White Christmas?

Originally uploaded by rosailither.

We finally left Tenerife on Friday and went the twenty odd miles to the neighbouring island of Gomera.
It felt great to be on the move again and we got a different perspective of Tenerife as it grew smaller behind us.
There was no anchoring allowed in the harbour at Gomera so we treated ourselves to a couple of nights in the marina - nice and still and no rolling motion!
We almost had a white Christmas if you can count the snow that appeared on top of Mount Teide this week (you can just make it out in the photo). Otherwise it was warm and sunny but we still cooked the traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings.
We are now ready (at last) to set off for the big voyage, so will be at sea until we arrive either in the Cape Verde islands in a week or two, or in Barbados sometime towards the end of January.

Originally uploaded by rosailither.

One week later and we’re still here… Contrary to reports in the Express and Echo we weren´t swamped with sea water in the storm, we were safely sheltering in the harbour!
We’re still waiting for the motor for the watermaker to be repaired. It was meant to take two days but Spanish time seems to run slower than normal. We should be used to this by now. A three day delivery from the local chandlery took three weeks to arrive, as did a 4-day delivery from the States (our sewing machine). No wonder two months have gone by since our arrival…
In the meantime, we’ve been busy with improvements and alterations on board. We’ve finished the square sail, despite a recurring problem with the (new) machine – a cast iron part keeps breaking. We´ve made more storage space below and made room for Dave´s newly aquired equipment. We’ve also had a go at scuba diving in the harbour.
We’ve abandoned the idea of Cape Verdes for Christmas and decided to stay here and meet up with Dave’s old mate Mike Barrows, who’s coming out on Tuesday.
The first boats we saw leave have now arrived in the Caribbean but we’re certainly not the last boat here, in fact new boats are still arriving. We have met people from France, Belgium, Germany, Finland and Norway and are looking forward to a sociable Christmas with our fellow boaters.
And we wish the same to everybody back home. Merry Christmas!!

Hurricane Delta

shipwreck
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

This is the sorry sight that awaited us the morning after the ‘storm’, which turned out to be the remnants of Hurricane Delta. This explains the 4m swell in the anchorage and winds gusting 65 knots…
Small consolation to the owner of this boat, who (like us) had heard a forecast giving only 20 knots of wind, and so wasn’t overly concerned and had gone ashore. When the wind picked up (it came in very quickly), he tried to row out to his boat but the dinghy was overturned by the waves. He managed to swim to another boat, but by this time, his boat was holed on the beach.
Even worse, he was uninsured (like most single-handers) and so is reduced to selling off all the salvageable bits, most of which have been submerged in salt water.
Dave, as ever unable to resist a bargain, has bought loads – generator, watermaker, SSB (long-range) radio, diving kit, lead ballast, various fittings and oddments of teak…
So that has been this week’s job – stripping everything down, washing the salt water out and trying to get things working again and find space to install it all. The deck of the boat is full of ‘stuff’, it’s hard to imagine we’ll ever be ready to go out to sea again.
It is now too late to reach the Caribbean for Xmas so we are planning to head for the Cape Verde Islands instead and cross from there in the New Year. The Cape Verdes are a group of Portuguese islands some 800 miles to the southwest, 300-odd miles off the coast of Senegal in Africa, and about 7 days sail away. We hope to set off in a week or so.