Date                Thursday 28 October 2010    

North East trade winds in the Canaries last until late October when they become more variable and that is what they did last night.  Firstly the wind died and then it came up from the south.  We are anchored, as are the other boats around us in 18 metres or so with 65m of chain out.  Wind changes can therefore produce an interesting rearrangement of the anchorage.  Our anchor alarm, which monitors movement above a set distance, went off with each change as we moved about, not good for a nights rest.  Everything however held perfectly and we awoke to bright sunshine and 25knots, Force 6, of warm wind blowing through the anchored yachts.

We have spent the day at rest recovering from the last few days sailing and will probably stay here for a further 2 days getting some jobs done before sailing the last 120nm to Las Palmas.  I would like to scrub the boats bottom, in preparation for the Atlantic crossing, and the clean waters of the anchorage are preferable to the murky waters of a marina – where it would not get done.

On a really positive note our two wind generators have enjoyed the wind and with the solar panels have for both of the last two days returned the batteries to a 100% charge without any requirement to use the generator.  The downside is that we have not produced any warm water and judging from the noises coming from the shower the Mate has just found this out – oh dear, time for a gin!