Position 28:07.743N 015:25.580W

Friday November 14^th

00h44

Wind NE Force 8

Sea State 3-4M

Visibility Good

Heading 152 T°

Under: 2 Reefs in Main and Reefed Genoa

Speed 5.9 Kts

Hove to for dinner.

I slept in the saloon so I could be lose and hear Ursula should she need to change sail.

From by bunk I could see Ursula, the Chilean girl who was always chilly, Ireland was too cold and damp for her. There she is through the companionway, wind gusting 45 kts, spray over the top every few minutes reading Heat magazine in the red glow of her head torch while braced against the coaming. I am very proud of her and start to think back to when we visited Isle de Re in 2005.

On this trip we drove to Sable d’Olonne which is the start point of the Vendee Globe single handed round world yacht race  on which I have read many books. I wanted to see the place for myself and look at boats etc. but was disappointed in both the area and lack of yachts. Back in Isle de Re I bought a notebook, which we still have on board, and we began to look at boats make notes and work out budgets by looking at the prices of used boats in the sailing magazines and comparing them to what we could see around us.

I began to understand then that the budget for the type of vessel we would like was not as hefty as originally imagined. We sketched designs, made lists of specs and decided that for the next Vendee Globe (which was 2008) we would return to see the start but watch it from our own yacht. This was written down in black marker on the thick pages of the notebook. The method is not as reliable as stone, I have used lighter paper many times and nothing happened. Magic marker it must have been,  because even though we did not see the start of the race earlier this month, it is much warmer where we are.

Communication from Blue Tarn about 10 miles behind. We are 29 miles from Gran Canaria and the wind is dying down 20 kts now. At least we hope this is Gran Canaria. We have no chart plotter on this trip which is new for us and the charts are being worn through with rechecks and cross checks. We point the sharp end of the boat to where the sharp point of the dividers indicates making sure there are no sharp ends between the two.

15h50

Tied up. Reception Marina. Las Palmas. Huge Port. Glad to be here. Very tired. Sleep required.