The weather on Maderia was not that great this year so I wanted to go south to the nicer weather (all Europe has tough weather I read, so my problems with rain and SW winds appear not too serious, I guess…)
A window to sail to Canary Islands appeared on January 5 and was quick to grab the chance. The wind was W 10-12m/s but would decrease and change to NW and later to N. The waves (swells) would decrease from 6m to 3-4m.
In Funchal harbour the wind was weak, but as soon as I got out of the harbour entrance, I had to reef the sails and the sailing was rather rough. The wind did not decrease as promised, nor did the wind change to NW until a day later… I seem to attract the strong winds on my trips….
I got sea sick again and was not very active the first 2 days. The sails were reefed so I was not concerned about the boat. If the wind would increase, I was OK. Even with the sails reefed we did some 5 knots.
The first day took me here (morning of 6/1):
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=31.31331,-16.02476&ll=31.31331,-16.02476&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
24 hours later I was here (7/1):
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=29.52642,-15.3038&ll=29.52642,-15.3038&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
I missed the Islas Salvages. I passed in the night and made sure I had a good distance to them. They must be one of the most odd places on earth. Close, but still far away. You need a permit to go ashore, but even that only when the wind permits (and it did not when I passed…)
I realised I would not reach Las Palmas before dark and would not try to enter at night, so I tried to slow down in order to arrive in the Friday morning. However, I was outside the north end of Gran Canaria around 2am, so I had to sail back and forth until the sun came up. There was quite a number of ships and rain showers during the night, so my radar alarm went off every so often…
Anyway, as I came into Las Palmas, the sun came out and it was warm! Las Palmas is cheap, which surprised me, but I cannot stay too long. I want to provision for the long sail and get going!
Here I am now:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=28.12851,-15.42669&ll=28.12851,-15.42669&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
