Position: 29:13:68N 13:30:19W

Isla Graciosa, Canary Islands

You may be wondering whether we have slipped into a sun-and-sand-induced lethargy, unable to do anything as strenuous as write a blog update.  Indeed, two weeks since I last wrote, it is a bit of a struggle to press the keys, and I don’t really have any strong excuses.  Quite simply, we’ve been on holiday, and I wouldn’t want to bore people with anything as mundane as the details of us doing very little.

However those that know the Holdens will know that they are not capable of sitting down for more than five minutes without needing to do something, so actually whilst we have had a very relaxed couple of weeks, it has been interspersed with achieving a huge number of ticks against the job list, a lot of frenetic doggy-paddling by the kids (in the pool – we haven’t made them walk the plank yet!), and some tremendous progress at school.  I’ll cover off the highlights in the next 2 blog entries.  This entry covers the last few days we spent at Graciosa, celebrating Jemima’s 3^rd birthday, on 22^nd October.

Jemima has been coming up with present ideas for several weeks now.  These have included a motorbike, a jetski, and various wild & domesticated species of animal.  We got her a box of Lego and a plastic dolls house which appears to have taken up a permanent position on the port cockpit seat.  I spent an hour epoxying every last roof panel, wall, fence, door, etc etc to the thing to try and stop all the tiny plastic pieces ending up in the bilge.  She loves it, and all the dolls, farm animals and anything else to hand get to live in the dolls house.

As appears to have become tradition for the Holden children, Jemima was allowed to specify what kind of birthday cake she wanted.  In a place like Graciosa, this is very risky ground for Mummy, who, on receiving her order for a Rabbit cake, went to the 3 tiny supermarkets in search of something (anything!) that might help her make said cake.  Once again, she pulled off a feat of ingenuity with some sponge fingers and magdalenas (fairy cakes)!

Jemima’s 3^rd birthday cake

We had the full birthday tea complete with party music and games.  Jemima really had a lovely day and since then she has been, on the whole, very well behaved with no tantrums and a noticeable effort to be a “big girl”.  She has even been affectionate, which is new for her!

Birthday tea

After a week on Graciosa, the need for some civilization started to increase, and we made plans to leave for Lanzarote.  Unfortunately, the wind really picked up and in the morning, I went ashore and walked through the village to the headland to look out to sea.  The waves were huge and we decided that it wasn’t going to be sensible to go out.

The next day I did the same and although the seas were still huge, the forecast wind was reasonable so despite some big gusts in the harbour, we cast off our lines and reversed out of our berth.  Reassuringly, several other boats followed us out so we weren’t that silly.

The seas were indeed very big and we struggled to make headway out of the channel between Graciosa and Lanzarote.  Luckily for us, as soon as we were clear of the crashing seas at the headland on the Lanzarote side, we could bear off and whilst we still had beam seas for a couple of hours, it was fast and soon we bore off further and the motion was good.

We sailed past Arrecife, the capital, and very soon could see a fleet of racing yachts ahead.  These turned out to be the TP52 World Championship, and we steered round the leeward marks and watched the spinnaker drops.  The crew work looked superb.  I hoped we might know someone on one of the boats but I think this was wishful thinking.

We sailed on until we reached the end of Lanzarote, at Pta Papagayo, and headed up for the short beat to Marina Rubicon.