19th
November 2006
Having
spent an extra night in Puerto Rico we set
sail again on our journey up to Lanzarote. We decided to take it easy and
just hop our way up the coast of Fuerteventura.
First stop Morro Jable, a local
harbour with very limited facilities for yachts but the pilot book said there
were some new pontoons for yachts although they had no water or electricity.
It’s also known to have very strong winds that come across the southern
peninsular and funnel down into the harbour.
The
crossing was uneventful and all we saw was one turtle. No dolphins or
whales and we didn’t catch any tuna either! We
left the berth at 5am as planned
for the journey as
we wanted to arrive in daylight……
Our wish was not to be. We had absolutely no
wind and had to motor sail the whole way! The wind was on the nose and
ranged from a force 4 touching a 6 at times. Definitely in the
acceleration zone now. What was really strange was that the closer we got
to Fuerteventura the warmer the wind
became. Almost felt like someone had switched on a hair dryer! Well
out plans were dashed for arriving in daylight. It was 21.00 by the time
we finally got ourselves moored up and that was no easy task. Firstly, we
had trouble finding the entrance as the lights were not working ( no green
light and the port light was white!!) I had to sit on the foredeck with a torch
while shouting directions back to Jon, Ness & Ian. We slowly made our way in and found the pontoons to the
left, just as the wind started to pipe up. We then took
several attempts at mooring up as most of the finger pontoons were either too
shallow or didn’t have cleats on them! By the 3rd
attempt we found a pontoon in enough water and with enough cleats to enable us
to moor up. We also had the help of a catamaran who took our lines for
us.
The wind continued to blow all night with gusts well
over 30 knots at times. We are up and down like yoyos checking the
lines….. Luckily we didn’t get the Force 10 gusts that occasionally
occur here as mentioned in the pilot book!
Today (Saturday) it is
overcast and windy so we will stay here another night before heading up the
east coast towards Lanzarote and our final destination at Marina Rubicon, near
Playa Blanca, on the southern end of the island.
Hopefully the sun will
come out soon.
