28:25.3N 13:47.9W
Lanzarote to Mindelo – Day 1 We left Rubicon marina around 1200; our German friend, Peter, saw us off (he also kindly gave us a bottle of Port the night before – for consumption in Minelo, not en route!!) Cheers to Peter & we both hope to see him again! We expected, having monitored the weather forecast, for days on end that our first day out would be very pleasant. Mmm, not quite so. The swell between the islands of Lanzarote and Fuertaventura was much great than we expected – and beam on (not good). We started off with full main and genoa and as the wind died, we dropped the main and headed on a broad reach under genoa only heading south along the east coast of Fuertaventura. About 1600 the wind died off some more, meaning the only real option was to pole out the genoa (the spinnaker would have taken too much work on day one and the swell was still beam on. After about an hour on the foredeck, with the mate pulling lines in the cockpit and shouting when a large wave was approaching. We ended up with a very neat solution of poled out genoa using a spinnaker sheet to control the sail and a pole back guy to triangulate the pole itself – meaning (with the exception of changes in wind direction) that it can stay like that until Mindelo – great news, given how long it takes to do. The mate wants to add that we have seen lots of dolphins. It’s now 1825 and dinner time, in readiness for our night watches. It’s a warm dinner – it’s cold out here tonight!! Bye for now.
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