Wing and a Prayer on the move again
Wing and a Prayer
Joy Hughes
Thu 28 Feb 2008 13:17
Puerto Calero Lanzarote Canary Islands
Weather 20c Sunny Windy
Wing and a Prayer on the move again.
After six months back in Bolton ,Graham and I decided to swap the cold weather of home to thaw out our frozen bones by sailing round the Canaries for the next 3 months.
We returned to La Graciosa, as usual with excess baggage, a main sail, we had had made whilst at home to replace our well worn sail.
The restrictions on weight on the carrier we flew with were 20kg. per person.
The sail weighed in at 29kg so we dutifully paid up front whilst booking our seats for excess weight. £10 excess. What we didn't take into consideration was our domestic case which carrying clothes for both of us plus the extras we had bought, favourite foods and boat parts, also weighed 28kilos a excess of 8kg. It cost us £48 excess at the airport. 8kg. @ £6 per Kg. Did I mention cheap flights?!!!!
Arriving in Arricife airport Lanzarote we man handled our Heavy case and the sail on to public buses and the ferry to La Graciosas. (As pensioners on a fixed reducing income we look after the pennies and as the taxi cost 50euros to the ferry as against 2.65 euros each on public transport there was no contest) Then nearly giving ourselves a heart attack as we dragged them over the sands to the berth where we were pleased to see the boat floating happily, looking good.
As we had spent a week putting the boat to bed back in August we had now to get the boat back into sailing trim. Up went the new mainsail and we nervously scrutinized it from the jetties. The shape look good, it fitted along the Boom just one problem it was about 18inches short on the luff. It could have been worse it could have been too long. Graham had instructed the sail maker to leave room for stretch but I can't see it stretching that much. But on the whole we are quite happy with it.
As we checked the boat out we found the regulator we had left on the Duo Gen had stopped working. Not tough enough for the job though it must have only just stopped working as the batteries were fine. But more upsetting we found we had damage to the back Push Pit. It looked as though we had had a bump from a boat maybe manoeuvring on the jetties. Not serious but annoying.
The One problem with the marina in La Grasious is no water on the jetties so we decided to do the short sail down the coast to Puerto Calero. We have been here a number of times and find it a good marina. So here we are washing the boat and polishing the bright work.
Still have a few problems.
1) The accumulator on the watermaker went with a big bang and shattered.
2) The rear water tank has sprung a leek.
Oh the joys and the cost of Boating.
But we have no dead lines to meet and the weather is warm.
Not a life to be grumbling at.
Joy
28/02/08