Back in Lanzarote 28 55.057N 13 42.094W
Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Sat 8 Feb 2020 10:49
But we were not, repeat not, in a hurry. The weather was good, sunny every day and the sea state was smooth, albeit with a long low powerful swell from the north west, no doubt created by one or more of the named storms which have been sweeping across the northern Atlantic. Nevertheless, our daily mileage always exceeded 100 miles, meaning we averaged over 4 knots, in about 7 knots of wind.
There were, of course, a couple of events. One was getting our lazily turning towing generator caught up in a fishing net, 50 miles off the Moroccan coast. Fortunately, though it happened at night time, the wind was very light....on the verge of the point where we would pull in the generator line anyway, as it produces more drag than power at below 4 knots. The rather benign event alerted us to the likelihood that we would encounter more nets, and indeed we avoided two more sets in the 24 hours that followed.
Next, passing to the east of the Atlas mountains, but about 60 miles out to sea, we encountered thick fog....presumably created as the south easterly breeze, having cooled, passing over the mountains, came into contact with the sea, with its average temperature of 18 or 19 degrees. By midday, the fog burned off, sometimes extraordinarily quickly, changing in a few seconds from nil visibility to several miles.
On the penultimate evening, we found ourselves 60 miles to the north east of Lanzarote, when the wind piped up to around 13 knots and P picked up her skirts and bowled towards the island at over 7 knots.
This was followed by a lovely morning sail, down the east coast of the island and arrival here in Calero at midday.
Its warm here. Though we have each contracted heavy coughs, possibly from our taxi driver for the days drive from the desert to Fez....so an early priority was to seek a remedy from the pharmacy in the marina. It’s not coronavirus, currently raging in China, but nevertheless a very tough infection to shift....
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