The Canaries ushered us out in the same way as they had welcomed us in : As we sailed down the channel between Tenerife and Gran canaria in growing darkness, the wind speed and wave height began to climb, our final view of the Canaries was in 30 kts of wind and a 3m swell.We covered 150 miles in our first 24 hrs and so far all is  well : the winds are holding, the vane steering gear is  working well, the food is great and we're now well into our second day.It looks like we should soon complete another 150 mile day;if we kept up this rate we should arrive in 20 days - lets keep our fingers crossed!