Fai Tira Blog 18.00 UTC  Wednesday 11th November

Fai Tira still in Lanzarote.    28:54.99N 13:42.35W

It’s now the Monday of the final week before the big Atlantic off!!!

I think that just beginning to dawn on us that the countdown has really started.

Most of the boats are still in the throws’ of making final preparations and we’re no exception.

There’s whole range of skills contained within the various crews and the bond and feeling of camaraderie, that’s rapidly built, has resulted in a great interaction with all of us assisting each other when ever the need arises.

Pete doesn’t require much persuasion to indulge in any sort of aerial activity??!!

 So the opportunity to dangle from the top of the mast on Enchantress, assisting David to dispose of some unwanted electronic equipment, was grasped with both hands (and feet) judging by the movement of the boats in the raging gales that we’ve been experiencing in the last few days.

It’s not been all work though. We still had the coach trip to the north of the island to look forward to, and I managed to indulge in a culture binge with a trip to the museum of contemporary art. The importance of art and culture has becomes more apparent with every day spent here, and the influences of the artist and benefactor Cesar Manricque are inescapable

We rewarded ourselves, after a day that saw a few more jobs crossed of the list, with an evening in the great company of the crew, hosts’ and party animals of our neighbouring boat Chsalonina. Such great company, Edith provided an appetising selection of food that kept coming and the two Jeremys’, continuous entertainment by just being themselves, very funny people as were the guys from Blue Magic and Lucy Alice.

It’s seemed that a big lump of the Sahara desert’s been deposited on and in our boat. All carried by these relentless easterly winds. It’s been difficult to know just when to start the clean down. We’ve also had a hundred metres of anchor chain flacked out on the deck while we marked off each ten metre length in red paint. Bit of a worry though, because as we put it away we only counted seventeen marks. I know that my maths aren’t that good, but I get the strong feeling that something doesn’t quite add up.

We also had a good result regarding our slight anxiety over the issue of filter and oil change in our automatic transmission. The problem being we weren’t sure of the time frames related to the last change, and also we were unable to identify the reference numbers of the filter.

A few phone calls to Z.F. U.K  saw me in front of the local distributor located in the marina with our existing filter in my sweaty palm. He was great, the same as everyone that we’ve encountered so far. The filters weren’t in stock and no time to get them before the off, but he was able to provide reassure as to of the condition of ours and gave me all the reference numbers, saying that we should be ok for the next eighteen months. Ahhh peace of mind!!

It would have been easy to cry off the trip to the north of the island, with the outstanding jobs stabbing guiltily at the back of our minds, but in true holiday spirit, we went anyway and just ignored them!!

The journey broadly followed the direction Dee and I had pursued in our little hire car just a few days earlier and took in many of the same features, but with two exceptions that had the effect of making it very much worthwhile.

The first was the cactus gardens, an area of beautiful terraces, filled with the strange and  exotic shapes of this ferocious vegetation, all overlooked by an ancient wind mill that still stood proud despite all the years of exposure to the ravages of wind and weather.

The second was the trip down into a cave tunnel formed by volcanic lava. In all this is eight kilometres long the last two being under the sea. The earlier sections also formed the uninspiring area containing the restaurants we’d visited earlier in our stay.

These were so different, almost completely natural and untouched since the day they were formed all those years ago. They were awesome magnificent and eerie, the only concession made to the tourists is some discrete lighting and a path to make the areas easily accessible.

Magic!!!

I now find myself finishing off this blog, late on the afternoon of the day preceding our departure and struggling with many feelings of apprehension that are now starting to shout in my brain, but that are all the time being countered by a sense of excitement.

The next time we communicate we’ll be well under way and with blog updates just every other day. It sounds like the first few days will be fairly low key according to the weather forecast, I that that both Pete and myself will be more than appreciative of a sedate start.

Bye for now. 

Pete and John