28:23.51N 13:51.37W

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 10^th, 11^th & 12^th November

Wednesday was spent getting some planned jobs done using spares and items purchased whilst we were back in the UK last month. Sarah also went aloft in the bosun’s chair firstly to attach the new SSB radio aerial stand-off blocks that I had made, on the back stay and then up the main mast to do a thorough rigging inspection. The backstay operation also involved her removing a nylon block with a small hacksaw and all went well until the very last part when she did an excellent job of sawing into one of her fingers. We lowered her to the deck and after treating the wound with several steristrips and cups of coffee all round, she went back up and finished the job.

Somehow the day slipped away and it did not help that the weather is very odd with blazing sunshine interspersed with rain which was definitely not in the brochure.

On Thursday the plan was to go for a day sail and return to the marina in the evening, but when we got up to find huge black clouds swirling around the island we had a little change of heart and decided to get the last of the bigger jobs finished instead!

One of these involved modifying the bracket on which we store the outboard engine on the pushpit rail. We devised a cunning plan to make this work better and to make it stronger but like all such projects where neither James nor I are any good at carpentry we did encounter the odd technical error along the way.

Friday saw us finally underway and we left Puerto Calero on Lanzarote around 11.00 am after various goodbyes to all the crews who were staying a little longer.

Very little wind to start with so progress was slow on the 30 mile trip south to Fuerteventura, but gradually it filled in and as we gained speed so the apparent wind came forward of the beam and we were able to fly the full cutter rig and our speed leapt up to around 7 knots and we ate up the miles before having to gybe round and start the very interesting (challenging) approach to Puerto Del Castillo.

The wind was only around 15 knots and the sea was bouncy but nothing untoward, but the pilot book and the electronic chart plotter had rather different ideas as to what we would find by way of navigation marks leading us past a very large shoal and reef guarding the entrance to the marina.

In the event both were wrong and we needed to use some common sense and caution as we dropped the sails and swept in out of the swell. The two marineros came down to show us our mooring which was alongside on the very end of the only pontoon, which itself looked fairly rickety. All went well and we appear to have arrived in a tiny marina with just 5 visitors moorings close to a small tourist village. There is some bad weather on its way and so we plan to stay here until it blows through but we may review this when we have a chance to explore the rather limited local facilities.

Heard in the evening by email from America the latest on our parcel which has to date travelled from USA to Spain, to Tenerife, to Lanzarote, back via Spain to the USA but not quite to the original supplier who had heard that it was on its way back to lanzarote again. Well you could not make this up really but they have discovered from the tracking that it is now in the Czech Republic – heaven knows why, but the supplier (Boxer Marine, who have been outstanding in their support throughout this sorry story of mail service incompetence) have now refunded our original payment and hope that we will re-order when we arrive in the Caribbean where they may be able to deliver the goods faster!

We taught James Mexican Train last night and he picked it up very quickly, almost too quickly as he nearly pipped Sarah for second place!