Been anchored at Playa Francesca since Sunday, a lovely place but we were subject to rather strong winds that made the anchorage rather uncomfortable to say the least,and landing impossible. We had to run anchor watches on three of the nights that we were there. At times it was a trifle marginal to say the least. Boats were bouncing around with gusto, but thankfully, despite the strongish wind, no swell or waves of any significance got into the anchorage. It was a beautiful location and when the wind did ease, as it did most days for a few hours, the swimming and snorkelling was first class. Wonderfully clear warm blue water, with a reef close by that was teeming with fish of many shapes and colours.

We ran out of water though, which made life a trifle difficult, but our friends Stephan and Tanya gave us water from their boat's water maker so we survived. Also had a slight problem with lack of electricity on board, mainly due I suspect to letting the battery charge go down so far as we were sailing for 5 days without using the engine at all. Got that rectified yesterday and now all systems go. Good job the crew on Jigsaw are a hardy bunch or they may have complained!! Good lessons learnt for future long passages though.

I sat up last night as the nearly full moon passed over the anchorage, it lit it up all night long, almost bright enough to read by. Staring sat the moon again, as I do rather frequently, I was impressed, best moon so far, I hope you saw it too!!

Finally got the anchor up at about 08:40 UT, today, Thursday 25th October, it was very very deeply dug into the sand. Now motoring towards Playa Blanca on the South of Lanzarote where we are booked into Marina Rubicon, to clean boat and crew all of whom are a bit grubby, fill up with water and food and get a few jobs done on the boat. Currently in position 29 11'N and 13 34'W, 25C and barometric pressure of 1016, no wind!

Now in Marina Rubicon at Playa Blanca Lanzarote. Lovely location and we will be here for a couple of weeks getting the boat ready for the Atlantic crossing prior to joining up with the ARC in las Palmas on about the 13th November.

Jigsaw.