Having spent Christmas keeping the airlines in business again, we have returned to the Canary Islands & to our floating home. On the 27th November, some local workers bolted a few fingers onto the new dock in the harbour at Isla La Graciosa and we immediately moored Harmonica to one of them (and gave a couple of bottles of beer to the appreciative workers). The next morning, we were off on the morning ferry to Orzola, bus to Arecife, and taxi to Lanzarote Airport in comfortable time for a flight back to the UK.
We had some enjoyable visits with various relatives, and spent Christmas in Calgary with out two sons. It was a "brown Christmas" again with a very thin snow pack in the mountains, but we still managed some good skiing and boarding. There were many friends to catch up with and things to attend to. We also bought all sorts of supplies and needed to leave behind some of about 100 Kg of baggage. Our new orange storm trisail did make it back, and a new "Maxprop" feathering propeller has just arrived here by courier shipment.
We returned via England separately, since Janet's dentist asked her to delay a week before giving her exit permission. This also fitted in well with boat repairs since Dave wanted to spend a week cutting some more damp core form the bottom of the starboard deck, which involved grinding fibreglass inside the cabin. With fine dust everywhere, for that week it was best not to have any more people than necessary on board. Dave's suitcase sat in the cockpit all week without even being unpacked. The deck repairs went quite satisfactorily.
3 or 4 of the boat crews in the tiny port were familiar faces from November, and another 3 or 4 cruising boats had arrived since then. Two of the newcomers had made exciting arrivals by going onto the rocks the week after we had left. A 30ft junk-rigged steel boat had washed onto the rocky entrance to Orzola, and (according to skipper Josh) was probably only saved from sinking by the Arecife fire brigade, which came out to pump thigh-deep water from the cabin at the dock side. 6 weeks later, the hull was welded & floating well, the interior was mostly dried & repaired, but one broken mast still had to be replaced.
The other casualty was the catamaran Gyroll III, which had been caught by a 60 knot gust while changing anchors and had torn the bottom out of its bows on the beach on La Graciosa. In the owner's words it was most of the way up the beach before a bulldozer arrived to pull it the rest of the way out. She is a 60ft ocean-racing catamaran which had first come to grief in Biscay in its first "Rum Race" about 1990. Washed up in Northern Spain, she had sat for 2 sad years before being bought and rebuilt over a further 2 years by the present owners. This couple then spent 5 years criss-crossing the Atlantic & exploring Brazil. Their last North Atlantic crossing took 11 days from West Indies to the Azores (Harmonica spent 29 days at sea for a similar passage). They claim to have once sailed from Spain to the Azores and back for a glass of wine. However, they had finished their fun and were buying back their previous boat (a 40ft steel monihull). The cat was for sale for 1% or 2% of what it had cost originally to build from epoxy resin & carbon fibre. The boat was beautiful and Dave spent a night drooling over the thought of taking Janet "dinghy sailing" around the world. The next day, all was put to rest when he found it was already sold!
Back to Harmonica, apart from chafing a couple of lines, which friends had replaced for us, she was in fine, dry condition. Another week was spent doing more useful jobs, and waiting for NE gales to drop. Then we started early for a trip for Tenerife which we estimated at 36 hours but finished in 27. 140 miles in 24 hours is probably our fastest passage. We were sailing in the trade winds with wind & current behind us, what most sensible cruisers probably plan from the start. 3 days in the city of Santa Cruz. Now, after another boisterous sail, we are in Los Christianos waiting to be lifted out tomorrow to fit our new propeller.
Its good to be back
Dave & Jan