28:01.166N 16:36.798W                                        28^th -30^th   October 2014

Salvage Islands (Ilhas Selvagens) to Tennerife …………. 2137 miles from Ramsgate by Log.

  The Salvage Islands and whale by Norma

We arrived at1610 Wednesday afternoon all safe and sound and with no further dramas, wow that’s a change. Tommy won the prize for closest arrival time and wouldn’t share his Lion bar with anyone. Going into the last night I seriously expected to be writing a tale of heavy rain and strong winds as a fairly huge bank of ominous black clouds built up in front of us. We changed course by 20 degrees to see if we could dodge them but no chance they spread right across our path so it was a case of batten down the hatches get back on course and let what happens happen. So what happened, nothing that’s what. As we got closer the clouds thinned rose and faded away all very strange but also very pleasing to say the least.

Norma watches the clouds gather as the sun starts to go down

All looking very mean and moody                                                                     Right across our path

Soon we were motoring along in a crystal clear night with phosphorescence all around and a million stars lighting the way. Note the motoring again, as the clouds disappeared so did the wind and on went the donkey through the night. One notable incident in the night was Norma setting her clock wrong (not for the first time) and arriving on deck at 5 O’clock instead of 6, much to Peters delight and everyone else’s amusement in the morning. We also had a couple of dolphins shooting past in a shower of sparks as they set off the phosphorescence with their dorsal fins.

By morning Tennerife was clearly in sight and shortly after breakfast up came the wind. 10-15 Knots on our starboard quarter, this was a rarity not to be missed. Pretty soon I was playing with sails: Full main, full mizzen and the Spinnaker; down with the spinnaker; poled out foresail and stay sail; put away the staysail; goose wing the mizzen and main, great fun I was loving it. I was just commenting that with the last ½ a degree wind shift how nice the mizzen staysail would look and it would probably fly well and give us a tenth of a knot if we just got it out from below the forward bunk, when my motley crew mutinied and told me to bugger off so that was the end of that. In all honesty though the cruising chute was still playing up and was a major pain to launch and recover.

Tenerife at dawn                                                                                             All sails flying

Needless to say and despite the motley crews’ tardiness we all agreed that it was a great sail along the full length of the coast down to San Miguel Marina. We are now safely booked in and stern too, which is another first for the trip. Yet another milestone was the 2000 mile mark crossed in the early hours, pat on the back for each other there I think. We are moored next to where a tourist submarine is operating from the waiting pontoon so we have an ever changing audience as we potter about the decks. This morning before Tommy and Sue headed of to their shore side apartment with bath and pool (sounds horrible to me but Norma is twitching) we decided to lay out the spinnaker on the pontoon and sort out the furling sock problems. As we began to pull the beast down the boarding ramp, or pasarel if you are very posh, I met up with a Turkish guy who was walking past Spectra with a handful of shiny new metal boat parts. On investigation I discovered that he was on his way back to a local manufacturer to get some adjustments made to his wind vane. What a bit of luck, as I needed to get a part made I dropped Peter and Tommy like a shot and went of with my new friend to visit the steel makers. On my return the spinnaker was all neatly laid out and in its bag, but I did get told off by Sue for getting into a car with a strange man. Anyway the workshop was fine and the price quoted even better, plus we are now booked to get lifted out next Friday to check the old girls bottom before we set of for the Cape Verde’s and the Atlantic crossing.

Peter has now drawn up a design for our bowsprit extension which we will drop off tomorrow on our way over to visit Tommy and Sue in their hotel with swimming pool, I think I will take my trunks just in case the swimming pool is being under used, I hate waste.

Is it still raining in the UK by the way?