Arrival in Las Palmas (in time for Happy Hour)
11 November 2009 | Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
Jay
In the last few days GHOST has arrived in our final port of call before the start of our big trans-Atlantic crossing. We were awoken at 4am (with some crew members more sprightly than others), with the aim of the day to make Las Palmas before Happy Hour was over. As you can imagine with such a grave and important task to focus on there was much bustling on board to get GHOST ready to slip the lines and head out of the marina before sunrise.
As the day went on the sun came out and motoring gave way to a fantastic downwind sail, surfing down the Atlantic swells. A careful note was taken throughout the day at our progress towards 'beer o'clock' in Las Palmas. This was duly achieved and the crew rushed off the boat, salt and all, for our first taste of the ARC pre-race festivities. We soon learnt that out of the 200 boats set to take part in the crossing, 90 or so still hadn't arrived. Most of these are penned in by high winds in Gibraltar - luckily our previous 4 rough days at sea had ensured we made it before these hit. Since then the crew have been busy attending our first ARC lectures (we are obviously a scholarly bunch). These have ranged from tips on provisioning to expected weather conditions. This has been topped off with some evening runs, more sundowner beers and constant attempts to keep the 'to do' list of small jobs under control as we dip in to the 10 day countdown to the start.
The biggest news has been GHOST reaching its full crew compliment of 6 with Stefano arriving from Italy. He's spent the last 3 years working as a surgeon in California and comes laden with medical kit, fantastic turns of Italian phrase and enthusiasm for the trip. It was settling to hear of his hopes that his beer will 'always be full'!
So what of the individual peculiarities of team GHOST? Well we have discovered one has a serious penchant for hoovering, one a profound fear of crumpets, another a slight issue with keeping food (or anything) on a plate, one is an incredible Chef, one can read a book in less than a blink of an eye and another has an ability to perform complex surgical procedures (ok this skill may be the winner- just). More on all of these in future blogs I am sure.
There is no doubt there's a fantastic range of personalities on board, and with 900 miles now under our belts we're more and more excited by the prospect of crossing the start line and setting a course for St. Lucia....