All hands on deck!

Blue Beyond , The adventure begins.
Mark and Maxine Frost
Tue 9 Dec 2008 22:13
Well we had a very gracefull departure from the Marina in Gran Canaria , to squeeze almost 240 boats out all in one piece was a bit of excellent manovoring by all . We decided to stay away from the start line to avoid colliding with anyone only to be rounded up by the port police ( again, Blue Beyond had a reputation of egaging police attention!)and sent back towards the fleet. We were all very excited and nervous as well , this is a big voyage .By 2 pm and with the sails all nicely trimmed and the pole out my 4 boys tucked into a hearty lunch of thick ham ,cheeseand salad sandwiches , I need them to start eating as we have the whole of the Canarian export load of fruit and veg on board , at the moment the smell of lemons and fruit is lovely but what happens whenit starts to go mouldy? we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it !
our first night was calm with no mishaps and lovely to see all the boats still around , all of the crew havw now caught up on their sleep after all the partying of the last few weeks and we are looking forward to getting into a routine , Ray is playng is saxaphone as I write!