15.34N 56.08W Monday 7th December
Ca Canny
Mon 7 Dec 2009 12:51
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Hello Blogg readers !
Here we are with less than 300 miles to go and
currently travelling at 7.7 knots which will put us into port local time
tomorrow in time for some Rum Punch.
It`s been an epic journey for me (Paul) that
started in June with taking CaCanny from Dunstaffinage marina (Oban) round to
Arbroath for some preparation for the trip.
Alan and I have sailed almost 5,000 miles since
then at a pace a London Marathan runner would be proud of !
There have been many highs on the way down and a
couple of Lows that you have read about in the Blogg as we have come
down.
We have been to some fantastic places on the way
down and met some good new friends on the way.
Our good fortunes started in Inverness where we Met
John Rushworth who helped us with out sattelliute telephone and Internet
connection that has enabled us to keep in touch on the trip. John has been
keeping tabs on us these last weeks and has provided us with the positions of
other yachts so we can keep track of our positions.
In Ireland we met Kenny at Kilmore Quay who turned
out to not only be a good samaratan by taking us to the airport at 5am for us to
fly home but ended up coming with us from Ireland right down to
Portugal!
The two real downers on the trip are obviously the
loss of our Parasailer in the middle of the Atlantic but our unfortunate contact
with a company called Blue Water Algarve based at Portamaio that did numerous
botched repairs to the yacht that have caused us numerous problems and we are
not ruling out the failure of the Parasailor Halliard to be down to them also.
The Water maker was amongst many of the things that they repaired and as you
will have read on the 3rd day of our crossing, this let us down with the same
fault that they should have repaired which if I had not been able to mend myself
underway would have seen us with very little water to get across with.
There are three places that I have been to on the
trip that I would like to return with Mandy. The first being Ireland -
everywhere we stopped on the way down was a breath of fresh air and we enjoyed
meeting the locals and seeing the sights.
La Corona on the northern coast of Spain was a
really great place. Having crossed Biscay in 4 nights and 3 days we arrived at
La Corona i n the middle of the night and stayed there for 2 days. The town was
a hive of activity with street restaurants and hundreds of people dining and
drinking out - the place was alive !
Another place we will return to is Puerto Calero -
a beautifull harbour and holiday town near the airport at Arrecife. We met Mary
Ellen there after sailing down from Portugal and then spent a week sailing from
there to Las Palmas calling at Fuerteventura on the way.
Las Palmas - what a dump !!!!! we spent a week and
a half there and none of us wants to go back ! The ARC organisers were great and
the facilities were good but when it came to restaurants - we didn`t find 1 in
all that time that we enjoyed !
At Las Palmas, we were rafted along side John and
Julie with Amazing Grace. John was a great help to us with repairs that we
needed to do to CaCanny and we owe him many thanks for this and also to Julie
who looked after us with a splendid curry and our washing !!!!!
The trip across the Atlantic has been a challenge
to say the least. Getting into a routine for the night watches was easy as Alan
decided from day 1 that we would all do the same shift for the entire trip
instead of different watches which proved a very good idea as we quickly got
into a sleep pattern and the watches became the norm. Jamis has done the first
watch from 7 till 10 each night which to be honest is not much of a shift as we
spent most evenings all in the cockpit watching DVD`s ! My shift was 10 - 1,
Alan 1 - 4 and Marc 4 - 7 when Jamie comes back on and does till
10am.
The days have passed in a blur of eating, playing
cards and snoozing with the occasional bit of sailing in between whilst we take
it in turns to watch the helm / sails and adjust things according to the wind.
The Parasailor took quite a lot of looking after but since the loss the sailing
has become easier and requires less of an effort.
The weather has got warmer and warmer as we
travelled across the pond - today is 30 degrees which has become the norm - it
is strange to talk to Mandy and Zoe to be told that it is cold and snowing at
home when we are basking in sunshine untill 8pm in the evenings.
With less than 2 full days and less than 300 miles
now to go we are all wanting to get there sooner rather than later. To be honest
we knew the race was lost when we lost the Parasailor but we secretly hope that
we will finish in a respectable position and if we could get there before
Amazing Grace - Jamie would do cartwheels all the way down the dock
!!!!!
We owe Alan a big Thank you for giving us this
opportunity and will remember the experience for the rest of our
lives.
Hope I havn`t bored you all with this Blogg - time
now for a coffee.
Looking forward to seeing Mandy and Zoe in St Lucia
this weekend.
Regards,
Paul.
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