Leaving Lanzarote 29th November

We are leaving Lanzarote today, one day later than planned but with good winds forcast today. All the food is stored after a mega shop on Wednesday. Those of you who know us well will have seen our normal shopping and so can imagine the amount of food we now have on board for ten of us for a few weeks. We are hoping the passage will take no longer than four weeks but you must aways have food for at lease double that. Sorting fresh veg is not easy; we have rigged up nets at the stern of Octopus to store most of it.

The weather has improved over the last couple of days and we enjoyed a drive around the island sightseeing. We visited Fire Mountain, where they cook food over the still hot volcano vents, we went down some under ground caves made by the lava and we rode on camels.

The girls have made friends with a family with four children from Belgium on another catamaran; they will be following us in a few weeks, so we may meet them again.

Ruth and Rob have settled in fine and are a great help with everything. The children are already very fond of them.

We will not up-date the Blog now until we reach the other side of the pond! We would love to get there for Christmas but may not, so Happy Christmas to you all just in case we can’t send our greetings on time, hope you all have a good one! We will write again as soon as we can.

Camel ridding and views of Lanzarote

Lanzarote

We arrived in Lanzarote on Tuesday, yet again we had to motor most of the way here!! They hardly ever have winds from the South-West in this area but we had it right in our face all the way from Gibraltar. The good thing was that we made the decision to stop off in Morocco for more fuel, it turned out to be a great place to visit and well worth returning to in the future. Having not planned to go to Morocco we didn’t have a courtesy flag so I had to make my first flag; as we were on the approaches to the little fishing port of Essaouira I was painting on the star and was finished just in time. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the Bazaars and took in the ambience of the place. We would have stayed for longer but we felt we wanted to get to Lanzarote and have time to prepare Octopus for the Atlantic crossing.

Mike and Brian were great at crewing; the children enjoyed spending lots of time with their uncles. Mike helped out with a few jobs on board and Brian was great at entertaining the children. Lizzie and Susie went off exploring with them and went to see a volcano and rode on a camel. We were sad when they had to fly home on Saturday.

The water-maker is now installed and Chris is in the middle of installing the SSB radio. We have now added lots of bits and pieces to Octopus, some necessary and some ‘home’ comforts. We now have a great audio system for music and audio books, we have given up on the gas cooker as it only heats to 150° and have decide to go electric. Octopus now has a decent sized name on her sides and bow.

The marina complex where we are staying has a swimming pool which the children are making good use of, unfortunately the weather is wet and windy just like at home, only a lot warmer. We are blaming the weather on the El-ninio affect and hoping it doesn’t affect the trade winds too much as it’s high time we had the winds with us.

On Tuesday we are off to do the touristy thing. We are hiring a mini-bus and driving around the island, Susie and Lizzie are going to show us the best spots to visit as they have already done it. We will then go to the hyper-market and get our supplies.

We had our first accident on board when we were in Gibraltar. I had rigged up a swing on the fore-deck using the spinnaker halyard, the children had all been using it for a few days quite safely when Victoria, for some reason only known to her, decided to undo the halyard and release the jammer holding it while Tom was still on the swing. Poor Tom ended up with a very fat lip and a chipped front tooth.

We now have some new crew called Ruth and Rob. They joined us on Friday and think that sailing with six children will be great fun!!!!! They are a bit more experienced than Katy and Justin and seem very easy going. We are planning to start our passage on Wednesday if the winds are right. We are now thinking it will take us four weeks to get to Barbados. We may yet spend Christmas at sea!

Cruising from Gibraltar to Lanzarote

Leaving Gibraltar

Our new crew arrived yesterday….Chris’s brothers Mike and Brian, who are now cruising with us to the Canaries. We have been in Gibraltar for just over two weeks now and have done lots of jobs on board, but still have a few left to do en-route. We are looking forward to leaving tomorrow and being at sea again. We stocked up on food this morning from Morrison’s and this afternoon did the touristy thing and all took a guided tour up the Rock. We went into the Siege Tunnels, St. Michaels Cave and got to make friends with the apes; I was the lucky one and got peed on!! We were then treated to a meal out by Brian. Tomorrow morning we will fill up with Diesel and start our trip towards Lanzarote, which should take us about five days.

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Gibraltar

We have now been in Gibraltar for a week and plan to have one more week here. We still have a few things to fit onto Octopus before we start the Atlantic crossing and I hope to fill the freezer with dishes we can microwave if we hit bad weather. The trip to Gibraltar we a bit bumpy, the winds didn’t go over 28 knots but the sea was a pig! The wind was against tide most of the time and the waves were coming from all directions, Octopus slammed most of the way which was very noisy in the fore-cabins. It was impossible to sleep in them so Chris and I took turns to sleep in with the children in the stern cabin. We changed direction a few times but it only solved the slamming for a while. Everyone was sick apart from Chris and Tom who didn’t think it was that bad?? Susie and Katy (crew) spent a lot of time seeping out in the cockpit as they felt too ill to go below. How we love sailing!!

Sadly Katy and Justin decided to get off here as Katy, who has been feeling sea sick since we left the UK, just can’t cope with the thought going to sea again. I think our last leg made her feel so ill that she couldn’t wait to get of the boat.

We are now looking for more crew, hopefully a couple….must love children and be impervious to sea-sickness, I don’t think it will be to difficult here. Chris’s brother Mike may join us for a little while which will be nice.

Gibraltar seems to be a building site at the moment, lots of work going on around the marina. It’s not the prettiest of places. The houses, which seem to be mainly high-rise flats, surround us on one side with the airport on the other. We won’t be sorry to move on to somewhere a bit greener and the children are missing the nice beaches. Of coarse Gibraltar is a great place to get provisions and equipment. We have discovered the tinned butter that stows so well, once opened you treat it like normal butter, but until then it will keep for ages.

The children have made some new boat friends. First we met a couple from New Zealand with two little girls aged about two and three, Susie loved looking after them and even did a bit of boat baby-sitting!! Tom also found a friend from Estonia who parents have a beautiful wooden boat.

Susie met a lady who lives on her boat with four cats and a kitten within about two hours of arriving here. So we now have two kittens! A boy called Bosun who is eight weeks old and tabby and a girl called Jenny who is black and white and is only four weeks old.

School work is going better now we are in one place for a bit. When we are sailing long distances it has been difficult working around watches and sea sickness. When the sea is calm we like working outside on the bow in the fresh air as leaning over the table at sea seems to make them all feel sick.

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