Puerto Rico (Gran Canaria) to Morro Jable (Fuerteventura)

Imagine Of Falmouth Online Log
Jon Constantine
Sun 19 Nov 2006 21:00

19th November 2006

Having spent an extra night in Puerto Rico we set sail again on our journey up to Lanzarote.  We decided to take it easy and just hop our way up the coast of Fuerteventura.  First stop Morro Jable, a local harbour with very limited facilities for yachts but the pilot book said there were some new pontoons for yachts although they had no water or electricity.  It’s also known to have very strong winds that come across the southern peninsular and funnel down into the harbour. 

The crossing was uneventful and all we saw was one turtle.  No dolphins or whales and we didn’t catch any tuna either!   We left the berth at 5am as planned for the journey as we wanted to arrive in daylight……

 

Our wish was not to be.  We had absolutely no wind and had to motor sail the whole way!  The wind was on the nose and ranged from a force 4 touching a 6 at times.  Definitely in the acceleration zone now.  What was really strange was that the closer we got to Fuerteventura the warmer the wind became.  Almost felt like someone had switched on a hair dryer!  Well out plans were dashed for arriving in daylight.  It was 21.00 by the time we finally got ourselves moored up and that was no easy task.  Firstly, we had trouble finding the entrance as the lights were not working ( no green light and the port light was white!!) I had to sit on the foredeck with a torch while shouting directions back to Jon, Ness & Ian.  We slowly made our way in and found the pontoons to the left, just as the wind started to pipe up. We then took several attempts at mooring up as most of the finger pontoons were either too shallow or didn’t have cleats on them!  By the 3rd attempt we found a pontoon in enough water and with enough cleats to enable us to moor up.  We also had the help of a catamaran who took our lines for us.

 

The wind continued to blow all night with gusts well over 30 knots at times.  We are up and down like yoyos checking the lines….. Luckily we didn’t get the Force 10 gusts that occasionally occur here as mentioned in the pilot book!

 

Today (Saturday) it is overcast and windy so we will stay here another night before heading up the east coast towards Lanzarote and our final destination at Marina Rubicon, near Playa Blanca, on the southern end of the island.

 

Hopefully the sun will come out soon.