We sail to Lanzarote

Timeless
Wed 16 Oct 2013 07:46
We sail to Lanzarote
 
Position:    28:58:05N      13:31:49W
 
October 17th, 2013
 

Overall, we had an amazing sail from Madeira. 

 

We left in light winds around 11am and had to motor.

 

John put the fishing lines out.
3 hours later we caught a good sized yellow Tuna know locally as “Tunney” just of the islands of Madeira.
At the same time as John started to fillet the fish a whale came close to our boat.
Gosh!
What sort of whale is he?
Can he smell the Blood!

With just about enough time to take a photo of his tail disappearing he was gone.
Phew!

As John finished the filleting and cleaning the mess on deck we were sailing at a steady 7+ knots.

By midnight the wind had veered around and increased to around 15 knots - we were flying along at 8 knots. 

 

We had a peaceful night but that damb diesel smell was back! Why? It had been fixed.

After investigating we found the flange for the inspection cover on one of the port tanks was weeping – another one! The same problem we had had with our starboard fuel tank. John makes the best effort to limit the spill.

 

The next 18 hours was great sailing and we had to discuss slowing up. We didn’t want to arrive in Lanzarote in the dark. By midnight we could see Lanzarote and the wind had died down and changed direction such that it was now on our nose with only 20 miles to go – we had to motor sail.
Ugh!!!

 

At 8.30am we radioed the marina to get directions.
John was putting the main sail away when I noticed yet again anther vertical batten was coming out of it’s sleeve.  There was only one thing John could do. Pull the baton out completely and then he could furl in the main.
“We could sort it when we moored.”

Another job!
"’Timeless’ had taken us less than a day and a half to get here – she was sailing beautifully.

 

The entrance to Lanzarote Marina in Arrecife is via a marked channel.  We came in as the tide was going out. You could already see the volcanic rock dangers on both sides of the channel. The tidal change is around 2 meters here. The marina staff were very helpful, professional and friendly. We were soon secured and hooked up to the various services.
We had reserved a berth and were lucky to get an alongside mooring at the very end of a pontoon.
Getting one of these berths in a marina is like winning the Lottery! Great views!

 

We had now arrived at our last marina before our preparation for the Atlantic Crossing.

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