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