Ground Rush

Kirofbrixham
Wed 8 Oct 2008 16:10
Atlantic Adventure - Part 1 - Day 4. Position 30:21.706N 012:54.733W
 
We are now a couple of hours into day 5 and the ground rush of arrival has begun.  Lists of things to do when we get to Las Palmas are being written and the e-mail announcing our impending arrival to the ARC team has been dispatched.  But we still have 200 miles to go.
 
Over the last 24 hours we have been blessed with a following breeze of varying intensity, between F3 and F5.  This allowed us to put on good mileage with the minimum use of the engine.  We are not using the wind driven self steering gear, the Hydrovane, because the bimini interferes with it, so we are using the electric autopilot.  That, together with the fridge means that we are using more electricity than the solar panel and the wind generator can produce.  The net result is we have to run the engine for a few hours each day to top up the batteries.  I am writing this in just such an interlude.
 
Alongside the good breeze there has also been some wildlife interest (and no I don't mean Ian and Richard fresh from the shower).  Aside from the sea birds that have always been around we had a brief encounter with 3 or 4 small dolphins.  I would guess that they were Common Dolphins but I'm not sure - about 1m long.  Later, in amongst all of the waves and spume, I spotted a whale 'blowing'.  Again, we're not sure what species it was but it was something over 10m in length and was cruising north about 150m away on our starb'd side.  As we are cruising south the encounter with one of natures gentle giants was all too brief.
 
Back to the ground rush.  We are now just 64nm from the nearest point in the Canaries, a small island off the tip of Lanzarote.  We should pass 20nm to the west of it at about 0100 tomorrow 9/10.  Our passage then takes us parallel with the west coasts of Lanzarote and Fuengirola before our destination of Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.
 
Before we get there, the weather forecast indicates we can expect winds up to F7.  This has its positives and negatives.  On the plus side it means we will be moving relatively quickly.  On the downside it means sleep is difficult to get in choppy, rolling conditions. If all goes to expectations we should arrive in Las Palmas sometime between 1800 and 2359 on Thursday 9/10.  The forecast for Friday is for gale force (F8+) winds so we are keen to get in on Thursday (so much for all that philosophy yesterday!).
 
We can't smell land yet, we can't even see its effects in the sky but we know it is close now.