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News and pictures from each leg of the trip will be added so that the latest is at the top. The Blue Water Rally, give an update on where the rally is, however the information is pretty limited (www.yachtrallies.co.uk). The links to our archived blog are give at the bottom of this page.

February 11, 2010

After spending a night at our deserted island we were joined by Bali Blue and next morning we were invited to join them eat some Mahi Mahi for lunch, they had caucht the fish the previous day, it was delicious and Carol amasingly still had some salad to go with the fish. In the afternoon we both sailed across to an island and reef called Caobos Cay. Bali Blue joined us for a couple of drams in the evening.

Next day we set off for Chichimie Cay and we caught a large Yellow Fin Tuna on the way. We were sailing along at 6.5 - 7 knots at the time and had to quickly slow the boat down. We invited Bill & Sue from Camomile to join us for dinner and they helped us fillet the Tuna. We got nine large steaks from the fish so it did us and Camomile for 2 days. It is really great to feast off fish we have caught and hopefully we will repeat this fairly often.

The next day we returned to Porvinir to check out with immigration and we also visited a couple of small islands occupied by Kuna Indians. We were shown round one of the islands by a guide who showed us his house and told us a lot about how they live. They all seemed to be very contented to live their pretty basic and very traditional lives, but you have to have doubts about how long they can maintain their lifestyle.

On Friday 5th Feb, we set off for Portobello (58 miles) and anchored opposite the town. On Saturday we went ashore for a BWR briefing and a lunch. This was the first time we met with some of the boats joing the rally in Panama, our numbers have now swelled to 30 boats. Portobello itself is pretty run down, but there are lots of really nice properties and restuarants outside town and we really enjoyed it despite the poor reputation it has.

On Sunday we had to get down to Shelter Bay Marina by lunch time to get the boat measured and inspected for transitting the Panama Canal. There are lots of regulations and formalities but some of the officials are fairly layed back and friendly and we had no problems.

The canal crossing is a real logistics nightmare for the BWR organisers. Each boat has to have a skipper and four crew to act as line handlers. We all have to have 4 125ft ropes to allow for the boat going through on it's own and to have the ropes reach both sides of the canal. Each boat also has to have a Canal Advisor on board. The BWR organisers have to schedule crew from other boats to join the boats scheduled for each day and as the transit takes 2 days it is a real problem. It also means each boat has to be able to feed 5 crew plus the advisor and to sleep all 5 crew.

We went through on Monday/Tuesday and had a really good trip. Going through the lock we were rafted up to Mercury Rising and Fai Tira. We were in the locks with a 600ft cargo vessel, which is relatively modest by the standards of the Panama Canal, they can handle up to 960ft x 103ft Panamax carriers. There is a third set of locks being built at present, due to open in 2014, which will handle even larger vessels. We went through the 2 upward locks on Monday afternoon and then tied up to a very large buoy for the night. There was a bit of a party which seemed to congregate on Enchantress, but it really wasn't our fault. On Tuesday we motored 30 miles through the rain forrest to get to the downward locks and got through into the Pacific by early afternoon. We anchored in a bay looking across a causeway at the amazing sight of Panama City. It is a skyline of very tall skyscrapers. Our only problem happened at the first lock when the Panama Canal guys threw leading lines on to the boat, these are thin lines with a 'monkey fist' at the end which we had to attach our large 125ft lines to. The 'monkey fist' went straight through our front doghouse window. THis window had been replaced at some time and clearly wasn't toughened glass.

Poor Susan had to get up early next morning to be driven back to Shelter Bay to help another boat do the transit. I have had to stay with the baot and ensure it is safe. I do have a list of jobs to do, including trying to get the front doghouse window repaired.

It is difficult to believe that we are now in the Pacific and we are really looking forward to this next stage of our adventure.

p.s. there are likely to be some difficulty and delay in adding pictures as my main laptop has developed a power problem.

January 31, 2010

Well what a trip. We didn't say beforehand but this was one of the legs we were most nervous about. The leg from Bonaire north of Venezuela to San Blas in Panama is known with 2 nicknames - The Northern Cape Horn and the Animal. The issue is partly the way the Columbian coast line affects the weather system and partly because there is an eastern current running close to shore in the opposite direction from the trade winds, which can build up enormous seas.

We, by a combination of good judgment and luck managed to miss nearly all the horrendous conditions some of our BWR friends experienced. We decided to leave Bonaire on the Sunday, along with 3 other boats because the weather window looked right to us and because we were ready to leave. Other boats were delayed because they had decided to go to the Tobago Cays prior to Bonaire or wanted to spend longer diving in Bonaire, but we decided we preferred to have more contingency. We also decided to set a course, which kept us well off the Columbian coast (>120 miles) and we stuck to this course even though it added at least 100 miles to the journey compared to a direct course. All of this was consistent with the advise we had.

A lot of the other boats experienced 40+ and even 50+ winds and 20-30 ft waves, either because they didn't sufficiently take note of the advice or they were unlucky on the timing of their journey. A number of the boats suffered 'knock downs' where the boats were knocked horizontal and water was sweeping into the cockpits, and one boat had 3 knock downs.

We had a very spirited sail doing over 160 miles each day, although it was pretty tough sleeping down below at times due to the violence of the waves hitting the boat. At no time did we feel in danger, and we were amazed at hearing on the SSB radio the experience other people were having. We had to slow down on the 4rth day because we were arriving in the dark and the reef strewn San Blas islands is not the place to go into in the dark. A few of our friends have already had really bad experiences with landing on reefs and we did not want to join the reefers club. We eventually hove to outside the San Blas Islands for 9 hours until daylight and went in to Porvenir on Friday morning. We started to feel almost guilty about our relatively pleasant trip and this has increased as more boats have arrived with scary stories.

One of the most amazing story is not really related to the weather or wave conditions. On Miss Tippy, a beautiful Oyster 56 boat the skipper, Brian was hit on the head when his spinnaker pole parted from the mast and fell down on top of him while he was on deck. He was knocked unconscious and his wife and 3 young children managed to drag him back into the cockpit and divert to Porto Rico and get him to hospital. Brian had a large gash in his skull but he has recovered and they amazingly managed to get to San Blas Islands yesterday morning to rejoin the rally. When they arrived lots of us, ok including me, had a tear or two in our eyes, to see them rejoin our BWR family. Last night all the BWR boats in Porvenir (12 boats) went together on shore for dinner and drinks and over half of the then came back to Enchantress 'for a wee dram'. It was a really good, but a bit of an emotional night. The meal was pretty basic, but it only cost $5 per head!!!

Porvenir is an amazing island, it is only about 1/3rd of a mile long, but it has a runway with daily flights, a hotel and 2 restaurants, although only one seemed to be open at a time. It all dates back to the 2nd world war and the US airforce base that was here then.

We have now moved on to other San Blas islands and are currently anchored off a small, uninhabitated island, with palm trees and a couple of reefs to snorkel over. Susan says I will never be Jacque Cousteau, but even I really enjoyed snorkeling over the reef and seeing the vibrant colours of the fish and the coral and rocks.

With the difficult leg to San Blas islands now behind us we are really looking forward to spending a few days here and then getting to Panama and on to the Pacific. Both the boat and us are in really good shape ( if you ignore my beer belly ) to tackle the rest of the adventure.

 

January 26, 2010

We left Bonaire at 9.15 on Sunday morning and headed Northwest. The advice for the leg to the San Blas Islands in Panama is to head up to the 4000 meter depth line and then follow this until you pass Venezuela and Columbia and then head down to San Blas. Off the Columbia coast you can frequently get very large and steep seas. We are following this advice and are now (Tuesday evening) over half way and almost at the point for heading Southwest to San Blas.

We have had some really exciting sailing with strong winds (25-30 knots) and pretty large seas (walls of water passing under the boat). We did 150 miles in the first day and 175 miles the second day - a new record for us! Oscar (the WindPilot) has done all the steering, but it needs a little help when we are hit by heavy waves coming from the side. We have been soaked a few time with water coming into the cockpit, once it went right over the cockpit hood/dog house - but we quickly dry off in the sun! The wind has been a bit less today so we won't set another record today.

Susan has been wearing the electronic sea sickness watch that Scott & Kathy brought out and it has worked really well, although she does have an allergic reaction to wearing the watch.

We have had a couple of problems so far. I noticed that the spinnaker pole connector to the mast was coming apart. We had to quickly reef in the sail and lower the pole. It turned out to be a missing split pin so was easily fixed, but could have been nasty. We also had a problem with the fresh water supply, there was no water coming out of the taps, either we had a blockage or we had lost 2 tanks of water. The seas were too rough yesterday to check the system so I ran the watermaker and filled up 6 five litre bottles with fresh water for use with washing etc. When I checked the system today I found that one of the fresh water valves was blocked. It was partly a small bit of plastic and partly a manufacturing fault with one of the hose tails on the valve. I managed to fix the problem so we have running water again.

January 21, 2010

We had a really good sail down to Rodney Bay in St Lucia and anchored out in the bay outside the marina. It was really nice to revisit Rodney Bay and we had the amazing experience of bumping into John Lawrence, who sailed with us on Pinball when we travelled back across the Atlantic in 2004. John has been working and located in places as varied as South America to Spain and was about to move to Australia, but just happened to be in the Caribbean with his boat and was in St Lucia for 2-3 days. We stayed in Rodney bay for a couple of days, celebrated Pete's birthday on Fia Tira, and then sailed down to Vieux Fort in the very south of St Lucia as a stopping off point on the way to Bequia. It was quite a tough sail as we were beating to windward but we got there at mid afternoon and anchored in the bay. We expected the anchorage to be very quiet but it filled up as the day went on and was quite busy by the end. We even had another Scottish boat come in with a couple from Arbroath. They had been in the Caribbean for 18 months.

By starting from Vieux Fort we had a really good sail down to Bequia and did the 49 miles in 7.5 hours. We had a bit of a reunion in Bequia as we joined up with a couple of boats in the anchorage at Admiralty Bay, we hadn't seen for a while as well as most of the boat we had been travelling down the Caribbean with. Eight of us went out together and had some really nice Red Snapper. We really liked Bequia and the main town of Portsmouth, which had some really quaint buildings and walkways. We got the boat ready for the next leg which was Bequia to Bonaire, a small Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela.  (Bequia Pictures)

Most of the BWR boats were going South to visit Tobago Cays to do some diving, which the area is famous for, but we and 2 other boats decided we wanted to head straight for Bonaire and have a bit more contingency in our time to get to Panama. We left Bequia about 10.0am on Sunday 17th and set off on our 420 mile trip across the Caribbean Sea. Straight away we had really good sailing with the wind almost directly behind us. We had put up our twin headsail rig, with the two poles, before we left the anchorage so just had to unfurl our headsails and we were set. We started using our WindPilot about 10.30 and it worked extremely well. This was the first time we had it working on our trip as it was jamming when we tried it in the Atlantic and I serviced it in Antigua. The WindPilot (Oscar) did the steering all the way to Bonaire and coped with pretty fresh winds and sometimes quite big seas, this gives us considerable confidence in our ability to do the rest of the trip 2 handed. We had a great trip to Bonaire and achieved a run of 162 miles in the second day which is near our record so far. We had to slow down a bit on the Tuesday night so that we wouldn't arrive in the dark. With our twin headsails we sail at night with our steaming light on so that we can see that the sails are filling correctly and it is a very surreal feeling at times sailing along silently with the Windpilot steering and the sails high lighted against the sky filled with thousand of stars, it can be very beautiful.  (Caribbean Sea Pictures)  We decided to go into the Bonaire marina rather than pick up a mooring outside as it was still quite windy and the moorings could be a bit uncomfortable. You are not allowed to anchor in Bonaire as they was to fully protect the coral. We are now doing some more jobs in the boat and getting it ready for the next stage which is ~ 750 miles across the Caribbean Sea to the San Blas islands off the coast of Panama. We will leave on Sunday and expect the trip to take 5-6 days.  (Bonaire Pictures)

January 10, 2010

We changed our minds about our next stop and decided to join a number of other boats in Prince Ruperts Bay in Dominica. We had a really good sail although we were close hauled all the way. The initially found it difficult to make our course but then the wind direction changed as we got into the acceleration zone at the top of Dominica and we manage to sail almost right into the anchorage. We arrived at 1230 and had just anchored when Pete from Fai Tira contacted us to see if we wanted to go on a tour to a waterfall in the mountains at 1330. We of course said yes and had a wonderful afternoon initially on a minibus tour then a 3 mile hike through the rain forest to a waterfall, where we all got in the 'refreshing' pool at the bottom of the waterfall and some of the guys were brave enough to jump in from about 20' up. We then went to a variety of other locations and everyone (Jackamy, Blue Magic, Lucy Alice, Fai Tira and ourselves) all thought that Dominica was a great place to visit. The next morning our boat boy, Albert took us and Phillis from Briet on the Indian River trip. It was a very different trip from the waterfall and much more of a sedate look at the large variety of trees and foliage along the river, but was very interesting and we were shown where some of the scenes from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 2 were filmed. In the afternoon we set sail for Roseau at the south of Dominica and picked up a mooring buoy along with 4 other BWR boats. We all took a water taxi then taxi journey into Roseau which is the capital of Dominica. We went to a really good fruit and veg market, which seemed to be open all night on a Friday and restocked on a number of essentials. We then went for dinner and had a pretty good meal of Mahi Mahi with West Indian sauce!!. (Dominica Pictures)

On Saturday 9th we had a great sail down to Fort de France in Martinique, for most of the 48 miles we were sailing at between 6.5 and 7.6 knots. It was quite boisterous, but exciting sailing with lots of warm water coming over the deck, the sails and us. We anchored close to Fort Louis in Fort de France along with Lucy Alice and Briet, unfortunately Briet had got their propeller caught on a lobster pot ropes, which had rapped round their shaft. They managed to motor into the anchorage, but Duco then had to spend an hour in the water trying to free up his propeller. He didn't manage to fully clear the problem so on Sunday we contacted Blue Magic and Jackamy, who have diving gear on board to see if they could come and help. They are clearing the problem as I write this blog. We are hoping for a quiet night tonight after helping Lucy Alice test out their rum punch skills yesterday, but with 6 BWR boats in the anchorage it is probably unlikely. We all plan to sail down to Rodney Bay on St Lucia tomorrow and help Pete from Fai Tira celebrate his birthday. It is just like having a very large family.

January 06, 2010

We left Antigua on the 3rd and motorsailed down to Deshaies on Guadaloupe. We anchored beside Blue Magic and Jackamy who had sailed down there on the 2nd. After a couple of beers on Blue Magic we desided to join Blue Magic and Jackamy in travelling down to the Saints islands on the 4rth. We had good winds down the side of Guadaloupe but it was right on our nose, so we had to motorsail most of the way to get into the anchorage before dark. We anchored in the main bay of the biggest island, the Bourg des Saints. It is a very French and very pretty island and we had an energetic walk up to the fort which is also a museum and has lots of interesting background and artefacts about this historic region from the French and British naval points of view. It is quite a contrast to the likes of Antigua where the history has been allowed to fall into decay. We had a nice meal ashore last night, but I found out that the main course of the meal I had was octupus - at least we didn't confirm this until after the meal, I was to frightened to ask during the meal.

We will set sail from the Saints tomorrow and plan to sail overnight to Martinique.  (Guadaloupe & the Saints Pictures)

 

January 02, 2010

We arrived off Jolly Harbour in Antigua at 2.0am and had to delay our entry a bit as we had a large squall just as we were approaching. The whole sky turned very dark, we had torrential rain and the visibility was down to less than 100 yards. Once the squall passed we slowly and carefully followed the long channel into Jolly Harbour, it was made more confusing as there were lots of boats anchored in the bay, some of them actually in the channel and obscuring the channel marker buoys. We got in safely and tied up to the Customs and Imigration pontoon. We then had a couple of bottles of champagne and a wee dram before conking out. We woke up at about 10.0am, by which time Camomile had also come in, and by the time we had gone through the admin of Port Authority, Customs and Immigration, Fai Tira had also arrived. Five of the bigger boats had arrived before us so we had a pretty good welcome when we berthed in the marina.

We had a bit of a party on our first night, but still managed to get up at 8.0 am and go for a swim off the beach just round from the marina - just wonderful and just the way to waken up in the morning. We had BWR brunch at one of the restaurants and this was one of several BWR events.

On the 9th we had a guided tour of the island laid on by the tourist board, it was a real contrast to the tours we had in Lanzrote, it was typical caribbean - very laid back and a bit chaotic. The 9th was a public holiday so most of the capital, St Johns, was closed however we did get a feel for the island.

Doug left us on the 12th and on Monday 13th we left Jolly Harbour and headed down to Freeman's Bay outside English Harbour. This was a very welcome change as we anchored in the bay, right off the beach. It meant that Susan could swim ashore (much too far for me) and we could complete some of our outstanding jobs, such as get the watermaker working. The problem turned out to be my wiring - I know it is difficult to believe.

We headed back to Jolly Harbour on the 18th to welcome Scott & Kathy who were flying in on the 19th. They had a very trying journey due o a 4-5 hour delay, but we managed a wee celebration when they arrived and still got up at 8.0am next morning for a swim. On the 21st we headed out to anchor in the bay outside Jolly Harbour and had a celebration with Paul and Derry from Jackamy, they had just relaunched their boat after repairs, following a little incident with a reef, and it was also my birthday.

We went back down to Freeman's Bay on the 22nd and tied up at Nelson's Dockyard on the 23rd. It was a bit fraught as they have a fairly unique way of mooring and the marina people changed their minds on what we needed to do when we arrived there. We did however get in without incident. On the evening of the 23rd we had a very pleasant surprise when several of the boats turned up at our boat to do a few xmas carols and we followed them along the harbour to other boats as they were so good.

We booked the whole of a restaurant for our BWR dinner on Xmas eve and there were 66 of us partying and dancing in to the night. At lunch time on Xmas day there was a Champagne do in Nelson's Dockyard, with a steel band and a reggie band. People came from all over for the event and many of the dressed up in a great variety of Xmas outfits. After a few drinks many of the BWR crews headed over in our dinghies to a quiet beach and had a barbeque - it was a great way to spend Xmas.

On Sunday 27th we went with Scott & Kathy and a number of other crews to Shirley Heights, which is a great place to watch the sun set and there is a barbeque and an excellent steel band followed by a Reggie band. Before we new it it was 'Old Year' as they call Hogmanay here and we booked up they same restaurant, although there were only 27 of us this time. After dinner there was a great fireworks display in the harbour and another Reggie, which played through to about 2.0am.

It is now the 2nd, Scott & Kathy have left with their heavy jumpers at the ready and we have moved out to anchor in Freeman's Bay, ready to set off tomorrow for Guadaloupe and the next phase of our adventure.(Antigua Pictures)

November 30, 2009

We now have less than 750 miles to go and have an eta of either late Friday or early Saturday. The forecast is for steady reasonable winds for the next few days, so hopefully we can make good progress.

We have had an interesting few days with forecasts of severe squalls with high winds, torrential rain and thunder and lightening. On Thursday night we had lost of thunder and lightening about us with some right overhead and part of a squall. The heavens opened and we had winds of 32/33 knots and gusts of up to 40 knots. Susan was on shift and she invited me to join her!!. I however missed the worst of it by the time I got dressed. We shut off most of our electronics including the VHF and AIS systems to try to protect them in case of a strike and we put on the engine as once a diesel engine is started it doesn't need electricity to continue running. We continued to have some electrical storms on Friday and last night but nothing as severe as Thursday. Most of the Blue Water Rally boats had similar experiences with some having much higher winds than we had, but all have come through relatively unscathed.

During the day we have had light winds and have been flying our cruising chute to help us keep up a reasonable speed. It is quite unreal to have a night of storms and then in the morning to have blue skies and light winds, but it certainly cheers you up.

We had our regular quiz night on Friday, but lost our on a tie-break. Maybe next week if we are still at sea. 

We will have a little celebration on Tuesday night as we will have less than 500 miles to go and we will start to anticipate the finishing line.(Atlantic Pictures)

 

November 24, 2009

 We have just had our first glass of wine at sea to celebrate passing the halfway point and have about 1450 miles to go.

We have had very good sailing for the past 3 days and achieved 164 miles in a 24 hour period. The winds are slightly less now but we are still sailing along at about 6 knots and it looks like this will continues for the next 2-3 days. We have had our twin headsail arrangement up now for 3 and a half days and haven't needed to make any sail change as it works so well. We have been using our autopilot to do most of the steering for the past couple of days as there appears to be a slight problem with the wind vane steering. This is not a problem for us as we just have to run the generator 3 times a day to recharge the batteries and we have plenty of diesel.

The shift arrangement of 3 hour on and 6 hours off is working very well and we get plenty of rest -  Doug however could sleep for Scotland as he manages to conk out whenever he is off shift.

We started to do some fishing today as we have now consumed all the vacuum packed meat, however we didn't catch anything. Doug tried to use one of the flying fish we collect on deck as bait but obviously a dead, dried up fish is not attractive to other fish.

We haven't seen any other yachts on the trip although we must have been within about 10-12 miles of one or two. With the waves we have had the horizon must be really quite small, maybe about 6 miles. We have only seen a couple of cargo vessels in the past week so it is easy to imagine that we are the only ones out here.

It has been a bit cloudy for the past 2 days although it is still very warm. It is really nice having dinner in the cockpit in shorts and teeshirts.

November 22, 2009

We have now done over 1000 miles and are fully down into the trade wind area. We have had strong trade winds for the past 2 days (20-25 knots with gust into the 30+ knots) and have had large seas of up to 5 meters and breakers coming across from the side, so it has been a bit uncomfortable at times, but no one said it would all be easy. We are making good progress, frequently traveling at over 7 knots and have even touched 10 knots when the boat has been surfing on a large wave, quite exciting at times. We are sailing with our down wind rig of 2 headsails poled out so they don't collapse when the boat rolls. We reduce the sail area at night to make the boat easier to control and to allow for squalls.

The weather is very warm despite the wind and we are in short sleeves and shorts until about 10.0pm and only need a fleece for overnight. It is difficult for us to remember that it is winter at home.

We have a roll call every morning at 10.0am on the SSB radio and all the yachts report their position. We then have a chat session on the SSB radio at 6.0pm. On Friday nights one of the boats run a "pub quiz" and we won last Friday's quiz. Our team name is "Three Jocks in a boat". It has to be said that our performance was largely down to Doug's remarkable memory and large variety of knowledge. 

We are doing very well on our supplies, we have used less than a quarter of our diesel and will soon be half way there (Tues/Wed), we have lots of water left, despite not getting the watermaker going before we left. We still have a few packs of vacuum packed meat and quite a few packs of bacon. Our fruit is beginning to go off as it was difficult to get unripe fruit in Lanzarote but we still have quite a few apples and oranges.

November 20, 2009

Doug arrived on the 12th and Helen came on the same flight for a holiday in Lanzarote. We did our safety briefing and made final preparations for leaving on Friday 13th (good job we are not superstitious). We waved off Fai Tira, Camomile, Amber Sea and Briet, all of whom left a day ahead of us on the Thursday. We set off at 10.0 am on Friday morning and had a good send off from Helen and the rest of the boats, which were mainly due to leave on the Saturday, although a few were later. We had a good sail for most of the first day and started our 3 hrs on and 6 hrs off shift pattern after dinner. By this time the wind had dropped and we were motor sailing. We had very light winds for most of the first week and had to motorsail a lot of the time. We did however make good progress and headed down to the 2030 waypoint before turning west.

 

November 6, 2009

We stayed in Gibraltar for 2 weeks, although we did have a weekend trip to Smir in Morocco. We did get to like it a bit more as time went on and we went on a number of excursions including a cycle run round the Rock and met some local inhabitants! (see the pictures). A trip into the lower caves was a highlight as it was both an adventure and had very interesting and spectacular stalactite and stalagmite formations. On the middle weekend all the boats sailed across the straits to Smir in Morocco and for a change we had a really good sail. We had Pete from Fai Tira with us as John, the co-owner had to go back to the UK. It was good to get moving again and the guided tour of the huge market area in Smir was very interesting, although you wouldn't want to buy much of the food. We had 2-3 "secret" police to protect the group from pick-pockets etc. We had to motor back on the Sunday as once again there was no wind, but we had blue skies and a hot sun. The trip also gave an opportunity for most of us to get some action photographs of our boats.

The second week was largely taken up with getting the boat ready for the start of the Blue Water Rally, however we did have a trip to Ronda which is a remote village in Spain built in spectacular scenery, with very large cliffs and gulleys. We also had some more parties and briefings.(Gibraltar Pictures)

We started the rally on Sunday 25th October with a formal crossing of the start line, which had a gun salute from the shore and a small naval vessel at the end of the line. This is the only time in the rally where we will have a start line or even a set time for leaving. The start is fairly muted compared with the ARC but then it is a much smaller affair and not a race. We started off fairly far back but as most of the boats turned to go behind a large tanker we noticed it was stopping and went in front of it and leapt towards the front of the fleet - but it is not a race!!!

We once again had a trip with very little wind although we could have sailed more if we had been better prepared for overnight sailing. We ended up motoring most of the way to Lanzarote, but so did most of the fleet. It did however give us a good estimate of our motoring range with the 730ltr of diesel. We think that we can do about 1400 miles if we had to. The trip was fairly uneventful although we had a few challenges - we experienced 2 nights of very bad fog and on one of them we hit a "tunny net", which slowed the engine right down and we had severe vibrations from the propeller. After about 5 minutes the rope cutter on our shaft managed to cut through the net and the problem cleared - good decision to put on the rope cutter, and we were  not the only boat to experience this problem.  On the good side we saw lots of dolphins and about 40 - 50 turtles.

Once we got near Lanzarote we were contacted by one of the Discovery 55 boats (Roundabout), who we were catching up to ask us to take some photos of their cruising chute. They were however doing 6.2knts and we only catching them very slowly, so I decided to take the opportunity to give the engine a blast and check that the net was fully cleared from the propeller. We were doing 8knts at 3000 revs so managed to motor round Roundabout taking photos. They did the same for us a little later when we raised our cruising chute. This provided a nice end to the first leg of the BWR.(Gib to Lanzarote Pictures)

We arrived in Puerto Calero in Lanzarote on Thursday afternoon (29th)and spent the next day helping in the slower boats - they were probably more patient in sailing in light winds than we were. The young and old kids from some of the boats treated us to a trick or treat session on Halloween and visited all our boats. We managed to organise and apple ducking session and it was really good fun. This was followed by a welcome party, the first of quite a few we have had so far in Lanzarote. At the beginning of this week we had a really interesting tour of the south of the island - all courtesy of the tourist board and we will have a tour of the north of the island next week. On Wednesday we went on a trip to an amazing cavern in one of the lava mountains, which had an inland sea and had been turned into a restaurant and we were treated to a session of folk dancing. We were supposed to have a race night on Friday and some local boats were going to join in, however the wind had picked up considerably and the race night had to be cancelled. We had to make do with the curry and beer session which was supposed to follow the racing.

We are now doing final preparations for the Atlantic crossing and looking forward to Doug joining us.(Lanzarote Pictures)

Clyde to Gibraltar Blog & Pictures

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November 6th, 2009