Arrived in Las Palmas 28:07.735N 15:25.547W
Gaviota
Sun 11 Nov 2007 10:04
We arrived at Muelle Deportivo, the marina in Las
Palmas, yesterday about 2pm. We're tightly berthed on a pontoon with many
other ARC boats of a similar size and will stay here for the next 2 weeks until
we depart with the ARC on Sunday 25 November.
You can contact us on our normal mobile phones
(please remember we pay for you calling us as well !) and we'll check our emails
every couple of days or so.
We had a good journey from Lanzarote:
as we estimated it would be a 10 hour journey we decided overnight to
arrive early afternoon would be best, so on Friday we sunbathed and had
dinner at an anchorage at Lobos island just off Lanzarote then motored off
after dinner. There was just enough wind to sail after we'd got round the
northern tip of Fuerteventura, but the rolling motion made it quite difficult
for the off-watch person to sleep, and Annabel hadn't slept at all during her
first off-watch due to the engine noise as well. Otherwise a very quiet
night with only a few passing ships. About 7am Annabel noticed
what she calls a 'frigatey thing' coming towards us, so dropped the sail
and motored round the back of it, having seen notices on the Navtex that there
was shooting practice in the vicinity of the Canaries. It was actually
escorting a very large ship, probably a supertanker, into or through the
Canaries.
It was a bit hazy, so we didn't see Las Palmas
until we got within 10 miles at midday. It's a big, busy port with a
drilling rig in for repair or something and lots of other huge ships. We
motored in accross the harbour to the marina, checked in to get our berth and
filled up one and a half tanks of diesel (due to doing so much motoring on the
way down from Gib).
Jerry the Rigger was doing one of his rigging
inspections on the boat next door to us, so after he'd finished he did ours,
which was 'free' with the new boat insurance - all ok, except for the Radar
aerial which was loose, but should have been fixed by Sheppards when they
checked and updated some of the rigging in July !
As above, we'll be here for the next 2 weeks; there
are ARC seminars and evening parties most nights, but you should be able to get
hold of us if you want to and we'll be in touch as normal. We probably
won't update this diary again until we leave on 25 November.
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