The Canaries
07 October 2015
So after having a fabulous time at Villa Montana with family and friends for the 30th, we made our way to Gibraltar with Claire and Shane before waving farewell to Claire and continuing to the Canary Islands with Shane.
We waved off Shane in Arrecife after a night at anchor off the island of Graciosa and a couple nights in Marina Lanzarote, seeing Paul of Pisces again.
Just the two of us again as we let go the lines at Marina Lanzarote, destination Gran Canaria, 110 nautical miles away. We squeeze between the dock and the incoming cruise ship, Anthem of the Seas, on the way out and the rolling begins as the depth drops off from 10 metres to 2000 metres in the space of a mile.
We watch Shane's Ryanair flight take off as we pass by Lanzarote with Fuertaventura in the distance and it's cheese toasties and salad for lunch.
Our first night sail together for a while, taking turns on watch every time the other person gets tired. We get a good breeze and sail the whole journey under Genoa alone. Although we get overtaken by a yacht in the middle of the night, who comes a little too close for comfort, followed by the bright lights of Anthem of the Seas, lit up like a Christmas tree.
We make it to Las Palmas by 11am the next day, the first ever time we've arrived somewhere in the morning. After checking in and receiving our ARC pack from reception we get helped onto our berth with a gentle nudge from the marina rib and we've backed into our first berth. A warm welcome with beers from Paul, Jayne and Lily of Delphinus, who have baked chocolate brownies, all before midday.
It's sweltering out here and we enjoy a couple nights on the pontoon before saying goodbye to Delphinus again. The boat is lifted into the boat yard for an inspection of the test antifoul from International paint, a a few jobs doing as we fly back to Ireland and UK.
We take a nice holiday break from the boat, sleeping in actual beds that don't move, watching TV, having showers and not sweating immediately afterwards, having dinner cooked for us so we're almost dreading coming back to the work and cleaning waiting for us in the heat. A nice trip back to see the Irish relatives and then the Welsh relations and then watching the Wales v Fiji game at the Millennium Stadium.
We consider extending our flights and staying on a couple days to see a bit of London when the decision is taken out of our hands when we get stuck in traffic (haven't had this for a while) due to a jack knifed lorry and we miss our flight. A couple of nights in the old house in Brixton courtesy of the HOD, catching up with people and watching more rugby. Wouldn't have realised that I had a tax refund waiting for me if we hadn't have missed our flights so it all turned out for the better.
Back in Las Palmas, a couple days late, and they still haven't finished the jobs on the boat as Juan explains with his typical Spanish shrugging of the shoulders, so it's another couple nights in an apartment.