Days 16-17

It was quite early in the morning, the sun was just below the
horizon right behind us. We had quite a slow night sailing as the
wind decided to take a break. Out forward in the early morning haze,
there it was this strange shape out on the horizon.

LAND AHOY!!!! a little off the port bow was the Island of St Barts.
LAND!!! we were both excited. St Barts sits 15 miles Sth East of
Sint Maarten so it would be the first thing we see, we had 40 miles
to go before we would stop, drop the anchor, crack open a beer and
sit still!!!

Lets go back to Day 16, what a cracker of a day, the wind was up,
and coming from a little off dead down wind, we had both head sails
up. Reverie was loving it, we were sitting at 9 knots for most of
the day, hitting a Max speed of 13.5knots. A great day sailing,
surfing down waves. What a hoot!.

Around 6pm the wind dropped off and we were back to a slower pace.
But that was ok as it's nice to have a less intense night!

Around midnight we were served up with the usual bunch of squalls.
We use the radar to see them and predict their path, and to see
which way the wind shift would come from. It was a busy night for
the radar and both of us as we shifted Reverie back and forth
between the squalls. On the radio net in the morning we heard that
most of the other boats were in the same situation, lumpy seas and
lots of squalls.

The next day was close to perfect, light breeze, blue sky, fish,
nice even swell and the prospect of making land fall in the next 24
hours.

The light wind we had through the day really took a break through
the night, so we were forced to turn on the motor as we did not want
to delay our arrival the next day and also our rule is : unless it's
dead flat if your doing 4 knots or less, turn the motor on. So we
did. The last 12 hours of our Atlantic crossing we motored!

Closing in on Sint Maarten we hooked three fish, one really small
and he was lucky to jump off the hook just as Jo got him in, the
other was a tuny ( a very bloody dark red meat tuna type of thing -
he was lucky and went back in) the third was a nice Yellow Fin Tuna
about 2ft long - thank you!.

Coming back into Sint Maarten was awesome, it was almost like we had
never left. The last time we were here was April 2004 on the last
Reverie. It was like the Pacific was all a dream!. A few things have
changed but it's still the same place, LOTS of big boats many over
140ft! Sailing and motor.

Plans are to have Christmas here and we may then move over to St
Barts for New years eve.

Ok so off out now for dinner ashore! Yay, no more passage cooking!

So over all for the crossing.
We:

Sailed 2900 nautical miles, 5370 kms.
Crossed 4 time zones
Max speed of 13.5 knots.
Highest wind speed 43.5 knots
Best 24 hr run 1300 utc to 1300 tuck was 174nm
Consumed no alcohol
Motored for 12 hours.
Broke nothing on the boat except three plates.
Total weight loss between the two of us kegs!. ( were not starting
with much)
5 flying fish, 1 Squid, 3 Maui Maui, 1 Tuna, 1 Wahoo, 1 Mackerel (
we think)
Total trip time was 17 days and 3 hours

Til next time,

J&J

Day 14-15, 2 days to go!!

Day 14-15.

Pos 18-29N, 56-43W. 362nm to go about 48 hrs!!!

The landfall cocktails are really starting to look good!!

Day 14 was a zombie day as we were both quite shattered after the
squally eventful night before. So we just sat around drifted off to
sleep here and there. Jumped on a few radio nets, and thought about
what would
be the easiest meals to make for lunch and dinner.

It was a beautiful day, trade wind breeze blue sky, bit of the
standard confused swell running but we had a good sail. From the
radio nets we found that most of the other boats around us ( 500nm
range) all had rough nights with endless squalls, wind shifts and
rain. Now a bit of rain is great as it takes off the thick layer of
salt that we had accumulated all over the boat - inside and out.

We didn't even have the energy to fish - probably not mising much!
Outside of this we made good progress of 172nm for the day run.

As night fell upon us everything seemed to settle down, the wind
eased a little down to an even 20, the sea even sorted itself out
into a normal looking swell, best of all the sky looked clear and
crisp. It ws looking like a great night of sailing.

It sure was, smooth motion, no cloud / squalls and the breeze just
stayed there all night long. Ahhh sleep!

Day 15, we both had a good rest and were jazzed up for the day
ahead. Plan was to keep the pace up and catch some fish. We did
both, hooking a Wahoo on the meat line and keeping the boat moving
well for the day. At times the swell really wound up with the wind
up into the 30's, strangely an 1hr later the wind would drop, and
the
waves would ease off a little?

Day 15 night fall came about and we were wondering if it was going
to be
a clear night again, looking behind us we could see that it ws not
going to be. The sky had this misty look - we were in for another
night of fun and games.

We had a few smaller squalls pass us to the south around 7pm and
outside
of this up to about midnight it was awesome sailing, we were
trucking along at 8.5 knots the sea felt like it was smooth like in
a marina.

About 1am Jo was on watch, a quick flick on the radar and -
Bugger!, We had a line of the suckers coming in. One after the other
and these ones were really big suckers, couple of miles wide and 4-5
long.

As we mentioned before, the squalls are not so bad, it's what they
do to the sea and the winds. These buggers were really messing up
the wind. At times we were running almost 90 degrees to our intended
course, Heading almost due north, then down to due south. This
unfortunatly went on until dawn leaving us not much wind at all!

In the morning we were both a little tired but the day looked like
it
was going to be a good one. The squall activity has passed and the
wind is up blowing 25 from the ENE. We've got both head sails up and
we
are smoking!!!, Reverie is sailing along at 9-10 knots hitting a
peak of 13.4 for the day ( through the water). Its a great sensation
as we surf down the big ocean swells. We will keep pushing this rate
until dusk, then shorten the sails down for the night as we feel we
may be in for another patch of squalls.

No fish yet, but we are after trying - must fill the freezer up
before we arrive!.

Boy is it getting warm!, must be in the 30's today, the water temp
is also sitting at 30.2 degrees!!!

Cheers

J&J

Days 11-12-13 Windy out here!

Pos: 18-42N, 51-41W 651nm to go!

Belting along the trade wind route, Well that's what Christopher
Columbus did about 500 years ago. It was about then that he passed
this track in search of the "new world".

Well we are in search of a flat anchorage, cold beer and a burger at
the Soggy dollar bar in Sint Maarten.

The wind has been up (through the day mid 20's) and at night it
climbs up into the 30-35 range. Great sailing conditions but when
you are short handed as we are it gets tiring. Making the land fall
cocktails even better.

Night watch up to about midnight is wonderful, clear skies, lots of
stars and a warm breeze blowing, giving us great boat speed. It's
great sitting out side in the breeze hearing the boat working though
the sea as we eat up the miles. at around midnight it all goes away.

Sea conditions are nothing like the Pacific, there is no regular
swell, it actually is like the Med, sloppy, we counted three
different directions of swell running!. There are two large storms
up
north in the Atlantic causing this.

Day 11 24hr run was 174nm, Day 12 = 172nm, Day 13= 174nm, so we are
chugging through the miles and now down to 651nm to go. At our
current run rate we should be in Sint Maarten around midday Tuesday
18th December
local time. - If we keep the current run rate.

Found that another boat was abandoned yesterday!, like a bloody
obstacle course out here! - you would think the prudent thing to
do if you were to abandon a boat would be to sink it, get it out of
the way. All these boats will probably end up on some beach
somewhere
in the Caribbean.

It seems to be getting into a squally pattern at night, they all
seem to come up after midnight and run until the sun is up and the
volume of them seems to be growing.

There are a few Australian boats out here as well as us. Honeymoon,
from Noosa heads, they are about 400nm behind us bound for Barbados.
Penyllyan from Melbourne - Sandrigham Yacht Club, they left Las
Palmas a
few days ago. They got about 250nm out and found that one of their
rigging wires had failed!! They quickly turned around and headed
back to Las Palmas to get it replaced - lucky they weren't further
out!, There is another from Hobart - can't remember the boat name
and a Catamaran from Sydney Sedina. Then there is also about 6 more
in the ARC (Atlantic rally for Cruisers) - but the ARC boats don't
seem to like talking to the non ARC boats like us!

It seems that we are the only ones headed to the northern end of the
Caribbean chain, everyone else is off to Barbados or St Lucia.

Day 13 we were given a visit of a whale!!! yep a whale!, he/she
followed us for 30-45 mins coming right up along side the boat!
about 6 feet from the side, then it would go up front, down the
other side then do it all again. Seemed to be taking a real good
look. Made us a little nervous with all sorts of Moby Dick thoughts
and maybe whales are thinking of taking revenge for the Japanese
whale hunting! So we were glad it came but were also glad that it
left as we really didn't want to hit it. Made us think that perhaps
the BANG
we had the other day could have been a whale.

But with this visit we can at least blame our bad run on fishing
onto something other than us, it's the Whale!

Day 13 night was a killer!- started off perfect up until about 1am
then, it all fell
apart. We were side swiped by a large wave, rolled us quite a bit,
Big wave jumped up and landed in the cockpit - bugger!, as we rolled
one of the kitchen cupboards opened up and spilled the plates, cups
and sauces out on the floor, breaking them all in the process! So we
had the roll, the salt water and then the 100's of shattered pieces
of ceramic to deal with.
At 1am really unpleasant.

From then on the squalls came in thick and fast one after the other,
they didn't let up until about 11am the next morning, then the sky
cleared up and
it was a beautiful day!! Hopefully the intense patch of squally
conditions was a
front passing and it has now passed and we can have some clear
nights. But who know's I guess we will find out tonight!

Cheers

J&J

Days 9-10, well we really should change sails more often!

Pos : 18-57.9N, 41-44.6W 1211nm to go out of 2836nm
(Days 9 -10 : 9th - 10th December) Also crossed the half way point
in the early hours of the morning!!! Yippee!!

Well it all started with us bitching that we need more sail area up
when going dead down wind.

On the old Reverie we had a spinnaker pole, so we would sail with
the mainsail out one side (to leeward) and the Jib / Genoa out on
the pole to windward. Works really well. Keeps the boat from rolling
and gives us plenty of sail for good speed. On the new Reverie we
are without a spinnaker pole ( we will get one in Sint Marteen) so
we cannot have the main and Genoa out at the same time. We
have been running with just a Genoa sheeted to the end of the boom,
works really well, just not quite enough sail and doesn't help with
the rolling.

So at the start of Day 9 Jason has a thought. Lets see if we can
get the small jib out and set it to windward, no pole, just see if
it sets, there may be enough wind coming forward of the Genoa to
keep it filled.

Well it worked, like a dream, we picked up an extra knot, settled
the boat right down - Perfect. If only we did this 3 days ago!

So we had a great day, Jo made a few passage meals, (taking
advantage of the nice smooth motion) and Jason read another book,
all very relaxing.

We left this sail configuration up all night, lovely... The wind
started to lighten through the early hours of the morning. Up early,
fishing lines out and we thought hey lets put the spinnaker up that
will give us a good shove along.

So in the process of taking down and sorting the Genoa / jib
arrangement, Jason says to Jo, "this is when we will catch a fish,
right when we are in the middle of putting up the Kite".

Sure enough, Jason is up front hooking up lines for the Kite, Jo
yells out "we have a fish!!" - Perfect timing. A Mahi Mahi (Dorado).
Well, we dragged him for a bit while we got the kite up and trimmed.
Speed was up, hitting a top for the day of 12.8 knots though the
water! Now the fish.

We pulled him in, did the business. He wasn't too big, but made 4
big fillets bagged and in the freezer.

The Kite gave us a great run for about 4 hours, the wind angle was
changing so we needed to let out one of the lines. (this time the
front one - Tack) So Jason is up front winching in the tack
line and Jeepas it jumped off the winch, a quick bit of rope burn on
the hands and out it went!!, so now we had a very large Spinnaker
flapping around like a massive flag, held on the top and one
corner!!. " Well I guess it's time to bring in the Kite!!"

So in it comes and out goes the Genoa. Probably a good thing as the
wind started to come up to around 20-25 not long after we had
finished. We then turned upwind a little, just enough to allow us
fly the main and Genoa on the same side. Just after getting the main
up and sorting the lines out!!!, Another Fish!!! Mahi Mahi again,
awesome!!!.

So with the main and Genoa up we settled in for the night, light
wind for most of it. What a busy night it was, squall after squall.
12 in total!. They seem to be less intense than the ones we had in
the Caribbean and Pacific. Not as much wind or rain, however we did
get a light boat wash. The real problem was each time one passed it
would cause wind shifts and even take away the wind for 30mins to an
hour. So neither of us got much sleep for the night.

Day 10. 161nm for the last 24hr run, not bad considering the light
wind we had through the night.

Winds up again, back into the 20-25 knot range, seas up and again
quite confused. - Seems to be a feature of the Atlantic. Reports
from the boats in the ARC are that there are 2 maybe 3 boats
abandoned, one crew member picked up by a cruise ship for medical
treatment, and a few booms broken or bent. I guess there will be a
lot of sails blown out as well.

So far all is well on Reverie apart from a few bruises, stubbed toes
and lack of sleep.

As we are on a different tack ( winds blowing on the other side of
the boat) Jo had another interesting showering experience, this time
the shower door collapsed open on her!!!, maybe it would easier to
put a harness on and shower off the back of the boat. Better still
we could drag her along for a pressure wash!!. - ohhh we wouldn't
do that!

Til next time
J&J

Days 7-8 Fair winds and following seas.

Days 7-8
Fair winds and following seas, that's what it's all meant to be
about.

Also to go along with that, clear skies, lots of fish on the meat
line, no squalls, warm days etc....

Ok so 5 out of 6 is pretty good, the last two days / nights have
been close to spot on (except the fish). After the run of squalls
we
had the other night which was attributable to a trough running
through the area we have had great conditions. We can't seem to find
this west setting current that everyone talks about? Either can
"Reality", another boat about 150 miles NE of us, it's a bugger as
we were hoping to hook into this for a free nudge along.

VERY clear nights, LOTS of stars, it looks fantastic, coupled with
no moon and the sky looks breathtaking, makes you feel very small
and irrelevant with all that up there.

At night you can also see the phosphorescence in the water, there is
a LOT of it here, much more that we ever noticed in the Pacific or
Caribbean. Phosphorescence, not sure exactly what it is, but when
you disturb the water all these small "critters" glow green, so what
you have is a green trail behind the boat extending for 30-40 feet,
it's really cool, if you are lucky enough to see any dolphins at
night they leave a green "tube" in the water as they swim around.
It's very captivating you can just stare at it for ages! - Well
Jason can. (simple things amuse simple minds!)

The wind has been sitting on the 20 knot line for a few days now and
looks like it will drop down to 15 over the next few days. The
forecast for the next week or so looks like we will have trade wind
conditions right into Saint Marteen - Fantastic!!

Currently we have the wind close to dead behind us and we are
"tacking" down wind - running back and forth across the wind just
enough to keep the breeze at a nice angle to put some sideways
pressure on the boat and give us a bit more of a nudge along, so it
looks like a great day for sailing.

Listing into some of the radio nets that are on as we cross the
"pond" (as the poms like to put it) we heard that there are a
few more boats in trouble, one a small 26 ft Catamaran with two on
board
put a mayday call out yesterday - not sure what the problem is but
with a mayday you would assume that it's not good news. Last we
heard there was a boat about 18 hours away from them. They were
making there
way to help out. Another boat has some rudder problems - not sure if
it is a show stopper. The last was a boat with a woman on board who
has been chronically sick, vomiting for the last 14 days! - they
left 14 days
ago!. they were looking for medical help as they have at least
another 6 days before they get in. Lets hope everything works out ok
for everyone.

So far we have been going ok, bit of chafe on the spinnaker halyard,
and an annoying hum coming from the rudder at certain speeds. As
Jason can't stand creaks, rattles etc.. this is driving him crazy.
Jo just says "what hum? oh that...."

Current position: 19-40.7N, 35-57.5W COG 280M. Last 24 run 168nm
(day 7) and 172nm day 8.

It's starting to get busy out here as we are starting to catch up
to some of the ARC boats. There were 255 boats which departed from
Las
Palmas 6 days before us, some of the fast ones have already arrived
into St Lucia!

Also passed another boat today about 3 miles off, this one is
heading to Martinique also in the Caribbean.

Nothing yet on the fishing line so have changed lures - debating
whether to put the kite up or not - if we do, it's likely we won't
catch any fish, but the trade off will be another 2 knots approx
boat speed....ahhh decisions!

Til next Time,
J&J

BANG!

So here we are, 1/3 of the way across the Atlantic ( literally
within 2nm of it), the wind is blowing mid 20's, it has been a less
than perfect night as we were attacked by squall after squall, the
swell was very confused and the boat motion was in a word "crap".
So
it's about 10:30am Jo is comatosed on the couch, Jason is in the
lounge chair reading the latest Robert Ludlum book and.....

BANG!!

There is this god all mighty sickening bang, almost of a crash, and
with
it a violent shudder almost everything on the back starboard side of
the boat is dislodged and thrown into the middle of the boat.

Both of us yell (%#%#$&^*&! Jason quickly jumps up to take a look
outside to see what we hit - shipping container, whale, another
boat, jeepas it had to be something for that noise. But there is
nothing. Then it's quickly downstairs to check the bilge areas to
see if we were taking on any water. - the sound and the resulting
shock movement that the boat went through there must be some damage
or something??.

Nothing, bilge areas are all dry except for a brownish liquid in the
center bilge about the amount of a can of coke! - that it was, as
one must have split at one point and shared it's contents with the
boat.

Outside of the coke, there is nothing. We quickly put things back
together while continuing to say "&%#@^*(!!! what the hell was
that".

All we can put it down to was a well timed big wave slapping us
right on
the rear starboard quarter of the boat as we later realized that the
cockpit was completely drenched. But what a slap the noise and
shockwave was so loud we were sure we must have hit something.

That's how our Day 6 started. The previous 48 hours were not
comfortable sailing. Big VERY confused seas. More of a slop, and
windy all day and night, coupled with squalls. Most of the boats on
the radio nets we have been listing to are also suffering from the
lumpy
sea. Mostly caused by a few large low pressure systems way up north.
These are pushing the swell down in a southerly direction and this
is meeting with our "swell" coming from the east = SLOP!

Progress has been ok with 169nm for the day. Wind forecast is
showing that it will drop off over the weekend and into early next
week,
so we will be able to get the big sails up and hopefully enjoy some
smoother sailing conditions.

Still no fish - well we need to try a bit more though - but when
you're
bouncing around the way we have been who wants to gut a fish? Have
managed to scoop up a
few flying fish. Wow the ones in the Atlantic are double the size of
the ones we had in the pacific - almost 12" long! also managed to
land a squid in the cockpit!

Good news the water temp is rising, we are up to 27.5 degrees
today!! and the days are certainly getting warmer.

We will have to start to keep an eye out as the boat that was
abandoned a few days ago was "let go" only 150nm south of us, who
knows where the current and wind would have taken it. It will be
very hard to see at night with no lights and possibly no rig! - This
we do not want to hit!.

Position 20-51N, 31-14W, COG 272.

Time for a radio net then a movie,

Cheers!

J&J

Day 4-5 Atlantic

Day 5 Position 13:30 UTC 22-51N, 25-20W Day run (last 24hrs) 165nm

Winds up!, had the Kite up all day yesterday which was good for
the speed and the motion. At night the wind seems to become quite
gusty an shitfy so we are taking the kite down through the night as
we don't really want to deal with it later on. Had an interesting
time getting the bugger down this time.

We have quite a big kite on the boat (actually we have two, one
small, one big - we have been using the big one) when it's blowing
around 20-25 we take it down. Usually we would have the mainsil up
as well as the kite, but with such a big spinnaker having the main
up as well we would be seriously over powered so we have been
sailing with just the kite. It also allows us to sail it much deeper
down wind as there is no ill effect from the main. The down side to
this is we cannot collapse the spinnaker behind the main to take it
down. So when the winds up it's a real challenge in getting the
thing down. Jason almost got propelled vertically off the boat a few
times during the process! But we are slowly getting better at it.

Once we had it down we settled the boat down to sailing just with
the Jib / Genoa sheeted through the end of the boom.

Wind through the night was light so the speed fell off, but the
bloody swell / slop was right up making sleeping difficult. So hard
in fact Jason re wired the freezer through the night (current wire
was to small and we were getting a large voltage drop between the
freezer and switch panel) This involved taking up floor boards
running cables etc. All quite funny actually sitting on the floor
and sliding from one side to the other while trying to be
technical. It was no use trying to hold on so you did a bit, slid
away, slid
back did a bit more etc....

Passed another sailing boat through the night!!, we slowly came up
on them passing them about 1nm off to our port side, they were
heading the same way (west). We even had to change course to not hit
them!! It's amazing that in the ocean two small boats could bump
into each other!

Day 5 Morning started with the morning radio net, then breakfast
then the decision to leave the sails as they are. The forecast says
it will get windy over the next few days and the boat feels well
balanced so it can all stay where it is. Still no fish though, will
keep on trying. Friends on another boat "Reality" caught two
yesterday!! so we are feeling the pressure, we are blaming the
Aquagen as our lack of success - must be scaring the fish away! -
What else could it be!

16:00. Well the wind is defiantly up and we are moving along quite
quickly, but the cross swell makes us lurch around and is really
starting to piss us off. Hoping things calm a little for tonight -
otherwise Day 6 will be a tired and lazy day....

J&J

Atlantic Day 3-4

Day 3:
Not a great day insofar as speed, managed to clock off 168 nm, wind
had died off a little. As we don't yet have a spinnaker pole on
Reverie we were unable to sail dead down wind with the main sail out
to leeward and the jib poled out to windward (wing on wing), so we
sheeted the jib through the end of the boom and sailed just with the
jib, slow going but it was low effort sailing. Even managed to get a
few episodes of Seinfeld in.

But overall a quiet day, most exciting thing was Jo almost
getting hurled through the perspex shower door whilst having a
shower and washing her hair - one hand holding on, one hand
lathering up, need one more hand to turn the tap on! While all this
was going on Jason was fast asleep on the couch!

We guess we could have put the smaller spinnaker up or played around
with the sails some more, but as it was the start of the third day
we just couldn't be bothered!, now that's lazy!

While we were in Almerimar in Spain, we picked up a second hand
"Aquagen" it's a water generator and has proved to be a great unit,
making our net power consumption while sailing at around 1-2amps.
Yesterday unfortunately one of the "blades" broke off ( it has a
small propeller on a long shaft that it towed about 16m behind the
boat) So we were forced to put the smaller set of blades on. With
the smaller blades we have about 1/3 of the power produced! So we
are forced to now run the motor a little more each day to power up,
very annoying. When we get into Saint Marteen we will get a few sets
of the bigger blades.

Day 4: Position @8:00am UTC 24-34N, 022-19.6W Course 242M

Light day today, we have about 12knots of wind. Will have to make a
strong effort to get the boat speed up today, Looks like a Spinnaker
day for sure. Seas are starting to drop off so we hopefully will
have a good smooth day.

The weather is getting warmer, sea temp is up to 26 degrees!!! No
cloud and so far no squalls! Just clear blue skies.

13:30 Day Run was 154nm, um.. things seem to be slowing down,
maybe the real reason is that we are just to lazy to change sails!

Have the kite up now are moving along quite well, sitting at 8
knots plus managed to hit 10.4 over the water as well which was
nice.

Still no fish though!, will try a few different lures through the
day to see if that makes any difference.

J&J

Las Palmas Departure!!

Thursday was our planned departure from Las Palmas, but Jason was
still a bit under the weather from some strange belly bug so we
thought we would push it to Friday.

Friday was true to the forecast there was no wind!!, so now we
planned to leave on Saturday!! Better day anyway as Friday's are
thought to be a bad day's to leave on.

So Friday night we headed out for a "last supper" in Las Palmas, we
found a great looking Japanese restaurant through the week and were
keen to give it a try. So after out last minute prep tasks we
frocked up and went into town for some Sushi!!

Well it was not to be, Friday night and it was closed!, so we went
to another we found, closed! um.... So off to the local yacht club
to see if we could get a bite there - no luck they were yet to start
cooking. Getting a little frustrated we headed to the restaurants
at the marina where Reverie was berthed. A quick beer at the bar and
our standards dropped from Sushi to Pizza. So in we went, the
owner quickly came over to us and said that they were closed and
were not open yet! It was nearly 8:30pm, and we were getting over
it. - The Spanish like to eat late. 10:00pm is a good time.

Feeling all dejected we ended up back on Reverie, with some home
made soup, warm Baguette and a few episodes of "Rome" on the TV.

Saturday morning looked like a great day to leave, 15 knots from the
NE. After filling up with propane for the oven and diesel for the
boat we motored out the marina. Ahead of us is 2800 miles of
Atlantic
ocean. The weather looks good and we should have a good trip if all
goes well.

Leaving on the same day are two boats we know, Reality and Mambo.
There are a few others on there way as well so we will have to be
careful not to bump into anyone at night - or through the day for
that matter!

8:23pm - UTC

Jason on watch, Jo in Bed!. We had dinner at 6:30, watched two
episodes of Seinfeld. Boat is moving along dead down wind at 7.5 -
8.5 knots. Quite rolly but we are making good progress.
Position is 27-23.2N, 15-38.1W.

7:03am - UTC

Still plugging away. The wind started to build through the night,
with some gusts into the high 30's some over 40. Swell was very
rolly and not really comfortable at all. Bing the first night out
for a while it was very hard to get some sleep, today will be a day
of naps as we hope to catch up on some sleep.

Wind had backed off now to about 15knots leaving our apparent wind
down to les than 10 so our boat speed is backing off a little, it's
also starting to move more NE from the NNE we had through the night.
Position 26-41.0N, 16-47.7W

13:00 - UTC.

Main down now and we are just on the Spinnaker, making about 7 knots
in about 12 knots of wind. On the Radio Net this morning ( where a
bunch of boats are "checking in" their location, condition etc). we
heard that there is a rowing race across the Atlantic! it left today
from one of the other smaller islands in the Canary group. Also
about 900 miles in front of us a boat was abandoned late yesterday.
Their engine stopped working and the rigging on the mast was
starting
to fail. Luckily all on board was ok, lets just hope that no one
bumps into their boat!

24 hr Run 170nm

Cheers

J&J

Lanzarote to Gran Canaria.

Time to leave Lanzarote came upon us at 3:00am Friday morning.

There was a light breeze of about 15 knots, so we slipped out of the anchorage and headed out for a
nice 96 mile sail. This should place us in Las Palmas right on "beer o'clock" - Jo was still in
bed so Jason pulled up anchor and got the boat settled in with a full main and jib out.

We were making good progress, dodging a few of the fishing boats that always seem to be up and about
before us - no matter what time we leave?. About 15 miles out, way out in front we could see a
massive amount of lights. Checking the chart there was no island out there, so our first thoughts
were that it's an oil rig? No oil rig, but a HUGE ferry coming in our direction, it passes on out
port (left) side about a mile off.

Now it's all dark again out in front and we can see another set of lights, ahh this must be another
one of these fishing boats, so we keep an eye out, the thing was it was getting closer quite
quickly!. Taking a look through the binoculars we can see a silhouette of what looks like a ship
but it was very hard to see.

A little while longer, yep it's a ship/ferry something, but from our angle there were bugger all
lights on this thing, just three VERY small lights and it was coming directly at us. So we punch
the autopilot up 20 degrees, no luck it's moving real fast now. Rules of the sea state that all
boats should pass port to port (left side of the boat to left side of the boat) and also that boats
under power give way to sailing boats.

Well this was not looking like port to port, rather bow over boat, so we quickly turned on all the
deck lights, anything that would light up the sails. A few minutes later the ship does a big turn to
the right and we can see the side of it. It was a big ferry loads of lights on the side but not a
thing up front???
I guess when you are on a big boat like that a little sailing boat would look like a beer can
floating in the water!

The rest of the sail was quite good, Reverie was sailing really well in a nice groove, the wind
moved a little more forward of where it was meant to be, but it was good fast sailing as we pushed
our way to Las Palmas at around 8.5 knots. We arrived to a very busy anchorage, 75 boats, dropped
the anchor just before 5pm and settled in for arrival drinks.

Every year around this time there is a Yacht "Rally" where a bunch of boats all head out from here
(Las Palmas, Gran Canaria) to the Caribbean. Over the years this "bunch" has turned into 255 boats
and they all leave from here all on Sunday the 26th. - ITS A BLOODY MAD HOUSE, quite funny to
see actually. There are people on the dock, taking all the labels off tins of food, and washing
their fruit and veges in chlorinated water ( for fear of having a bug infestation).

The local chandlery is out of control, it's like going to the local deli/butcher, where people have
to take a number and wait to be called.

There is this mad panic in the air. People seem to be putting so much food on their boat they could
feed a small country. We saw one 45ft boat with what looked like a whole banana tree, it would have
had well over 200 bananas on it. We only hope they have good toilets on board.

We plan to leave here just after the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) leaves, maybe Tuesday or
Wednesday. We have a small oven problem to fix and then we will be off.

Okay it's 11am now Sunday morning and all the ARC boats are getting themselves sorted for their 1pm
departure, camera crews/TV crews are here, it's all happening. It's blowing about 20 knots, (last
night it was blowing 30, and gusting into the 40's) we just looked through the binoculars and there
is a massive sea out there, we are happy not be leaving, we will watch the ARC boats leave and then
head ashore for a latte.

Cheers!

Lanzarote

Marina Rubicon, Playa Blanca - Lanzarote.

WOW!!! this place is just fantastic. We sailed down from Graciosa in about 4 hours with the wind right behind us. We were desperate to see if we could catch some fish, but no luck. Thank god we have a freezer. Playa Blanca is right at the southern end of Lanzarote, bit of a resort town but dead flat anchorage, a very modern and plush Marina and a great spot for visiting friends.

Ocean Breezes were arriving on Thursday afternoon, we were to meet then in one of the Marina bars. Well that set the theme for the next few days.

Chris and Lisa (Ocean Breezes) had a car so we did some tourist things that we'd otherwise not do - was absolutely fantastic!

We went to Cesar Manrique's house which was built in 1968 on top of a volcanic trail from a volcaniceruption that occurred in 1730-36. It uses the natural formation of five volcanic bubbles for themain rooms within the house. His paintings and art are integrated in the natural landscape,apparently his work was notorious for it's simplicity - but we had not even heard of him (of course!), until we did some research into why all the houses in Lanzarote are white and how itbecame that way. His house is amazing, although alot of it is now shut off to the public (he died in1992, in a car crash not far from his house), but all the rooms and passage ways were built into theVolcanic bluish-black lava flow, very cool!

So apparently if it was not for Cesar Manrique, the Island of Lanzarote would not look like it doesnow. He fought for all the buildings to be no higher than the tallest palm tree and that all thehouses should be the same colour (expect for the painted wood which colour changes on location ofhouses). So all the buildings here are white, and amongst the Volcanic Landscape it just looks amazing. The only difference is the painted wood of doors and frames which change from maybe blueto green. The housing is somewhat similar to that of Greece, but with the lush green of the Cactusgarden landscaping it's really something - we love it!

From there we went to explore one of the Underground Volcano lava tubes ( where the lava flowed outand down toward the sea ( it's 7km long!!!) Anyway we were down there making endless jokes aboutAustin Powers, Doctor Evil's secret Volcano Lair...how silly we were being - the other Pommie and German tourists were just staring at us - but we were in uncontrollable fits of laughter.

We had a great time with Ocean Breezes, but once they left if was back to getting the boat ready for the 2800 mile sail across the Atlantic.

Satellite email had to be sorted, the SSB radio ( high power long radio) had a few problems - we found that at some frequencies it would reset the battery meter, other frequencies it would turn on the bow thruster!!We had a few sail items to sort out, restock the freezer with some meat pies ( found some in the super market) fill up with fuel, wax the hull. Jason really wants a bow sprit for the spinnaker so we will see if we can get something made. Then it's just wait for the wind to sort itself out.

Right now it looks like it may be good around the 25th November. Only problem is that from a nearby island there is a yacht rally (sort of a relaxed race) to the Caribbean - they will sail into St Lucia. The rally has 255 boats this year, all of which head out on the same day (same minute!) so it looks like there will be a bit of traffic out there - may have to pay a bit more attention than we are used to.

We will sail (well that's the plan) into Saint Marteen at the northern end of the Caribbean chain, hopefully all will go well and we will be able to get there without any problems. The trip should take around 18 days (SHOULD)!

J&J

Terrific to the Canary Islands

Four days of sitting in "Terrific" the forecast looked to be ok for a trip south down past Morocco to the Canary Islands.

The forecast was indicating that we should have high teens and low 20's in the wind department and seas should be "1-2m". Well for the first 5 hrs it was 30 knots, big seas again (mostly caused by the wind and current, but also because the water is only 100m deep, so it becomes a bit like a bath tub). After about 5hrs of this, things started to sort themselves out, wind backed off a little, and best of all the waves started to get some pattern to them.

As we went further south the wind became lighter, so the engine went on at times, other times theSpinnaker was up, but basically it was light. So what we thought would be a 3 day passage ended uptaking 4, it was calm so we were happy to plod along slowly. It's either too much or too light...

We arrived on Friday 9th November into one of the Islands called "Isla Graciosa" (for those of youwithmaps/charts or Goggle earth). We spent a few days there on anchor - it was an absolutely stunninganchorage and the surrounding volcanic landscape was a contrast to anything we had seen! We were happy to be out of the Med with it's crap winds and seas. We did a hike to the top of one of the volcano's - the true Aussie way, no map, no guide and thongs.. - and met a guy from Holland on the way - who seemed very stressed about which way to go to get to the top of the crater...and he had the map.....whatthe??? - "Mate, the top is upwards, not left or right, just up"!!! Anyway he tagged along with us andwe all climbed up the top where we were rewarded with stunning views, of the anchorage andLanzarote. It is just a moonscape of a landscape - Awesome.

The main town, if you can call it that, is made up of low white houses sitting in the sandy streets,no made roads, no traffic lights - no traffic. The only down side was there seemed to be a lot ofGermans, rather large ones stripping off their clothes and strutting along the beach. What is itwith Zi Germans and clothes... or lack there of?After spending 4 days in Graciosa we needed to get a wiggle on and head south to Lanazrote as we hadsome friends from "Ocean Breezes", a boat we sailed through the Pacific with in 2005, flying down from the UK for a visit.

More on Lanzarote soon......

J&J

Gibraltar to the Canary islands

On Thursday 1st November we left Gibraltar at the start of a "Levanter".

A Lavanter is an easterly wind that blows for about a week before turning to a light westerly. We thought we would hook onto this, get pushed out the Gibraltar Straits. Levanter winds can be quite strong, we came from Ibiza last year in a Levanter and it was bloody terrible - too much boat speed, big waves, and water everywhere!

When leaving Gib, you need to time it right. There is almost a constant inflow current of water from the Atlantic into the Med. So you need to leave when the current is at it's slowest, or if you are lucky on the rare occassion when it's heading out. We had the timing right. So off we went, to the fuel dock first then headed out the Straits. The plan was to head west until we were out in the Atlantic, then cross the shipping lanes and south to the Canary Islands.

Well man plans, God laughs!, our trip out was horrific, the wind is compressed through the straitsbetween Africa and mainland Europe, it quickly built up to 40 knots and then all hell broke loose!

So we are going through the Gibraltar Straits started with 20 knots, but as the wind is pushedbetween Africa and mainland Europe it gets squashed, like the water from the garden hose nozzle!,and yep builds quickly to about 40 knots, join this with a current heading the opposite direction and you get MASSIVE SHORT WAVES!, it was very scary - this even beats the Phillip Island trip back in 2005!

Jas was quite concerned, it was definately the worst sea we have ever seen. And the problem was that by the time we surfed down one, the next one was right behind, there was no gap - but Reverie did fantastic, Jo was holding back the tears, but must admit lost it a couple of times - she was sure the boat was going over. We had lifejackets on and harnesses! and waited for the big one to land on us.

Anyway we checked our chart and found a place that we could stop and sit it out - Tarifa, Spain -probably situated about at the neck of the Gib Straits. So we went around the point and waited for the wind to ease off (it took bloody 4 days!!!). We named it "Terrific" as as it was terrific to stop and wait the weather out......Anchored here we had a solid 30-35 knots, looks like time for some movies.

J&J