It has been awhile since the last blog.   We spent three nights sailing form Gib to the Canaries.  Loads of fun in Gib’ as there were three other 55’ Discoveries in the Marina and the Discovery ‘After Care Team’ were there when we arrived.  Pre dinner drinks on board to start and then on to dinner, following night were were all on board one of the other yachts for drinks before dinner.  The Discovery team were great and very helpful.  Mark, the project Manager came on board and started sorting out a few problems we had and has solved some of them the rest will be dealt with in the Canaries.  

First photo  is of the moon when it was closest to earth and just after it had a full eclipse, it kept me well occupied and fascinated on my watch from 4 - 7 am.

On our first night out, sailing from Gib to the Canaries we were caught up in an unlit fishing net, fortunately the fishing boat was near and launched a dingy which helped set us free, much yelling and chatter in Moroccan.  Ashame for them and could have been a big problem for us.  Most of the nets were lit going down the coast with strobe lights so we were able to keep well away from them.

We had a brilliant sail the first night but sadly the last two nights we had to motor sail in dead calm, mill pond, sea.

Having arrived in Puerto Calero, a lovely marina, we sorted out the yacht, did the laundry cleaned on and below decks. The following day we rented a car and went to visit the house of the famous artist Cesar Manrique.  He was very influenced by Miro and Picasso.  I preferred his architecture to his paintings.  He was locally born and brought up and the volcanic forms had a lot of influence on his art.  I, personally, loved his bathroom which was very much indoor/outdoor look with just a conservatory dividing the two.  He died in a car accident when he was in his 60s.  He had a brilliant theme of making architecture blend with the landscape even digging into the volcanic flows to find ‘bubbles’ pockets of air to make into underground rooms and using nature as the main theme of his building.

The ‘LEGS’ appearing in one photo are that of Mark who was trying to find the source of a squeak we have in the steering.  I also spent an hour there listening, have a feeling it is plastic/rubber on plastic\rubber as it gives the same sound, but cannot figure out where it is coming from.  All I know is that it is right near my pillow!!  It will be solved with investigation, I know and hope…..

We are now in Rubicon, again a lovely marina with great facilities and will be here until tomorrow night before we do a night sail to Las Palmas and lay up the yacht before heading back to the UK for a few weeks.