OCT 21 4AM. 27 Miles from Las Palmas

Clear night.  Bright Loom of Las Palmas on the horizon. Remarkedly little traffic. Last night as we sat down to dinner there was a short burst of Greek on the VHF  and Sotiris leapt from the table in great excitement and talked animatedely for  ten minutes to another Greek on a cargo ship  from Argentina to Spain as though they were long lost cousins.  When he eventually returned to the table I asked him the name of his “friend” which he hadn’t bothered to find out.  The voice had simply asked if there were any Greeks out there and they were obviously both very pleased to be rattling away in their native tongue.

The AIS (Automatic Identification System) is tracking five ships at the moment.  Two are on a collision course with us.  They are both over 20 miles away. This technology is amazing.  The collision course  (they will pass a quarter of a mile away if nobody changes course) simply means we are all going to Las Palmas and will meet in the harbour approach. Actually while writing this we are now tracking 12 other ships.

Its been one long tack from Gibralter and we won’t need to refuel in Las Palmas. The wind Gods have been very generous and we’ll arrive a day ahead of schedule. I wonder what sort of sacrifice I should make. Maybe an opera singer?

OCT 21 Las Palmas  12PM

The wind dropped with sun up and the last 10 miles were very slow. We approached the reception dock and asked “Don Pedro No Problem” where to go.  When he found out we were SPINDRIFT he directed us straight to our mooring and was extremely helpful. We were all settled shortly after nine. Because he’s flying out I had to take Andrew to the Frontier Police for as few stamps.  It took us an hour to traverse the harbour, ten minutes to do the job and ten minutes back in a high speed taxi.

We were then visited by Juan Fra who runs the Marina who is putting us in touch with what ever suppliers and repairs we need. He told us the wind would keep dropping and there wouldn’t be anymore for a week, so we were very lucky.

This reception was all organised by Jimmy Cornell in advance as they have know him here for years.  Juan Fra sails with Jimmy at least once a year.  During his watch (2-4AM) Sotiris talked again to Constantipolis (Sp?)from  Patra  for half an hour. Turns out he’s 23, and second mate on the cargo ship.  He gave Sotiris lots of advice about Brazil and thinks were mad to be going to Antarctica. Sotiris is very happy as it’s summer here and he can watch the Grand Prix Final across the marina.

We will be here a week or 10 days and I will start blogging again when we leave.