27:44.82N 15:37.42W

Monday 15^th, Tuesday 16^th and Wednesday 17^th November.

Monday saw the arrival of the bad weather we had been expecting and so we spent the day moored safely to the quay watching the seas building outside the protective wall and took the opportunity to see what everyone got up to here on Fuerteventura when the beaches were too bleak and cold (23 degrees).

We took the mini motorised children’s train service out through the resort area to the main road where we caught a bus into Rosario, the capital. This turned out to be a pretty depressing place (or perhaps we never found the good bits) but we did find the main shopping mall and after some crepes by way of a late lunch, we had a swift shopping session in Hyper Dinos which allowed us to stock up for the next few days or so.

Tuesday saw the weather improve and we were able to stick to our plan of leaving in the early evening to sail the 128 miles overnight to Gran Canaria. The day then was spent sort of getting ready for the off and doing a few more jobs etc.

Just behind where we were moored, out in the bay were two red buoys and these marked the rather unimaginative course for the jet skis. People would hire the machine for 15 or 30 minutes and either one up or two up, they would wiz round the two marks. Actually the machines were very quiet and made little noticeable wash so we sort of enjoyed watching them tentatively going faster and faster, willing them to overdo the turns and fall off. It is hard to imagine anything duller than 30 minutes spent going round the two buoys and we never got round to finding out how much they were fleeced for the privilege. The yellow sub made countless trips out and round a very limited circuit in the mouth of the bay and frankly we were all surprised that we did not see customers coming out on deck to be sick as the vessel rolled hugely in the surf. The marina staff kindly agreed to let us stay on our berth until 6.00 pm and when a boat arrived to take our place around 5.30 pm they had to hang around and eventually were allowed to moor alongside us as we made our final unhurried preparations.

We set off as planned at 6.00 pm and were soon making our way past the foaming reef which had the quite large waves that had built up over 24 hours breaking heavily over it. Once we had a reefed mainsail set along with just the staysail, we settled down for a 30 mile downwind leg with us taking it in turns to hand steer all the way. (not sure we could trust the autohelm to manage Serafina in these waves without gybing accidently.)

We made good speed and it was just after midnight that we reached the point well south of Fuerteventura where we had planned to change course and head for Gran Canaria on a beam reach. The big issue around these islands are the wind acceleration zones that they all have, which can double the wind strength in particular areas and sailors are very much obliged to ignore these at their peril! We now had a cracking sail for a few hours and we covered a good 12 miles before the wind began to die away and in due course when it had dropped to just 8 knots we had to reluctantly motor sail for a while to keep up our speed in order to make a daylight arrival at our destination. (Timings and distances are rather erratic as for some reason our log keeping was rather less than diligent.)

With dawn came a rising breeze and once we had reached the next acceleration zone we were really flying. However James and I had to hold off setting the full cutter rig until Sarah had served up a wonderful breakfast of bacon, tomatoes and scrambled egg. Once the full rig was set, despite still having a well reefed main, James set a record for this trip managing a speed of 9.2 knots through the water, only to see his record taken a little later by Sarah when she hit 9.5 knots.

By midday we were passing along the southern coast of Gran Canaria still making 8 knots , but the wind began to ease again and so it was not until 2.30 pm that we finally backed into our berth in Pasito Blanco, which is a nice quiet private Yacht Club Marina, which seems to be a very pleasant and peaceful spot. We celebrated with ‘Safe Arrivals’ by way of a glass or two of white wine with our lunch which had Sarah knocked up and after a brief visit to the local tiny (but brilliantly well stocked – Lanzarote and Fuerterventura have been distinctly disappointing) Spar store we had a quiet afternoon at rest......