Blog Comeback - Gib to Lanza with Marcel
34:42N 7:58W
I haven't done a blog for ages, because, well, I couldn't be bothered.
Sorry. But just mooching about the med all summer, who wants to hear about
that? We went to Ibiza and south of france. But you all know what the med
is like, and the most worrying thing each day is "Will it be OK if we don't
leave a massive tip, or even any tip at all?" And of course, it always is.
Mojomo is off again on its regular trundles across towards the carib for
winter. Nice Bridget on another boat White Rose asked if it gets boring
crossing twice a year, and I said no it never gets boring. Although the
dolphins become a bit hohum. Although the *were* dolphins around the boat
yesterday evening - I tossed a football to them and a few of them
back-flipped it between themselves and then headed it back on board! Well,
actually I made that up. In fact, the dolphins just swam about and did a few
easy jumps. Rubbish.
We left Gibraltar yesterday after their National Day (sept 10th) . National
day in Gib quite god fun. Instead of getting hammered on cheap drinks as
per most others days in gib, *everyone* gets dressed in red and white, and
then gets hammered on cheap drinks.
True to form, the wind at Tarifa was exactly double the forercast for Gib,
maxing out at 42knot gusts. And yet again, Mojomo had rather to much sail
up. I noticed a few other boats heading the same direction pulling sail
down as we pulled up the gennaker, and heard at least one on the radio
shouting "reef!" as we charged out into the Atlantic at 10-12knots SOG,
eventually surfing at 19knots and also eventually (as usual) having a
slightly bad time getting the sail down. I got blisters and cramp in my
hands with handsteering fast downwind.
Wind completely down now, in fact a little bit on the nose as we move from
med area to join Portuguese trades from the north. Yeah, okay, we're
motoring.
I have just one crew besides me, Marcel, who is French. He came to Mojomo
last year for a week in the leewards/windwards south to north. Vair nice
chap. I toldim a couple of months ago that I'd be setting off on sept 11th
from gib and due for liftout in calero (lanzarote) on the morning of
Wednesday 15th. Cept he's booked his flight out at 9am on the 15th. Not
to worry, only a Ryanair flight probably cost fourpence.
Marcel is pretty good at English. But he wanted to nail down the fine
difference between things being "wet" or "damp" or "moist". He asked which
word would apply to the old biscuits, and i toldim "soggy" which didn't help
much. And then there was some spray from waves - he said didn't get really
wet, just moist. Hm, still some work needed i think...
So partly to catch his flite (and get the liftout weds am) we're motoring
with both engines against 6knots of wind, although the main swell is from
behind, from north or north-west.
I gotta say Hi to Mandie (and mike on Tengy, and dave and sarah and beth and
bryn on Cape, paul and hilary on Pax) who stopped off in Barbate, i think.
Bet they've got some wind there eh? We've got none at all, darnit...
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