Going Tropical...

We had a great Christmas here in Gran Tarajal.  I think the picture below sums up the atmosphere!

Christmas tortilla!

It’s taken a while to decide on our next step.  The bad weather we experienced on the way to Madeira had caused some trepidation about undertaking still longer passages, so we were seriously considering cruising the Canaries until spring before heading to the Azores and homewards.  But I can all too easily imagine looking back and regretting not going further.  In terms of conditions, we should have done the hardest part now.  If we continue along the established Atlantic route, now we’re so far south, there’s every chance that we’ll have downwind passages with much steadier winds and seas. That’s the theory, anyway!

The Canaries - interesting as they are - don’t really provide great cruising.  There aren’t many good anchorages, meaning lots of time in marinas.  It’s warm, but not properly hot - the temperature is pleasant but it still gets quite chilly in the evenings (a state of affairs which is clearly unacceptable).  Even more critically, the Canaries just don’t feel exotic.  Limbo, I think, yearns for flying fish, white-sand beaches, tropical rain (in moderation), reggae and coconut trees. Perhaps even some limbo.

So, we’ve decided to continue to the Cape Verdes and – all being well – on across the Atlantic.  This has meant several days of relatively hectic preparation to get the boat ready.  My main job was installing a new water tank to give us enough capacity for the transatlantic.  Natalie’s been making a companionway flap to keep heavy rain out without needing the washboards and sewing a Cape Verdes courtesy flag!   We’ve also got some new blocks and sheets to set up a proper downwind rig.  And we've done huge amounts of grocery shopping, not counting on being able to get much except fruit and vegetables in Mindelo.

Sewing a rain flap for the companionway

Chaos below as we stock up..stowage for long passages is not easy on a 26 footer!

The passage to the Cape Verdes is around 900 miles, which we’d hope to do in 8 or 9 days.  As time is getting on we’re only planning to spend a few days in Mindelo (depending, as always, on how we feel. After all, we thought we were going to stay in Gran Tarajal for about 4 days and we’ve been here 3 weeks!).  Hopefully we’ll be off in a couple of days - watch this space!

Happy Christmas!

We’re spending Christmas in Gran Tarajal in the south of Fuerteventura, after hopping down via Lanzarote.  It’s a small beach town with a local feel to it – not an Irish pub or Daily Mail reader in sight! It’s a shame that the Canaries have acquired their budget package-holiday image, as that hasn’t been our experience at all so far. It’s easy enough to avoid the tourist enclaves, and the landscape is impressive.
 

Gran Tarajal beach front

The friendly town, only a few minutes’ walk from the harbour, has a chandler's (hoorah!), decent supermarkets and bakeries, a good beach and swimming, and lots of fantastically imaginative murals livening up the white-washed buildings (I shall try to put some photos of these up soon).  We saw an impressive nativity play a couple of nights ago, made more realistic for being staged among the palm trees, although the donkey was uncooperative..

La Graciosa

We were faced with the choice of leaving Madeira with a good northerly wind, but the probability of a 3-4m swell, or waiting until the seas calmed down to a reasonable level but risking a windless passage.  We chose the latter, delaying another day.  We’d enjoyed getting to know Ed and his daughter Heather on Aardvarc, an Arcona 40 they were basing in Madeira for a while, and he kindly gave me a lift to the local garage where I invested in two extra jerry cans of diesel, which were to prove invaluable.

Sunset, last night out

We’d thought about sailing straight to Tenerife (the western Canaries are greener and sound more interesting), but Cain and April emailed us from Graciosa and it sounded wonderful – particularly as we wanted to spend some time at anchor. Graciosa is a tiny island across a narrow strait separating it from Lanzarote, and is meant to be one of the best anchorages in the whole of the Canaries. We’d been slightly put off by permit requirements: you’re meant to apply for an anchoring permit at least ten working days in advance of arrival, with exact dates, and the process for booking a berth in the nearby marina was just as unworkable, involving faxing through several documents with apparently little chance of hearing whether you’d been successful. Fortunately, it sounded as if no-one was checking!

We're off!

We're finally leaving Funchal today, heading for Graciosa.  We're not expecting much wind at all so it could be a slow passage; but we have enough fuel to motor most of it if necessary.. It should take about three days.

Follow our progress at:  http://my.yb.tl/sailinginlimbo