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.