I’m working on getting the Timeless Blog up to date.

I HATE doing this!!!   Les and I have been stuck in the salon for 3 days so far and probably at least another day to go! I could be playing outside kicking a ball around and having fun. 
Hmmm.. Hang on! 
I seem to remember saying this same thing many years ago!

 

 

So, here is an update from Lanzarote!!

We are generally hangin out here, getting various jobs sorted on ‘Timeless’ and enjoying Lanzarote and Arrecife.

Our brave crew Dan, Bob and Cathy will be arriving in a weeks time.

 

Locally the weather has been a little chillier and the wind has been a little more blowy. It is always from the NW/N and typically 10 to 20 knots. The Trade winds have been a very consistent 10 to 20 knots E/NNE over the last month as one would hope for this time of year.

 

Everything that can be made ready has now either been done or has been organized to be done very shortly.

Discovery engineers flew out to Lanzarote and fixed the all the little jobs that had been hanging around and bugging me (support from Discovery is just SUPERB!).

We even finally figured out where the little bit of water comes from that sets off the lazarette alarms. It comes from the fender cushions draining out the seawater after dragging in the water and the hose pipe. I tried it!  - Done!

 

 

The bad internet connection pushed myself and the boat next to us to design and develop ‘the Mike/John universal international antenna gain enhancer’, or, UIAGE for short. We thought that the name rolled off the tongue easier.

I’ll pop a picture of it on the diary soon.  By generally bending, cutting, sticking and drilling I think we have increased the WiFi signal being received by the boat from 80dB to 60bD – quite impress I’m thinking!

Trouble is that it’s no good when there are millions of users online at the same time.
We can’t do anything about the ‘bandwidth’ of the signal.

 

Jimmy Cornell’s latest venture, the Atlantic Odyssey, designed to fill the gap left by the ARC for cruising families had been arriving here over the last 2 weeks.
It left yesterday amongst a lot of fanfare, video cameras, flags, hooting and buzzing. Gosh! The marina completely changed during the two weeks that everyone had gathered. They had 23 boats I believe and expect four times that number next year.

There have been several parties (in fact the marina group laid a party on for everyone in the marina).

Jimmy Cornell is here and gave EVERYONE various presentations.

 

We have really enjoyed hanging here. The town is the capital of Lanzarote. It has all the main shops of the island and certainly all the chandlers. Lots of restaurants.

 

The chap in the berth next to us, Mike, is also going to the Caribbean later this month. He has had his catamaran quite a few years now – I think he told me the boat is 39 years old.
Although tentatively based in England, he has now done several tours of the Atlantic and Caribbean. 

He is a solo yachtsman.

His catamaran is just 26 feet long.

He doesn’t bother with hooking up to the power in marinas.

He uses a handheld GPS and paper charts.

He carries his water and fuel in plastic bottles.

His tender was designed and built by him and he rows it everywhere.

His main engine for the catamaran is 8 horsepower.  (My engine is 9 horsepower – for the RIB!)

..cool huh! I’m quite envious. I think I’d enjoy that.

 

Okay.

Best get back to my homework.

It’s like being in detention!