Atlantic Adventure News

Follow the attached link to see a few pictures from the trip:

Don arrived in Las Palmas on Saturday to join DLS & SD. We took him to our favourite restaurant (El Herreno) and later strolled round the old town and visited the great people watching pub for beers and a dram, or half a glass, of 12 year old Balvenie!.

On the Sunday we sailed down the coast for lunch, but the anchorage wasn’t suitable for an overnight stay so we returned to Las Palmas. Great sailing with good winds. On Monday Susan left for the UK so we had a lazy day and stocked up the boat. Stuart arrived in the early hours of the morning and managed to sneak on board without waking anyone, it does take a lot to waken some of us.

We set off on Tuesday for a bay on the West side of Gran Canaria. The winds picket up considerably as we rounded the North-West corner, over 30 Knots, and it was clear that the bay was untenable, so we carried on to Puerto de Las Nieves. We tied up to the harbour wall, still with strong gusting winds, but also strong sunshine. This was our cheapest berthing yet, only 5 Euros and was situated in a quaint fishing village. Stuart and Don joined the locals for a swim and admired the scenery on the beach.

On Wednesday we headed across to Santa Cruz on Tenerife in strong winds of 30-35 knots, but great sailing on a beam reach all the way. We had 3 reefs in the main and the genoa and still averaged 6.5 knots all the way. It was great fun standing at the wheel in shorts with large amounts of water frequently drenching the helmsman and other crew who ventured out of the shelter of the hood. We sailed with the Bimini up and it managed to cope well with the strong winds and provided much needed shelter from the sun. Santa Cruz was a really nice town and well worth a visit, although there are probably not many people who visit Tenerife for just one night.

We sailed back to Puerto de Las Nieves on Thursday and continued to have strong winds, once again a beam reach all the way and averaging 6.5 knots. We returned to Las Palmas on Friday but had to motorsail in heavy seas for most of the way to make reasonable headway. We had another great meal that night in Restautante Asador – El Cid Casa Pablo. Don left on Saturday so it was another lazy day, which was very welcome after the boisterous sailing of the previous 4 days.

On Sunday SH and DLS took the boat out for a final sail and headed straight out from Las Palmas on a beam reach. We had great sailing, although it was a bit cloudy, but we had the boat flying along at up to 8.3 knots – Stuart was at the helm of course as he is now a practised hand at 8 knot sailing. On return to Las Palmas we had the challenge of getting in to the fore and aft berthing prevalent in Las Palmas. We had to do it twice as our original berth had been taken when we were out and the berth next to it proved to be unsatisfactory. There were however no hassles and we secured the boat ready for leaving it for 2 months. Stuart returned to the UK on the Monday.

A great weeks cruising was the verdict by all.

Author: DLS