We are Off on the ARC

Wind Belle will be on the ARC for the next 18 to 20 days. Track us on

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Gib to Canaries

We left Gib in a good 15-20 knots with a tide going 1-2 knots under us in the right way. After a summer of no current it was funny to be back in the tidal area. Jim Sophie's dad was on board to help with the 700 nautical mile trip, which we estimated would take us 5 days ( the same time Jim had taken in his Swan 42 some 10 earlier.) It turned out that we had good winds for the first three days.
I had flue, Sophie looked after the children and Jim made himself very useful. Jim and I did the watches at night, but Sophie would pop her head every now and then to tell us we had too much sail up or that we were going too fast. One of the things we found was that the boat makes allot of noise when waves hit the middle of it underneath. It sounds a bit like a car back firing, but you only hear it if you are inside, outside, you just enjoy the sail.
Any way for the first ten hours we averaged about 9 knots (much to Sophie chagrin) later we slowed down a bit. The girls were great, doing their school lessons and playing the whole time, without a hint of sea sickness. For you interest we also sailed the whole leg with a vase of lilies on the saloon table, which just show how little we healed.
On our trip we crossed with a french Catamaran, it then disappeared off on the opposite gybe into the distance. About 36 hours later we crossed with the same cat, and even had to alter course so we didn't hit them. Amazing after after sailing that far, to be going exactly the same speed.
On the last day we ran out of wind, so we put the engine on to get us into the port. We arrived in 4 days and 6 hours which was a day fast than Jim's previous effort. ( I think that being an old stalwart of the royal cruising club he had always previously regarded Catamarans as floating caravans, but even he was a little bit impressed.) When you get within sight of land at Las Palmas Grand Canaries, you find that the marina is in a huge port with an oil rig moored at the entrance, then you see a very busy container terminal, finally you see in the corner of the port a tiny looking marina, which is actually quite big. Behind the marina is a main road dual carriageway, and to the left is a little man made beach, however it doesn't look like the place to take the family and kids for four weeks.
But apparently a bit like a strip show, the place slowly reveal her charms. First and foremost these are the people who are moored next to you. Having sailed around the med with lots of people on holiday we are now with people who are doing longer trips and who have the same goals. Secondly they are all very different, different ages , nationalities, boats, and goals.
The girls are a great way to make friends when not screaming at each other, so on Halloween night they dressed up: Tallulah as a Water witch, Imy as a pirate, and Sienna as a flying fish. (sea photo).
They went along the dock and nearly every boat had prepared a huge amount of treats and the girls used their water pistols to enforce the odd trick.
Being tucked up in a marina with shore power and water is a luxury after our summer of almost non stop anchoring, Finally you can go to sleep without worrying about the weather tomorrow or the ability of the generator to be able to power the water maker etc. Sophie has been able to run the washing machine non stop so our boat generally looks like it is covered in bunting.
In addition we have the use of the sailing club in the marina for 20 euros a week, and it has a huge pool, good bar snacks and a wifi area. The girls have been in the pool every day. During this time Sienna has been growing in her confidence to swim and has managed to swim the length of the pool (20 m plus) by herself without arm bands. Its now her party trick and she shows anybody who will watch her, and quite few people watch her every time she goes near the edge in case she sinks.
We are slowly getting ready for the crossing doing odd jobs, and getting things like the life raft serviced. This is a really painful cost as you hope that you will never use the bloody thing, but if you need it you want it to work. So hopefully a lot of money for nothing! We also had the B&G instrument man aboard as we had problem with our depth reading. In Palma a very expensive technician came on board for 4 hrs and couldn't get it going, here the man was on board for 3 minutes when he realised the issue and fixed it, Much to my embarrassment well actually Sophie's as she had been fiddling with it and set our keel depth to 400 meters, which explained why we always got a zero reading except when out in the deepest ocean.