Our position tonight is

28 07 71N 015 25 54W

in the marina at Las Palmas Gran Canaria along with another 230 boats getting ready to set sail on Sunday .

well hello to everyone and a great welcome back to the blog of

normangthethird

on what I am sure will be a very very great safe adventure across the pond to St Lucia in the Caribbean a trip of some 2700 natuical miles at an average speed of 5 miles an hour so it should take us anything from 16 to 23 days depending on the wind

we will take a route south from Las Palmas for a day or two then head down towards the Cape Verde islands and when our butter starts melting or we pick up the north easterly trade winds ( thats from the north east) we will head west for about 1000 miles until we reach land. there is a quicker route but we are not aiming to break any records -- or anything else I hope -- and arrive safe and sound and happy.

I will write a blog every day and try to keep you uptodate with our progress and also all the little things that happen on board and also the sanity or otherwise of the team memebers

team normangthethird (from now on ng3) consists of
me MG
James skip
Jaosn J
and anthony Golly


between us we have a wide range of skills and seem to complement each other

James is nice and calm in fact hes so laid back he'll almost fall over
J is normally calm but at the moment seems a little preoccupied with leaving the kids and Lucy at home
Golly who is always upbeat but seems to not to really know where we are going
and me who really knows very little but has all the skills necessary to give the impression that I know whats going on!



Im already a little worried

Today I though I would just write a very short message to say hi to everyone we know, we are all fine, missing everyone and to say dont worry well be back soon but --------



I went out to try to uy some carpet for the floor on the inside of the boat . When we are at sea the boat can roll all over the place ,even 30% each way, so its important to protect the floor so that anything thats dropped doesnt smash. I travelled over 30km south to try to find a carpet shop but there were none as everyone here has either wooden or stone floors. I went into 4 shopping centres , one of which turned out to be the Las Palmas Marine park and eventually ended upo in the Gran Canary equivalent of Homebase-- Leroy Merlin

At the back in the corner was a little section selling flooring and in the corner of the corner was a roll of rubber matting which i thought would do the job perfectly. Being useless at DIY I bought 4m by 2 m and returned to the boat with this and a roll of carpet as well.

After 10 minutes of the journey back in the car I was nearly overcome by the stench of rubber and had to pull over and open the windows and the doors to let fresh air in to the car. It wa terrible a smell so srtong it made me feel nauseous.. Anyway I returned to the boat and got Skip to come and get the flooring and take it to the boat.

After parking the car I returned to the boat to find J and Golly working together on repairing a door and getting along really well-- J with a chisel and hacksaw and Golly with a torch in his left hand and his mobile in his right talkinf to his wife about the washing machine

I explained what I wanted doing with the rubber and the carpet and then went off to find another boat owner to try to get their email address.When i found him he offered me a wine so I stayed slightly longer than I thought and completely forgot about the crew

40 minutes later i hurried back to the boat and jumped aboard and saw no sign of anyone. I shouted out but no answer and so poked my head down the stairs and was shocked. There on the floor of the saloon was skip j and golly all very close to each other on all fours on top of the rubber matting heads together giggling like school girls.. What on earth was going on. They hadn't heard me so I just listened.
" Dont worry golly" said J "I think it will fit!"
" No " said skip " let me have a go first! "
golly said "Look ive never done this before so ill just do as im d" ---- enough is enough I thought so I coughed loudly and shouted hello.
. Startled they all looked up and J with a stanley knife in his hand said they were fitting the rubber matting down the stairs and around the table !!!
Really--- ill keep you informed.
Three weeks at sea who knows
Sickly to me was the smell of rubber to but to other people who knows?

Anyway tomorrow is just a rest day to get us ready for the off so ill write a bit more about the trip

Today we want to say hello to Olivia Harvey Alexander Natasha Ossie Oliver Millie Elliott baby Ben and Jack the cat!


Until tomorrow sleep tight

MG