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Canaries to Cape Verde (a race)

Canaries to Cape Verde (a race)

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Time for the longest crossing yet, the Canaries down to Cape Verde.

In theory, an easy crossing, as you should be able to follow the trade winds that run down the coast of Africa before they head across the Atlantic ocean. These are the same winds followed by Christopher Columbus and are well known.

And it was indeed fairly straightforward.

In terms of the sailing, we set off just before noon and an hour or so just motoring to get out of the lull to the south of the Island.

Blue Note left first, with us closely following behind. Extress needed to go to the harbor to fill up with water and they left roughly 1 hour after.

Blue Note, motoring in the lull

After that, we spent most of the first day on a broad reach while trying to stay in the shelter of La Gomera to avoid swell that was still hanging around in the Atlantic.

On the first evening, we switched to a run using our twin-head sail setup (1 Genoa & 1 Ghoster). We poled the ghoster out on our large spinnaker pole, while poling out the geno using the main boom.

We remained that way until the final day (day 6), when we switched back to a broad reach.

This was the first trip that we were sailing with other boats and tried to stay in VHF contact where possible. We all radioed each other on the first evening to compare positions, but at this stage we could all still see each other on AIS.

Both Blue Note and Extress had headed a little further west than us to start.

On the second day we could no longer see Blue note on AIS or reach them over the VHF. We managed to keep up daily communication with Extress reporting positions. The race was on!

Due to the position reports, we managed to roughly track where everyone was, and although we couldn’t talk to Blue Note or see them on AIS constantly, they seemed to pop up once a day so toward the start so we could also track their course.

In the map below, we are in green, Extress in orange and blue note in Blue.

(Yes we took this race very seriously)

During the last night, Extress crossed over our track and started to overtake us. We saw this coming, but didn’t want to change our sail plan in the middle of the night, so let it happen. This lead to Extress arriving 1 hour before us even though we were gaining on them at some points of the last day.

We arrived just after dark, but anchoring was made easy by a local guy called Jay who came over to us and directed us to a nice little spot on the far side of the anchorage.

Extress, who we had only spoken to over VHF, called us up to invite us over for drinks, so after a quick dinner, we headed over and met the 4 Extress crew as well as 2 from Danae, another dutch boat we had not yet met.

We had a few nice wildlife interactions on this crossing, with a bird coming and landing on deck for a little rest overnight. It found one of the only sheltered places on the foredeck, under the anchor windlass.

We also saw a group of whales chilling at the surface, possibly sleeping. They were only 10-20 meters away from us as we passed.

Once again, cool wildlife brings out the best squeaks from all of us.

Gran Canaria, Tenerife & La Gomera

Gran Canaria, Tenerife & La Gomera

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After Lanzarote & Fuerteventura we headed on to 3 more Canary Islands.

Gran Canaria

We did a night sail across to Gran Canaria, arriving in the early morning, which lead to some lovely views around the busy port.

The anchorage here is attached to the marina, and thus you have to pay a small fee just to anchor. The small fee is only a couple of euros, and this is great in comparison to some anchorages in the UK such as Salcombe that require you to pay around £15 a night to anchor near the river mouth…

We didn’t have lots planned from Gran Canaria, but generally explored, relaxed and ate some tasty food.

On one of our trips to land, we spotted the boat Magic of Bermuda whom we had previously met in Gibraltar. We ended up spending most of the day aboard Magic chatting, drinking tea, and telling stories. On the dock, we also met a French couple looking for a lift to Tenerife, and we decided to pickup our first hitchhikers.

The ARC leaves from this marina in Gran Canaria, so the marina was extremely busy with ARC boats.

Another little tradition of the ARC is boats painting rocks on the breakwater before they leave.

We had a very peaceful night sail to Tenerife with our 2 new friends. They cooked, we sailed. One of them, unfortunately, got a little seasick, but a good sleep out on deck helped them out. They were planning on taking part in a residential art project starting the next week in Tenerife, where they sail across the Atlantic on a catamaran and create art (a project run by @circusspacepirates)

Tenerife

We stopped off in Tenerife, dropping off our 2 hitchhikers. Our next guest was also going to be arriving in while we were here. The plan was for them to join us down to Cape Verde and then across the Atlantic.

As soon as Gareth arrived we sent him straight up the mast!

On the whole, Tenerife was another short stop off, where we restocked on Gas, food and did some final maintenance before setting off on what would be our longest crossing yet in the next weeks.

La Gomera

The sail to La Gomera was once again a night sail, but this time with 3 crew, meaning we could try with just a single shift each on watch.

Here we met up with SV Blue Note who we had planned to sail from the Canaries to Cape Verde with us in a little race, and they had also joined another Dutch boat called Extress who would also leave on the same day.

The story that we have to tell for La Gomera is the afternoon we nearly stole another boat’s anchor!!!

But that’ll come in the next post!

Lanzarote & Fuerteventura

Lanzarote & Fuerteventura

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As you may be able to tell, we have fallen quite behind with our blog posts, we have just been having far too much fun and doing too many longer crossings.

We are currently in Barbados having just celebrated Christmas in an Airbnb!

But enough about what’s happening now, time to jump back and catch up!

You can already read about our adventure to the Canaries from Tarifa, exploring the first island, and hopping down to Lanzarote, and that’s where this post will start, exploring the Canaries.

Lanzarote

From the marina in Puerto Calero we hired a car to explore Lanzarote. Apparently, all hire cars here are hybrid Fiat 500s.

We headed to one of the main island tourist attractions (the volcano and park) to get our first volcano experiences of the trip.

There were hot water jets, volcanic ovens which cooked food you could eat in the restaurant, burning of wood, not gravel etc.

For some of us, this included a little flashback to our childhood, having visited the island before.

While exploring the Island we spotted a Decathalon and finally bought something we have been thinking about for some time… a SUP!

(It’s going to be getting quite some usage in the future)

Fuerteventura

On the way to Fuerteventura we saw a very nice-looking Risso dolphin or 2.

We ended up in a cheap marina recommended by our friends on SV Blue Note called Grand Tarajal.

Though generally sunny, one evening we got our first real thunderstorms here since setting off from the UK. The lightning was all in the distance and we managed to get a few nice pictures.

From the marina, we got a local bus up the coast to a town with a resort and hired another car, once again a Fiat 500, and started exploring the island some more.

We headed to the northwest coast to find some surf to try out our new SUP.

And you know what they always say, the best car for unpaved road exploration is a hire car. And that car is a Fiat 500!!! The video below doesn’t do the whole journey justice, and some parts felt like true offroading.

After a 30-minute bumpy ride which nearly caused us to turn around twice, we found ourselves at a lovely beach (and also saw that the northerly route might have been a little easier drive).

The SUP was a “Medium” Itiwit Inflatable Stand Up Paddle SUP (Length: 9′ (274.5 cm) Width: 33.1″ (84 cm) Thickness: 4.9″ (12.5 cm)), one of the surfiest looking SUP they had in Decathlon when we bought it. Also with 232 liters of buoyancy, it should be floaty enough for both of us to use to paddle to shore in the future.

It was quite a bit of fun…

This beach also had a great set of rocks which included a little pool of warm water that got the occasional wave into it.

And horses!

Thanks, Fuerteventura, you were great!

Hop down to Puerto Calero, Lanzarote

Hop down to Puerto Calero, Lanzarote

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Fully recovered from what ended up being a long, slightly swell-themed sail, we started heading down the coast of Lanzarote.

We hadn’t visited a marina in almost 3 weeks, so really wanted a decent shower. Puerto Calero looked a good distance away and could be a good starting point for getting to Fuerteventura. So off we went

This was mostly an easy downwind sail, with a little rain to start…

We called the marina on VHF 9, they quickly responded and said we could stay for 2 nights.

First, they had us moor on the fuel pontoon to fill out paperwork.

Before then moving to one of the most expensive accidents waiting to happen (between 2 million pound catamarans) alongside the pontoon.

Fortunately, we pulled off a smooth docking without a hitch.

Kathryn was still crazing pizza, as we didn’t find one in La Graciosa, so this was top of our list.

There was a little place called MargaRita on the other side of the marina, and the pizza there was truly amazing.

La Graciosa

La Graciosa

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After a day of recovery from our rather long crossing (we mainly lay around, sleeping eating and watching TV), we headed to shore to wonder around the Volcanic island.

First, we headed up the closest volcano-like thing, where we got a great view of our part of the island, nearby beaches and anchorage.

We then headed to the north shore to see the breaking waves and the few people surfing them.

The north shore also had many rock pools with all kinds of sea life in them.

The most interesting of which was a collection of hermit crabs all trying to get in line to swap shells. We watched for quite some time, but none of them could decide which one should take the new larger shell that they had found.

There was also a self righting sea snail.

Kathryn was craving pizza, so we headed to the main town of the island in search. There was a pizza place on Google maps that should have been open, but sadly not.

We ended up at the popular local restaurant where we had black squid ink paella.

The walk back to the anchorage took around 20-30 minuites and was lit by moonlight.

We spent much of the rest of our time in this anchorage snorkeling around. The water was so clear and warm we could see to the bottom with ease and didn’t need a wetsuit.

This also gave us an opportunity to dive on our anchor to see how close to the rocks we were.

Tarifa to the Canaries

Tarifa to the Canaries

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After waiting out all of the wind, we were finally ready to set off across the Gibraltar straight to our next destination.

We hadn’t decided if we were going to stop at Tangier or not, as we had heard from some friends that it was going to be full, so also had a plan to head all the way to Rabat.

Not long after setting off we quickly got the rod out as Kathryn saw a giant tuna leaping out of the sea. Within a few minutes, there was a bite, and we spent the next 15 minutes (it felt like) reeling in our catch whilst underway.

A tuna! Our first catch since northern Spain (we think).

As we approached Tangier we saw a whole bunch of boats leaving. This was the moment that we started re-evaluating weather options as well as considering how long customs can take in Morocco.

Rather than stop in Tangier, as we were a week behind our plan, we decided to keep going to either Rabat, Essaouira or the Canaries.

Very quickly we found ourselves 3 days into a 5-day sail.

Throughout our sail along the coast of northern Morocco, there was quite a lot of sand in the air, making everything very hazy, kind of like fog.

The weather dropped and shifted, making it look unlikely we could make it to the Canaries before getting caught in the worst of some horrible swell. As the weather continued to develop we were weighing up Essaouira, Agadir or Lanzarote. Also, playing in the sea 😉

The wind shifted back to something more desirable, as we went for it, all the way to Lanzarote!

While talking about how we might be able to go faster with the wind almost directly behind us, we realized that we had not yet used the mizen staysail.

It’s meant for use when the wind is from the beam to almost dead behind the boat, so perfect!

We spent some time figuring out how to hoist it for the first time, and up it went.

We kept the mizen staysail up for at least 1 day, and it managed to keep our average speed at above 6knots. Epic!

This was the point where we saw a large navy ship behind us. Adam also realized that we weren’t listening on channel 16 (we had switched to listen to some weather, but never heard the broadcast).

Upon switching back to channel 16, the navy ship was hailing us (they might have been for some time…).

They wanted to know the details of the boat, how many people were aboard, and if we had any kids of pets. After a lovely little VHF conversation, they said to have a nice sail and then continued on past us.

The wind and swell continued to build, the staysail came down, and we continued the rest of the sail with a reefed main and a working gib.

In the last 12 hours the swell was probably somewhere between 2 and 3 meters, and quite mixed up. There was a primary swell from the north at 2-2.7m, but also some other swell from somewhere east or south ish that made things quite interesting…

The worst of this came at night, but here is a short video from the daytime before, where we capture the swell size quite well we think.

We came in between Lanzarote and the northern island of La Graciosa at about 5am on Saturday, before getting to our anchorage at 6am ish.

The moon was quite full, but unfortunately obscured by clouds so it was quite dark.

The anchorage was full of boats, but we snuck around all of them right to the front next to the beach and dropped anchor in what we hoped was sand according to the satellite view. We held well and headed for some well-deserved sleep! (pictures of where our anchor landed coming in the next post)

Overall our track looked something like this!