Chaser ll
Chaser 2
Yvonne Chapman
Sun 1 Oct 2006 10:41
In the beginning: Yvonne
and myself lived in Spain with our 3 children for the past 14 years. Susie 26
now moved back to UK living with her boyfriend Billy, Rob
28, building spec houses on the Costa Blanca under RandRspain.com and
James 30 working for the Americas Cup team in Valencia.
We bought Chaser ll in
2003 a Hunter 44DS and James brought her from Gosport to Spain in
January 2004.
Yvonne and myself
have sailed around the Spanish Islands during the past 3 summers but
wanted to spend more time afloat and go further a field in the Med.
So like many of our plans, we decided to go to the Caribbean. As it's our first
ocean crossing so we decided to go with the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers)
like many, we felt happier with their support and advice.I stopped working in
May 2006, we moved aboard Chaser and started preparing her and ourselves
for the voyage.
We said our emotional
goodbyes and departed Calpe, our home port on 26th August,
we stopped a couple of nights in Almerimar, then on (after catching
an amazing Swordfish) to Ceuta , prior to passing through the Straits of
Gibraltar en-route to Lanzarote. We checked several weather sites
before leaving Ceuta, all said East 4-6 apart from one which gave E 7-8. So we
departed, sods law had the oddball forecast correct so our first taste of the
Atlantic was a steady Force 8 - 9 with a following sea. Chaser handled it
better than we did, I took a couple of photos of the surf blowing across
the crests of the waves but of course they look like a sunny afternoon
in the Solent.We arrived in Marina Rubicon, Lanzarorte, on 7th
September, where I am writing this now. Yvonne's brother and wife live on
their boat Aries with their daughter Sophie, here in the
Marina so together with them and Hannu and Tina (another ARC boat we
met in Ceuta) we had a welcoming committee ready to take our lines. I must just
say that Marina Rubicon is probably the best marina we've been to. The
spacing is good, facilities are excellent and the staff and marineros are
so friendly and helpful.We are here for another couple of weeks then we'll move
on to Gran Canaria to do our final preps. I'll check in again
later. --------- Phil and Yvonne Skipper and only Mate (and
not necessarily in that
order)
