10/09/2009

Frank and I left Lagos at 6am Tuesday morning, and arrived here in La Corunna this morning at 11am, after three days and nights of sailing, plus five hours for luck! We had the best wind for the first half of the journey, and covered 250 miles under sail, then the engine went on and stayed on for 37 hours. 453 miles in all! We only had one dodgy moment, off Lisbon, when we were surrounded by loud wet and flashing thunderstorms. Frank reefed quickly while I helmed, and all was again under control!

We are taking a couple of days R and R here until John, the third crew member, addives tomorrow night. Then we are probably off early on Sunday morning, weather permitting, for the second hop top Plymouth.

My only comment is that this is a sharp reminder of how much colder the north is than the south, especially when sailing! Full thermals, oilies, fleece and fleece hat! Lovely!

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10/05/2009

For the next couple of weeks I will be crewing aboard Frank Grinnall's boat 'Goldrush', on a voyage towards the UK via La Corunna. Ju is staying in Lagos and looking after Little Else. I'll get back before the end of the month, more traveller's tales then!

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09/29/2009, Gibraltar

Well, we left Mar Menor at 12 noon at the noon opening of the bridge on the canal. Ours was the only boat going out, as the wind, forecast to be 4 to 5 turned out to be force 7, sometimes gusting even more. We motored out, buffeted by the wind, and got the sails up in the lee of the small island nearby. There followed a difficult passage of sailing towards the east to get clear of a marine reserve and the cape south of Mar Menor, and that was a struggle in the teeth of the wind and a growing swell of over 1 and a half metres. Around nine miles of this ensued, during which some of us were seriously considering heading into Cartagena, but then we turned downwind, on genoa alone, and suddenly all was much calmer. The boat was surfing along at a great rate, around 9 knots, directly in the direction we wanted to go.

So we settled into a watch pattern of 3 hours on, 6 off, and enjoyed a really good sail for the first half of the journey, despite pouring rain from astern which kept getting into the saloon!

The wind died off Cabo de Gata, and the rest of the trip was motoring, and we arrived in a relatively quiet Gibraltar around 5am today. We saw dolphins en route, and a lovely tall ship called the Artemis.

Out to dinner tonight to celebrate the end of a great three weeks fun with Keith and Mon, Andy and Dave, then off back to Lagos tomorrow.

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