparent wind. With Hotlips up on top, La Mischief seems to like it a lot.

We end up having a pretty good 24hours when the position report comes in on email at 1200GMT. We are running forth in the fleet, ahead of a 50 foot Catana and some other multihulls. We are behind a larger Outremer, a 45 foot Neel Tri and a 53 foot Halberg  Rasy that has been motoring for 4 of the days. But its not a race! Of course! Thats pretty good considering that we’ve been in light winds -10-15kts – for a lot of the time.

Dee really wanted to get in with enough time to prepare for thanksgiving and it looked like we should be able to do it if we maintained our current pace. We had one reef in the main so squalls shouldn’t worry us and we could even get a lift from them.

Song of the Day: Rainy Day Woman by Bob Dylan

  • MONDAY (DAY 12)

217NM to go. 150NM closer than yesterday.

After a night where Sten had fun dodging Squalls on the Radar using all the skills from his teenage years playing Space Invaders, we managed to speed up  in the morning going Wing on wing with the full main up now up. We went through a couple of squalls but the apparent wind never made it over 16kts. 

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In the afternoon the wind died off but we made the mistake of not putting up the parasailor. We were still going okay though and we thought we could make Barbados the next afternoon. Then as we crept up behind a squall line the wind completely dropped out and we turned on the motors to do the 6.5kts we needed to accomplish our finishing time. We were still doing okay at 8pm but by midnight we had dropped well below our required pace and the maths no longer added up. So off went the motors and we went wing on wing doing 4s and 5s for the rest of the night. 

Song of the Day: On a Slow Boat to China by Jimmy Buffett

  • TUESDAY (DAY 13)

80NM to go. 137NM closer than yesterday. A couple of hours behind schedule. 

As day came we put up the parasailor and off we went at 5s and 6s. We weren’t going to make it in daylight so we contacted Rally Control to see what our options were for coming in at night – something that Jimmy had counselled against. They told us customs went home at 8pm so on went the motors. This was a touch disappointing as I really wanted to sail into Barbados. Before last night we had only done 15 hours of motoring and now we would be motoring   for most of the day  when we could be pleasantly sailing along at 6kts. Them’s the breaks I suppose. 

For a while we had the parasailor up and with the motor on we were doing 7s and 8s. The squalls gave us 20kts of wind and plenty of rain and we loved the fact that it pushed our speed up to 9s and 10s. 

Then the squalls went and the wind died to nothing. Down came Hotlips for the last time this crossing and on came the motors. We burnt off a bit of carbon as we motored at 8kts to get in around 6.30pm. 

About 2,45pm we spotted a fishing boat and off to the right LAND. We were nearly there – 20nm off the coast.  

Four hours later we were parked outside the harbour in the dark waiting for 2 cruise boats to leave. We made it to the shallow draught harbour just after 7 and there were Jimmy and Pascal waiting to greet us and help us with the formalities with Customs and Immigration.

WE MADE IT!

Song of the Day:  “Barbados” by The Models 

Cruising the Verdes

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Something different….this blog entry is a magazine article I’m putting together about sailing around the Cape Verde islands. Killing two birds with one stone!

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CRUISING THE VERDES

The 780nm trip down from the Canaries to Mindelo in the Cape Verde islands was both frustrating and exhilarating. Frustrating because of the amount of motoring, with an exhilarating sail at the end once we hit the trades with the parasailor up for 2 days and one night straight.

We reached Mindelo after 5 days and checked into Cape Verde’s only Marina. We were on Jimmy Cornell’s Barbados 50 rally, joining 35 other boats that  were spread out along a couple of piers. It was here that our two friends Sten and Rita joined us, having flown into Mindelo from Canada via Lisbon. They were joining Dee, Phil and I on what was to be the first ever organised cruising rally around the Cape Verde islands; before coming with us across the Atlantic to Barbados.14705888_10206837810696732_8403680671727435027_nWe instantly fell in love with Mindelo, with its vibrant music scene, its colourful buildings from colonial days past and its happy and friendly people. A highlight was the welcome party put on by the Marina where a drumming band met us on the piers and marched us down to a marquee complete with dancing girls, food, beer, wine and the local rum. We could have sworn we were already in the Caribbean.

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We spent a delightful week there doing a fascinating tour of the island organised by the Rally, swimming at the beautiful white town beach and checking out quite a few of the excellent restaurants, each with live music playing. Some of us had repairs to do and we noted that the town has good mechanics and Raymarine specialists. Towards the end of our first stay at the marina we visited the local fruit and vegetable markets, as well as the two or three supermarkets where you could get enough to get by. We were however thankful that we had done most of our provisioning in the big supermarkets in the Canaries before we got here.

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Lutz, who is a co-owner of the Marina had been working hard with Cornell Sailing to put together our cruise of the Cape Verdes. Because some of the anchorages and ports were too small for 35 boats, we split into two fleets. Lutz’s local sailing knowledge was invaluable, and the night before Fleet 1 left he gave us a great skippers briefing on what we were about to see and experience.

Our first stop was Tarafal on the island of St Antao, 23 nm away. We left the marina at about 11am and had a great reach doing 7kts until we got to the lee of Santo Antao, where the wind dropped to nothing. We motored around to the SW corner where we dropped anchor in 15m of water. The anchorage was small but spectacular with huge cliffs dropping down to a large black sand beach. Tarafal is a short dingy ride away, albeit with an interesting surf landing which took us a while to perfect.

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The next day we relaxed swimming off the back of the boat, exploring the town and its surrounds and socialising with the other rally yachts. We’d arranged a lobster dinner at the local restaurant and it didn’t disappoint, with 3 huge lobster halves each, accompanied by plenty of local vegetables, all washed down with the local beer.  Scrumptious!  And we managed to launch off the beach at night without getting wet. Bonus.

Next morning it was up early and off to Brava, 120nm away. We were looking forward to a downhill parasailor run but the best we could do was to pull out the genneker for a few hours. With thunderstorms around we put it away at dark and had a wonderful sail right up to midnight, when the squalls hit and the wind turned southerly. The rest of the night was slow going as we bashed into the wind and waves, using the radar to pick our way through the lightening storms.

It was certainly worth the effort as the anchorage at  Faja d’Agua turned out to be one of our favourites. We finally arrived at 11am, being greeted by a huge pod of a hundred or so dolphins as we dropped sails and motored into the bay. We anchored at the northern end of the very protected bay, where there was nice sand with good holding in 10-15m of water. Some of the other yachts anchored in the southern part of the bay and had to contend with large boulders on the seabed.

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We spent 3 lovely days there in Brava. There’s only a tiny beach to land the dingy amongst all the fishing boats, and we were in and out each day exploring the island on foot and by car.

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Luc from Cornell Sailing was brilliant at organising activities for us, and the first full day we were on Brava saw us put on our hiking shoes and follow a guide on a wonderful walk up the valley. 3 hours later, after snapping many spectacular photos down the valley to the boats, we made it to a small village, where we  hopped on a bus to take us to the largest town on the island to do some shopping, before returning by bus along a very interesting road cut into the cliffs. By now we were all very hungry and we sat down for a wonderful 8 euro late lunch at Anna’s restaurant on the waterfront. Everyone agreed that it was a great day.

Next morning, we squeezed in a short island tour with Carlos, who drove us around showing us some spectacular scenery as well as life on the island. It was really good just to hang out with Carlos who seemed to know every one of the 5000 inhabitants on the island, many of which spoke with US East Coast ascents, as a lot of people from Brava had gone off to work in Rhode Island; and had returned to either visit on holiday or permanently return to their beloved island.

Back on the boat, it was up with the sails and off to Fogo. There was a bit of tacking involved in getting around the top of Brava but once clear of the island we had a wonderfully fast sail across to Fogo.

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Fogo is the island of Fire, sporting a single classic volcanic cone, the top of which is 2830m, making it the second tallest volcano in the Atlantic after El Teide on the island of Tenerife. And its still very active, the last eruption being in 1995.

Our rally had organised for us to tie up against the two harbour walls as we’d timed our arrival and departure to ensure no ships or ferries would be there. With 16 boats it was necessary to raft up two deep and it was not the greatest berth we’ve experienced. The harbour wall with its large rubber bollards sticking out, was designed to accomodate ships, not yachts and we spent two uncomfortable nights there, resulting in lots of chafing and wrecked fenders. A couple of our fleet left the wall on the second night and either kept going or anchored off in the limited anchorage.

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Still it was worth the hassle and sleepless nights as the island of Fogo is fantastic. We all went on a full day island tour, the highlight of which was a visit to the crater at the top of the volcano. We had lunch at the winery inside the crater and sampled the famous Fogo wine and coffee, the highest place on the planet where these two crops grow. After lunch we visited one of the places where the caldera inhabitants where evacuated to after the last eruption and donated many bags of clothing, towels and toiletries to the children of the village – something we had organised with the Rally back in the Canaries.

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Next morning we were up early to get away before a ship arrived. We were off to the island of Santiago, heading for yet another Terafal on the West Coast of the island. This time the wind gods were not on our side and the 55nm leg took us all day, arriving just after nightfall. Rob from BnG guided us into the anchorage and we dropped in 15m. After reversing on the anchor it seemed to be holding well so we were able to enjoy a couple of drinks before BBQing dinner on the back of La Mischief.

Another island, another island tour. Of course! We spent the day walking through the National Park, eating lunch at a beautiful beach side restaurant and checking out Praia, the capital.

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Our next leg was a night sail, so we spent the next day at Tarafal swimming off the back of La Mischief as well as the lovely beach. We stocked up on a few items at the local supermarket and the excellent produce market and may have even frequently a local beach bar. We were a little bit put off by the guy on the beach who demanded 10 euro to look after our dingy on the beach. We ended up settling on a couple of Euros for a couple of hours and everyone was happy.

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We were really looking forward to our next anchorage on the island of Sao Nicolau, 86nm away to the North. We left at 5pm and made good time on a tight reach, so much so that we deliberately slowed the boat down to make sure we reached our anchorage in daylight. Rounding the bottom of Sao Nicolau, we were delighted to see pods of pilot whales all around us.

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Pta das Rochas is the nicest anchorage in Sao Nicolau, some say the nicest in the whole of the Cape Verdes. And who am I to argue. Its 3nm south of yet another town called Tarafal and is a far nicer anchorage than Tarafal. It has a beautiful sandy bottom with great holding where you can clearly see your anchor in 5-8m of water, a lovely protected beach and great snorkelling.  There was an interesting walk along the coast to Tarafal, which quite a few of us did and we also enjoyed several sundowners on the beach at our anchorage.

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It was the rally’s last stop before returning to Mindelo so a lot of the rally yachts opted to spent a bit more time here on anchor rather than in the marina at Mindelo.  However we were really enjoying cruising all the islands and we wanted to do one more. We picked out Santa Luzia, which was half way back to Mindelo and headed for there.  We anchored in Praia do Palmo a Tostado off a lovely long white sandy beach in 7m of water, along with a couple of other rally boats. We found our later that the island is now a nature reserve and anchoring is prohibited, something our cruising guide failed to point out. So no going there in the future unless you want to risk a substantial fine.

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In no time at all, we were back in the marina at Mindelo, preparing for our trip across the Atlantic , 2020NM to Barbados in time for their 50th anniversary celebrations.

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10 REASONS TO CRUISE THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS

  1. Its on the way – most yachts on their way to the Caribbean sail south until the butter melts, meaning that they get within 100nm of Cape Verdes. Why not go a touch further and call into these wonderful islands?
  2. Being in Cape Verdes is like being in the Caribbean. They are full of colour and music with beautiful clear water and a distinctive Portuguese flavour from its colonial past.
  3. Once in the Cape Verdes you are already in the trade winds. Leaving for the Caribbean is simply a matter of getting away from the islands and you will be immediately into the trades that will blow you all the way to the Caribbean.
  4. Its the shortest route to the Caribbean – 2020nm to Barbados. After restocking with food and diesel in Mindelo, you only need a couple of weeks at sea and you are there.
  5. The scenery is stunning. The islands are all volcanic, coming straight out of the ocean. The hiking trails are world class, with some spectacular views. Special mention goes to Fogo with its active volcano and high altitude winery, which is so different to anywhere else.
  6. Its relatively tourist free if you stay away from Ilha do Sal, with its growing tourist developments. There’s relatively few yachts cruising the islands so the anchorages are likely to be uncrowded, often with no other boats around.
  7. Great sailing in the reliable trade winds belt. 80% of time the winds are 3-5 Bft from the NE. Most of the islands are within a day sail of each other making it easy to hop around between the islands.
  8. There’s a good marina in Mindelo and great anchorages in the islands.
  9. The people are friendly and welcoming. Interestingly  in places its like a mini Rhode Island as many of the locals have either grown up on the East Coast of the USA or are returning on holiday to see their relatives.
  10. Cape Verdes is a great place to experience a little piece of Africa without the hassles that often come with visiting the mainland.

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CAPE VERDES – INTERESTING AND USEFUL STUFF

  • Cape Verdes is 780NM south of the Canaries, 325NM off the African Coast.
  • It consists of 10 larger and 4 smaller islands, all volcanic.
  • They were colonised by Portuguese in the mid-fifteenth century and gained their independence from Portugal in 1975.
  • The local currency is the Escudo (CVE). 1 Euro = 110 Escudos. ATMS are reasonably easy to find.
  • The locals speak a form of Creole as well as Portuguese. We easily got by speaking just English and Spanish.
  • The Cape Verdes are one hour behind Universal Time throughout the year.
  • Shops are generally open between 8am and noon and then again from 2.30pm to 6pm  Monday to Friday and from 8am to 12 noon on Saturday.
  • Cape Verdes use European 220V 50Hz plugs.
  • The only marina is located in Mindelo. It has electricity and water and 24×7 security with a nice floating bar and restaurant.
  • It is best to drink bottled water. The water on the islands is okay for washing etc. but not necessarily for drinking.
  • Diesel is cheap and good quality diesel is available VAT free from the fuel dock at Mindelo marina.
  • Internet is cheap and reasonable. Buy a local SIM for 8 euros which will give you 8GB of Internet.
  • We used the RCC Atlantic Islands cruising guide. This also covers the Canaries, Azores and Madeira.

Biography

Steve Tull and Dee Trigg have been floating around the Mediterranean on La Mischief,  their Lagoon 421 Catamaran, after sailing down from Sables D’Olonne in March 2013. Steve previously sailed across the top of Australia in 2012 from Perth to Sydney on Camelot, his previous Seawind catamaran. Steve and Dee  have just completed Jimmy Cornell’s Barbados 50 Rally and are currently in the Caribbean.

780nm South to Cape Verdes

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FRIDAY

Set off at 8am on the 780nm jaunt to the Cape Verdes, a day earlier than planned as there was some strong southerlies coming on Sunday and our strategy was to head West of the rhumb line (whilst keeping a reasonable distance off Africa) to skirt around these Southerlies and get far enough South so we wouldn’t be affected. Most of the rest of the fleet had pretty much the same idea, although a few of the boats were going nowhere as the effects of the flu that went through our fleet had completely incapacitated them. So they stayed in El Hierro or Las Palma to recuperate. I wasn’t so sure about staying in El Hierro in Southerlies as it looked pretty exposed to the South. Will be interesting to see how they faired. 

With our sails set our immediate challenge was trying to get a decent angle to clear the bottom of the island. Wing on wing for a while but the new Raymarine autopilot wasn’t handling it so after a bit of hand steering we gave up on that idea and jibed our way to the bottom of the island.

We used up our last bit of internet for 5 days and then headed off into the big wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The wind turned to the East and we had a steady sail for most of the day at 5kts or so. Phil and I were still feeling the effects of the flu, so we took it fairly quietly, with no extravagant sail changes, sleeping off watch where we could.

The highlight of the day was a pod of spotted dolphins that hung around for ages.

 

SATURDAY

By now Phil and I were both starting to feel better and out came the fishing gear as we motor sailed along in light winds. We were keen to at least get an entry in for the fishing completion, and Dee pulled out her secret weapon, a rather innocuous looking blue plug with a sing large hook on the end of it.

And it worked. A glorious 12kg Dorado jumped on the secret weapon and Phil pulled it in and gaffed it onto the boat. We managed to loose some horrible gin we picked up in desperation in Turkey down its gills, before lassoing its tail. We just passed an enormous underwater mountain – maybe that had something to do with the fishing. It was all happening as we noticed some whales broaching in the distance.

That night we really enjoyed the BBQed fresh fish, before settling down on our 3 hourly night watches. Dee was doing the 11pm – 2am shift when the wind picked up and off went the motors. I had to get up and help Phil put in a reef around 3am when the wind picked up to 20kts. It was on a comfortable tight reach, we were just East enough to avoid the stronger southeries and the swell was not much to write home about (so I won’t).

We made some good miles under sail hitting 8s and 9s but it didn’t last past dawn (a rather late 8.15am in the morning) and we were back to motor sailing.

 SUNDAY

With no need to fish, it was a rather quite Sunday at the office. We left the reef in all day as it didn’t really matter whether it was in or out, no wind is no wind. We motored into the Tropic of Cancer – another first for me in the Northern Hemisphere (having previously sailed through the Tropic of Capricorn on Camelot). 

We were starting to get the rhythm of a long ocean passage. We occasionally spotted Oysterbar and Dolojaime in the distance and picked up the odd freighter on AIS but it was largely a big empty deep ocean. We kept track of the other boats through a once a day email from rally control detailing the GPS positions of all the other boats. I download weather on my Predict Wind Offshore app on my Apple Mac via my Iridium Go and this gives me weather routing via 4 different weather models, GMDSS weather forecast and satellite imagery. And occasionally I get an accurate forecast.

That night the wind picked up again and we touched 9s with the reef in and the wind blowing 15kts. Perfect sailing on a beam reach. Everyone enjoyed a great night time sail under a big full moon, until my early morning shift when once again the wind died and the motors came on.

MONDAY

About 11am we decided it was time to deploy Hotlips (our parasailor with the red lips) in light 8-9kts of wind, which was right up our bum. In 4-5kts of apparent wind we were doing 4-5kts of SOG. A couple more knots of wind would have been good but at least we weren’t burning diesel.

It was a slow day all around. We took the cautious approach of taking the Parasailor down as night fell, probably a mistake as La Mischief doesn’t go very well down wind in light winds with just a mailsail and a jib. We engaged the services of the iron sail to keep us on track for a daylight arrival on Wednesday, provided we got a couple of decent parasailor runs. 

TUESDAY

Sunrise was at 8.30am and the parasailor went up at 9am. It was downhill all the way to the finish line in Cape Verdes and with the wind picking up to 12kts, we were set to average 7kts with hotlips showing the way. Our plan was to get to within 140nm, 24 hours out before sunset and that gave us an easy run home provided we did better than 6kts.

And that’s what we did. I’m struggling to work out why I didn’t get a parasailor earlier. Would have made some of our earlier passages a lot more enjoyable.

5 days in, the days seem to pass easily. Kindle eBooks and movies are consumed, whilst Dee is busy doing her exercises. Spot Mr. Lazy! Its very therapeutic being away from the Internet ….. and Alcohol! With all that fresh food and fresh air too. It’s a veritable health farm on the water.

About 6pm we decided to quickly drop the parasailor to check the socks control lines that appeared to be twisted at the top. Back on deck it seemed to untwist itself, but just as we were about to re-hoist it, the starboard engine stopped as parasailor line fell into the water and wrapped around the prop. Nothing like a mid-ocean swim to untangle her. Its very blue underneath the back of the boat with the snorkel and mask on!

Crisis over, off we went again doing 7kts with only the parasailor up. This was our first night sail with Hotlips up and it went beautifully. You could see the stars through the parasail opening as we surfed down the swell that had built from nothing to maybe 1.5m.

WEDNESDAY

Its nice to wake up at 5am in the morning and see we have a manageable 80nm to go. The moon was still fairly full and the wind was so consistent, never wavering much from straight behind us at 12-15kts. Trade wind sailing.

We thought we’d have a go at filling up the freezer before we arrived given we will have 5 hungry mouths to feed. Phil ordered Wahoo – but all we got was a baby mahi mahi that we threw back 

As we neared the islands the wind picked up and as we entered the channel we had 20-25kts. We were zooming along at 9-10kts and getting to our final destination quickly. We had some problems getting the parasail down with all that wind but Phil and I managed to get it in the sock eventually. Dolojaime were not so fortunate – they managed to wrap theirs around the mast and had to cut it off. Ouch!!!!

With parasailor down, out came the fenders and mooring lines and we were soon docked ready for our first beer in over a week!

El Hierro

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We took it easy on the sail down to El Hierro as Phil and I weren’t anywhere near 100%. The marina there was a pleasant surprise as the floating pontoons were all brand spanking new. There wasn’t much there though. A coffee shop and a ferry berth were about it.

We were following the weather fairly closely at this stage and we decided to leave a day early to avoid some southerly winds that were making an appearance in a few days time.

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That left time for the island tour, which was very interesting. El Hierro only has 7000 residents and they have built a rather interesting power plant using wind turbines and a couple of big dams that they use to produce hydro power when the wind doesn’t blow enough. When the wind is blowing too much they use the excess power to pump the water up into the high dam. The hydro component helps level out the power as well.

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We were lucky enough to see it all in action. Spain is really pushing wind power and is aiming for 100% renewable energy in the near future. They have managed to touch 70% so they are putting Australia to shame.

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After the power plant tour, we stopped of for morning tea at a restaurant designed by Cesar Manrique, a famous Spanish architect from the Canaries who has buildings on each of the islands.

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Then it was off into the mountains and saw some great scenery with some lovely pines. Plus of course a good lunch.

We visited the capital and got some groceries but the supermarkets are small and most of us had done our provisioning well before El Hierro.

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Then it was off to Cape Verdes – 780nm to the South.

 

 

 

The Pretty Island

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Once again we had a good sail, just as soon as we’d cleared the top of La Gomera and the winds turned NE. We had an early start at 6am and made the 55nm by 4pm that afternoon. The marina at Santa Cruz has an awkward swell despite appearing to be very well protected. And with 20kts of wind we were thankful for the two engines on our Catamaran. Some of the monos had some issues – its times like this we love being catamaran people.

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The marina is right next to town and what a pretty town it is. The first order of business was the Welcome Party at the Yacht Club. As usual it was a great party and it was also good to catch up with the other Fleet, if only for a day.

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Next morning we went off in search of an English Breakfast, but couldn’t find one anywhere. So we ended up back on the boat eating our usual.

Santa Cruz de La Palma is breathtakingly picturesque. Beautiful architecture, streets and shops. The main drag is somewhat strangely called Calla O’Daly, after an Irish Banana Merchant. The waterfront promenade has got some wonderful examples of old Canarian houses, with balconies overflowing with flowers and an overhanging dunny from the days when the beachfront was close by for efficient sewerage disposal.

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Next day we took a 40 minute walk south to Los Cancajos, a small beachside resort with a great black beach – really clean with excellent snorkelling. Best beach I’ve been to in the Canaries with lots of sub-tropical fish.

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The tour that the rally put on for free was around NE of island. The highlight was the tropical rainforest with a stunning waterfall. This being the only permanent river on the islands.

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After the tour, we went over to Aura for Crispy’s farewell party. The whole of fleet two came along so it became a dock party. There was a few sore heads after that party.

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The sore heads were exacerbated by the spread of the Dusseldorf Bug. Thetis had made a trip back to Germany and brought a nasty bug back with them. Just about the whole fleet got it (except Dee). Some of the boats got it so bad they couldn’t sail for days. Phil was really sick for a couple of days and I got it pretty bad.

So for our last day, Dee did a bus trip around the island, whilst we rested trying to get rid of the bug, whilst completing our job list before heading south.

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Then it was time to set sail to El Hierro.

Whistling Jack

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The marina at La Gomera is backed by dramatic cliffs on one side and the laid back town of San Sebastian on the other. There was a cruise ship in town so the town was buzzing with street markets and German tourists.

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We wandered around with Anya, checking out a few of the cutesy shops and impressive churches as well as the old fort dating back to just before Columbus visited in 1492. We found the house that Columbus stayed at – well a later version built in the 1700’s that was supposedly in the same spot. The well he took water from was closed for renovations, which was a bummer. The town has a couple of nice black sand beaches, which we checked out as well.

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Then it was time to drop Anya at her ferry as she needed to get back to Tenerife. It was a petty that she couldn’t come to Cape Verdes as we had a fantastic time with her.

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Goodbyes said, it was time for a bit of exploring. We climbed up to the top of the cliffs where there was a nice hotel built from an old Parador with fantastic views down to the town and along the coast. We walked down to another look out and got some more great pictures of the marina and the town.

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Next day we were up early for the tour that the rally organized. It too was included in our rally fees – the rally is such good value for money.

The tour guide was a pommy lady who had gone to La Gomera on a gap year in the seventies and had just stayed. She was a wealth of information. We drove up through the mountains, over steep ravines and through mountain tunnels to the NE. We passed through Aloe Vera and banana plantations, small towns and back down along the coast, before heading up to the top of a cliff where we stopped at a beautiful restaurant. We ordered coffee and cake and then checked out the glass lookout inside the restaurant, where you walked out over the cliff and looked down through the glass floor at the sea far below.

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After the restaurant staff had finished making us all the coffees, we were treated to a real highlight of our whole year. In La Gamera they have a whistling language, which goes back to the days of the shepherds on either side of the steep ravines, where they used whistling to communicate in Spanish. Nowadays it is talk in schools and you hear the locals “talking” in it around the island.

Whistling Language from Steve Tull on Vimeo.

The waiters started by showing us a few phases and them for a bit of a party trick, a few of us hid items around the room whilst one of them went out the back. Then he came back in the room and the other waiter whistled directions of where each item was hidden and which one of us to return it to. We were very impressed.

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After this impressive party trick, we continued our journey into the mountains and up into the ancient rain forest, the last remnants of a gigantic rain forest that covered Europe a long, long time ago. We donned our jackets and had a nice hike around the visitors centre. Then it was back in the bus for another interesting drive back down to the coast to San Sebastian, where we spent the afternoon shopping and swimming at the town beach.

14556513_10206702258388009_2338417015279865307_oNext morning it was up early for a sail to La Palma for a brief rendezvous with Fleet 1.

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Each New Island Seems to Get a Bit Better

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We were really looking forward to our ten-day stop in Tenerife. Ten days to wind down and relax in the Canaries. After a great reach across from Gran Canaria we got our berths and settled down in Santa Cruz Marina, which is really well situated in the centre of town. That afternoon we relaxed on board and started the winding down process.
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The next day was spent relaxing and wandering around the city of Santa Cruz by foot. Santa Cruz is a lovely laid back city, backed by picturesque mountains. It’s a city of one or so million, the capital of the island of Tenerife, which has 2 or so million people. I like cities like Santa Cruz, big enough to be able to get everything but small enough to get across town by car in 10 minutes (20 minutes by bike).
We got a good taste of Santa Cruz on Tuesday as the Rally gave us free City Tour tickets on one of those hop on, hop off, red open top double-decker buses. We travelled up and down its beautiful wide boulevards, past interesting parks and typical Spanish outdoor sculptures and a very interesting entertainment centre that bore some similarities to the iconic Sydney Opera House.
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Then it was time to hop on our bikes and head out to the beach. Las Teresitas is an amazing looking beach, quite long and made up of imported Saharan sand. It took us about 30 minutes to ride there against a strong breeze which made the beach a sand blasting zone – even the beach bars were suffering. . Still the water was nice and I had a refreshing swim.
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We had to rush back to meet Anya who was crewing for us down to Cape Verdes. We first ran across Anya in Croatia and we promised to cross paths again when we made it to Tenerife as that is where she lives. Dee and her hit it off, alternating between Spanish and English even though Anya’s English is pretty good.
That night we all went off on another rally freebee to the Theatre to listen to a young Canarian orchestra play the music of some American Movies. I’ve never heard so much clapping in my life. It was okay but nothing to really write home about.
14449720_10206652526464742_7076528110085078716_nThe Rally had a pretty good programme of activities going on. On Thursday, we headed off to see El Tiede, the not so extinct volcano that towers above the clouds, 3718m above sea level, making it the highest mountain in Spain. Measured from its base on the ocean floor it is 7500m, making it the 3rd largest volcano in the world after a couple in Hawaii. We didn’t take the cable car right to the top but instead walked around the surrounding lunar like landscape, which made for some great photos.
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14517515_10206652529104808_5565524966829450585_nBack  from the tour, we took a break before hopping on the Tram with Kim, Simoon and Chrispy to La Languna, 1000m up behind Santa Cruz. La Laguna is a beautiful old town, having been declared a World Heritage Site in 1999. Theres some great walking streets with lots of old villas and houses. 14502866_10206652531024856_8315948856831832848_nLa Laguna has often been called the “Florence of the Canary Islands”, because of its large number of churches and convents, as well as its old town and historic buildings. After confirming this title by walking around, we suddenly got hungry and headed off to find some food. We first tried out one of those restaurants with hams hanging from every available ceiling space, before Anya messaged and said to check out Doctor Olivera (La Laguna is where Anya lives and studies). So off we went and had some great Tapas and great Tempranillo.
Next day was a boat job day before we headed up to the yacht club for our Welcome Party. It started off pretty formally with each yacht receiving a plaque before we got fed and watered with a great spread. As Jimmy said, it’s very rare to see food left over at a yachties function but that is what happened….there was just so much good food.
Then it was back to La Mischief for drinks and dancing. I remember thinking about 12.30am that I needed to go to bed as we were getting up at 5am to watch the AFL Grand Final. Phil and Chrispy skipped the going to bed part completely and managed to create some havoc around town in the wee small hours.
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Simon and I joined them at the anointed hour and headed off to the local library of all places. Chrispy had sussed it out earlier and we sat outside, signed up for WatchAFL and settled in to watch a great game. It was okay for a while until the library started to stir with people around 7am. Phil was being “Particularly Loud Phil” so security arrived and told us to stop drinking and to be quiet. After all it is a library! Phil was having trouble locating his volume button despite Simon and I continuing to suggest he hit the mute button. Anyway somehow we managed to nearly see the end of the game before we hd to move around the corner to watch the end of an epic match. Go the Doggies.
14502797_10206694528194759_541880669100974758_n Back at the boat, we met a well rested Dee and headed off with Anya in her car to see her take on her island. It turned out to be a brilliant day, visiting beautiful see side towns, great beaches with great beach bars, old towns up in the hills and Playa de Americas, which is a famous seaside resort on steroids, albeit a little too full of package holiday tourists for my liking.
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14516327_10206671437137497_3895972398064570183_nWe ended the day in Peurto Cruz, which was a gem of a place. Lovely seaside town, with a water park out the front, nice little walking streets full of hundreds of restaurants, with plenty of music and colour. We ate some beautiful tapas at a great outdoor restaurant and wandered the streets afterwards. Anya needed to get home for dinner at 10ish so we drove the half an hour back to Santa Cruz and said our thankyou’s. I slept very well that night!
 
Sunday saw us rent our own car and head to the North of the Island. Several people, including Anya, had recommended this part of Tenerife to us and it turned out to be a good recommendation. We drove up some winding roads into the mountains and down the other side to some beautiful beaches. We stopped at Benijo to eat Tapas on a cliff top overlooking one of these beaches before heading back into the mountains to drive through dense rain forest – quite a spectacular drive. We ended up on the NW coast and had a swim in one of the pools next to the natural rock pools, before finally ending up once more in Peurto Cruz for a great wander around and some nice seafood.
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Monday was shopping. Tenerife was the last decent shopping before Barbados in 2 months time, so we attempted to clean out both Carrefour’s and Lidl’s. We did a pretty good job of buying for 5 people across the Atlantic as well as our time to Cape Verdes and in Cape Verdes. We did an even better job of storing it all on the boat. We also went printer ink shopping as the Ink Cartridge we bought in Gran Canaria didn’t work in the printer we bought in Turkey. And now we know there is nothing we can do about it unless we get one from Turkey. So reluctantly we bought a new printer. Nothing else we could do.
That night we had some drinks in Maisee, one of the yachts who started the rally by sailing under the Tower Bridge in London – cool. Then it was off to bed for an early start to La Gomera at 6am in the morning.

Las Palmas to a T

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We got our spot and picked up our laid lines between Takamoana and Maryna 2 right in the middle of the T on T jetty. It was good to have all the rally boats on the one jetty.

First on the Agenda was the second Autopilot and Rolnautic were soon on the boat mapping things out. With that in play we checked out the marina stores and started on completing our boat shopping list. Given the ARC starts from this marina, the chanderlies were well stocked and we managed to find most things. The marina is huge and it needs to be as there are 300 boats booked on the ARC this year, with another 200 or so following in their footsteps soon afterwards.

I’m so glad we are in this rally and not the ARC. The B50 rally is much more personable and undoubtedly a lot less officious. We are getting around and meeting everyone and really enjoying our first rally experience. And best of all we get to see all the different Canary Islands as part of the rally, rather than just Gran Canaria.

Despite being a little tired for an overnighter, we managed to head into town and find Vodaphone and a Nespresso milk frother to replace our failed unit. Finally a win on the cappuccino front. Then we found the beautiful boardwalk across the narrow peninsular and had a seafood dinner overlooking a surf beach.
Next day (Friday) it was back onto the Autopilot install. It took pretty much the whole day, with a manual switch that goes between the old L&S autopilot in the port engine room and the new Raymarine autopilot in the starboard engine room. Total redundancy with the flick of a switch. No more hand steering for us!

Saturday was our lets play a tourist day. We picked up our hire car from Dollar ‘Rent a Gutless Wonder”, whilst most of the other rallyers took an organized bus tour. We went to the North coast to start with – a specular drive, before finishing up at Arucas with its great lookout on top of a disused volcano and a cute old town with a mini version of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia neo-gothic church.


Then we took the freeway to the south coast for a lesson in how not to do tourism with wall to wall hotels and villas. We gave up getting to the beach and the sand dunes due to a lack of parking and instead headed for the hills. 

The interior of Gran Canaria is simply spectacular. We kept pulling over to photograph the views before heading into a quaint little town for lunch on a patio with a superb view down the gorge behind. With Rabbit, Goat and Tapas washed down by beer and wine in our overly full stomachs, we drove upwards and upwards to the highest point in Gran Canaria, where we parked and hiked up to Roque Nublo (1800m above sea level), a very, very impressive monolith, jutting up 80m out of the surrounding volcanic landscape. It took us about an hour up and back, with quite a bit of loitering taking in the view and taking photos but it was undoubtedly the highlight of the island. Up the top, you could look across and see the top of Tenerife, floating on top of a bank of clouds. Surreal and impressive.

We continued our gorgeous windy mountain drive towards Tejeda, stopping occasionally to get yet another view of Roque Nublo. We passed a whole heap of rally cars who were transiting between sections of their rally race but who seemed to think they owned the whole road. Tejeda was yet another cute mountain town but it was getting late so we only stopped for photos before heading back to the old town in Las Palmas.

We got to the old town just after 7 and had a nice wander around the old streets. It was a little early and there weren’t many people around but we still managed to bump into Ken and Jenny from S/V Lady Rebel to share some wine and tapas at a local establishment. It was interesting to see a whole wedding party in their finest walk over to the outside TV screen after the local Canaries football team scored a goal against Barcelona. And then it was time to return the car as we had an 8am start the next morning.

The sail across to Tenerife was in three parts. Leaving Las Palmas, we had to beat our way north through a large swell before turning the corner and heading straight to Santa Cruz on a nice beam reach. Well, it would have been nice if the wind hadn’t died off at the top of Gran Canaria. But once we entered the channel between the islands we took off in 15-20kts of wind doing 7-8kts of boat speed.

Tenerife Traffic Control had kittens when he saw 30 yachts crossing his traffic separation zone and called up to find out what was going on so he could put out a navigation warning. Geoff took the call and carefully spelt out Barbados 50 to our man. Its always interesting being in a rally.

With a fast passage over, we entered Santa Cruz harbour and motored up to the end where the marina was located, pulling in stern to with all the other rally boats. We soon had the United Nations onboard enjoying a few drinks and discussing what a great sail we had across. Rob from BnG, whose a delivery skipper with a very impressive 200T certification was as always handing out invaluable advice in amongst all the banter. We are turning into total rally fans. Hope we can handle the pace over the next couple of months.