Fai Tira Blog 16.00 UTC  Friday 13th November

Fai Tira in the Atlantic.    27:26.69N 15:43.53W

Well we have been at sea crossing the Atlantic for 18 hours now.  We spent all day on Wednesday preparing for the departure.  The day started with the Atlantic briefing and weather forecast.  The briefing offered us the choice of 3 three routes across the pond.  The northern, the middle (so called 20 30 route) and the southern route. The five slower boats which had opted to leave on Thursday had already decided to take the middle route.  This route takes you down the East side of both Lanzarote and Fuerteventura before you head south west to a waypoint at 20 deg North 30 deg.  This was the route Columbus favoured on his trips to discover the Americas.  It is at 20 /30 that we should pick up the trades winds which will take us west.  The forecast was not good.  Light winds yet again for the next three or four days.  We digested a multitude of information before we headed off to the supermarket curtsey of Mark and Chris’s hire car.  We provisioned up with fresh food bread, beer and wine and returned to the Fai Tira where we hoped to be able to stash it all.  That night we were invited to yet another reception hosted by the owner of the marina.  Free food and drink yet again. I retired quite early as we had a lot to do before departure at 10am the next morning. John got invited onto another boat for drinks but wasn’t too late hitting the sack.

Thursday, the big day arrived. All the crews of the five departing boats were scurrying around doing last minute preparations and we were no exception.    The crews of the faster boats who were planning to leave on Saturday came along to wish us luck and bon voyage.  It was a party atmosphere with mixed emotions.  We were on our way.  The biggest adventure we had ever undertaken.  Twenty Four days at sea if we were lucky.  Ten O’clock came all too soon and were assisted with our departure as four out of the five boats slipped there warps. Lots of hooting and shouting ensued and we waved everybody good bye. 

We were off.  The port of Peurto Calero has its own yellow submarine which timed its departure at the same time as our own.  So we followed it out of the marina taking a video of it.  As it submerged it stopped moving forward but we didn’t.  Whoops they nearly had Fai Tira blue paint all the way down the outside.  Evasive action on the wheel ensured an international incident was avoided.

We motor sailed down the coast of Lanzarote in a group of three, Camomile, Lucy Alice and ourselves.  By the time we reached the tip of Fuerteventura it was nearly dark.  We carried on motor sailing all through the night, the three boats keeping each other company.  It is reassuring to know someone is close at hand if you have a problem.  John and myself opted to extend our watches from the usual three hours to four hours.  This seemed to work OK. 

Dawn broke and we were visited by a small pod of dolphins.  Today is Friday the 13^th so something had to go wrong.  It was the automatic steering, Angela, John was reading his book and I was cooking bacon butties when John realised we were going completely in the wrong direction.  We got Fai Tira back on course and John dismantled the device and changed the broken bits and I reassembled the electrics.  After about two hours of hand steering we’d fixed it.  We were back on course and motoring down the Rhumb line to 20 / 30 position only about a 1000 miles to the south west. 

We will update you with more information in a couple of day’s time.

Bye for now. 

Pete and John