We left Funchal on the 18th November and took two and a half days to get to the Canaries on what I thought of as our second leg of the Great Atlantic Adventure. We made landfall on the Isla de la Grasciosa at 2.30 in the morning. Much as we normally hated arriving anywhere at night, the sea was calm and there was a brilliant full moon making landfall easy. The bay, Bahia Francesca, was incredibly beautiful in a barren stark sort of way and we were all alone there which made it very special.
We spent a peaceful couple of days at anchor. We'd row to shore with a picnic, lie on the deserted beach, swim and take long walks exploring around the coast line. Lack of provisions and a wind shift forced us to move south to the island of Lanzarote.
We anchored in a secure bay on the northeast side of the port area of the pleasant town of Arrecife. It was a long and often very wet dinghy ride into the port and finding somewhere safe to tie up the dinghy required luck, imagination, physical dexterity and determination. Despite that, it was a nice but small anchorage which we shared with, amongst others, the yacht Lichen which housed two adults, three children, a dog, a cat, and a guinea pig and Cybele which housed two adults, one child and a dog. They became, briefly, good friends.
We had been sailing now for a year and our insurance with Pantaenius was due to expire. Our first year’s insurance had been for the Mediterranean region only and it was worked out on 1% of the boat’s value. I contacted them and advised that we were now about to cross the Atlantic and they came back with a quote of 2% of the boat’s value. This would cover the Atlantic ocean, the Caribbean and most of the east coast of North America. We weren’t pleased, but what can you do? We sent the cheque.
On our last day in Arrecife, returning to the harbour late in the evening, the wind had sprung up and Mike had parked the dinghy in the usual inaccessible spot where we had to climb over all sorts of broken pipes and then down a rickety set of steps, the bottom few of which were slimy and slippery, being underwater most of the time. It was low tide so we had to walk across these treacherous steps to get to the dinghy, no mean feat in the dark, but we managed without mishap and set off against the wind and the waves back to our boat. We were making slow progress when, about half way there, our little outboard suddenly conked out. Mike checked everything, including the fuel and couldn’t work out what was wrong. Nothing would get the bloody thing going again. Then it started to rain. Perfect.
I looked around to get our bearings and nearly had a heart failure. Whilst dithering around trying to find the problem with the motor we had been blown way off track and were now drifting, quite smartly, towards the harbour entrance. We grabbed an oar each and started paddling madly, but made no progress. In fact, we were drawing further and further out. Beyond the harbour entrance there was nothing but the Atlantic Ocean, stretching 3000 miles all the way to the Caribbean and if we had slipped through that gap.....! We were seriously ill-equipped - no radio, no mobile phone and no water. Just two oars, the clothes we were wearing and a few provisions. We knew no one would think to look for us till the next day and even then, they would just think we’d got up and gone to town early. By which time we’d have been lost, far out to sea. Horrors!
We had been sailing now for a year and our insurance with Pantaenius was due to expire. Our first year’s insurance had been for the Mediterranean region only and it was worked out on 1% of the boat’s value. I contacted them and advised that we were now about to cross the Atlantic and they came back with a quote of 2% of the boat’s value. This would cover the Atlantic ocean, the Caribbean and most of the east coast of North America. We weren’t pleased, but what can you do? We sent the cheque.
On our last day in Arrecife, returning to the harbour late in the evening, the wind had sprung up and Mike had parked the dinghy in the usual inaccessible spot where we had to climb over all sorts of broken pipes and then down a rickety set of steps, the bottom few of which were slimy and slippery, being underwater most of the time. It was low tide so we had to walk across these treacherous steps to get to the dinghy, no mean feat in the dark, but we managed without mishap and set off against the wind and the waves back to our boat. We were making slow progress when, about half way there, our little outboard suddenly conked out. Mike checked everything, including the fuel and couldn’t work out what was wrong. Nothing would get the bloody thing going again. Then it started to rain. Perfect.
I looked around to get our bearings and nearly had a heart failure. Whilst dithering around trying to find the problem with the motor we had been blown way off track and were now drifting, quite smartly, towards the harbour entrance. We grabbed an oar each and started paddling madly, but made no progress. In fact, we were drawing further and further out. Beyond the harbour entrance there was nothing but the Atlantic Ocean, stretching 3000 miles all the way to the Caribbean and if we had slipped through that gap.....! We were seriously ill-equipped - no radio, no mobile phone and no water. Just two oars, the clothes we were wearing and a few provisions. We knew no one would think to look for us till the next day and even then, they would just think we’d got up and gone to town early. By which time we’d have been lost, far out to sea. Horrors!
This horrible realization made us double our efforts and we started to make some progress, eventually pushing forward enough to miss the port entrance but now found ourselves on the rocks inside the harbour wall. With the tide so low the rocks were all exposed and we were in danger of puncturing the dinghy. We jumped out of the dinghy into the water, scraping our legs against the rocks, and tried to move ourselves out and away from the wall, but the wind was pushing us back again as hard as we tried.
Hearts hammering, gasping for breath and on the brink of despair, we heard the chug chug of an outboard and our neighbour, the Frenchman Luc, from Lichen, arrived and threw us a tow rope. There are no words to describe how glad we were to see him. By chance he had gone out in the night to check his anchor and have a manly pee off the back of his boat when he saw us in the rocks and figured something was wrong. Actually, he said, before he saw us he heard us shouting at each other in our panic which is what made him look out. Lucky for us I have such a screechy voice.
Hearts hammering, gasping for breath and on the brink of despair, we heard the chug chug of an outboard and our neighbour, the Frenchman Luc, from Lichen, arrived and threw us a tow rope. There are no words to describe how glad we were to see him. By chance he had gone out in the night to check his anchor and have a manly pee off the back of his boat when he saw us in the rocks and figured something was wrong. Actually, he said, before he saw us he heard us shouting at each other in our panic which is what made him look out. Lucky for us I have such a screechy voice.
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