Fiona has found in the last week that distance makes the heart grow fonder. The hearts of all those she visited in Northumberland were warmed by her surprise lastminute.com visit and Iain’s heart was warmed upon her return to Graciosa. The distance that Fiona put between her and Ruffian has made her appreciate everything that we have in our floating home and with all the crew reunited Ruffian and her crew have once again travelled across a sea and arrived in a new land.

Whilst Fiona was bringing joy to those in Northumberland, braving the cold of England and being shocked at the people who take Thomas Cook package holidays, Iain was left to play alone on the island of Graciosa with no one to talk sense into him or temper his personal goal setting. Fiona took in the heart warming delights of catching up with Family and laughing for hours with Dawn aka Miss Piggy, Beatrice, Moth and Pa, Iain took in the feet warming delights of hiking up hills and completing a circumnavigation of Graciosa by foot, which upon his return to Ruffian left him truly broken and realising his own goals are tempered to reality by Fiona. He looked forward to Fiona returning soon to save him from himself.

After only a short time away Fiona once again braved the budget airlines and made her way safely back to Ruffian. To just show how windy things were, her flight arrived 50 minutes early and the wind ensured that Ruffian would not be going anywhere for at least another day. On the cards instead of sailing a coastal hike to La Cauldra where the Atlantic swell pounds against the shoreline and erupts out of blowholes carved over eons. La Cauldra did not disappoint and we were shown a display by Mother Nature that made us feel truly inconsequential.

We’ve always said that we wouldn’t sail to a schedule however that’s exactly the position we found ourselves in on Graciosa. With Fiona having flown home and our need to be in Tenerife, 150 miles away, to meet up with Iain’s parents later in the week, we found ourselves having to sail to a schedule. We didn’t like the sound of 3 meter waves and 20 knots of wind on the beam, if however it was all too much and not safe, at least we could ‘escape’ to Gran Canaria. We therefore made the decision to go, face the forecast and keep our fears bottled up.

The reality of the sail thankfully didn’t match the forecast. The wind and swell were less and the wonders of the ocean more. Shortly after leaving Graciosa we spotted a turtle (and that’s not a turtle laid by Iain) lazily swimming along the surface and shortly before making it to Tenerife we were joined by dolphins playing on the bow. Spotting a turtle was a real highlight as these creatures left over from the age of dinosaurs are becoming increasingly rare. This is not to say that it was all ‘plain sailing’, there were the usual issues of sleep deprivation and sailing upwind in big waves. In addition to these usual problems, in the middle of the night our power levels fell to a worrying 10.4 volts when we’d only used 25% of our battery reserves. This meant that all our systems, instruments, laptop, and autopilot started to malfunctioning. This was not a good situation and resolved by charging the batteries, but it is still unexplained. Can anybody out there offer any advice?

With landfall finally made on the northern tip of Tenerife we can now get some well deserved sleep and all that lies between us and the joy of seeing Sue & Chris is the small matter of a 55 mile beat to the southern tip. I think that we’ve learnt a lesson here. Don’t sail to schedules as gentlemen don’t sail upwind.

The farms on Graciosa grew the most bizarre produce. Cactus anybody?


The beaches, after a 10k, walk were the best yet. Unfortunately there were only 1 set of footprints as Fiona was in Northumberland.


There were still hills to climb and views to take in.


With Fiona back the hiking continued and we happened across a stone circle made of stone spheres. We’re sure there is something deep and meaningful going on.


The sea decided that it wanted a bit of the coastal path so the coastal walk turned into the coastal climb.


One of the blow holes at La Cauldra lived up to its name.


Walking at night on an island without lights or any roads was somewhat challenging.


Sailing to Tenerife. For the first time in ages we weren’t sailing dead downhill and we’d even have to sail upwind.


Yet more dolphins and we even had a turtle.


The sting in the tail. Upwind in no wind and lots of swell was not swell.


The biscuit concoctions have reached a new high. Nutella sandwiched between Rich tea substitutes. Tremendous.