09-Dec-2008 Noon Position

Atlantic Crossing Day #1
26'58.0N/16'35.7W
North Atlantic Ocean

• 98 nm last 24 hours
  
• 98 nm from Grand Canary
  
• 2551 nm to Barbados
  
• Winds NE 15-20 knots
  
• Seas NE 3-4 feet
  

Sailing in Christopher Columbus' wake...

After one last shower, saying goodbye to our dock neighbors, filling Sandpiper's water and fuel tanks to the brim, and paying our marina fees, we departed Grand Canary Island at noon yesterday. Once clear of the harbor we popped up the sails and have been on a downwind run ever since. Right now the main sail is secured with a preventer out to port, and 'Big Pole' is holding the jib out to starboard, giving us and average of 5 knots.

This crossing will be Sandpiper's second longest passage since we left in 2005. And we are copying Cap'n Columbus' crossing strategy from 1492. All four of his voyages for the "New World" left from Grand Canary Island. His two fastest passages were only 21 days. We can only hope to do as well.

Our current plans are to sail southwest from our present position until we are 300 miles northeast of the Cape Verde Islands. There we should find the winter trade winds which should be forming as we arrive. Once we get to the latitude of Barbados (13.0°N) we will hang a right and run due west right down the line of latitude for Barbados.

No fishing reports till we eat a hole in the freezer big enough to stuff a fish in.

More in 24!!
Tom and Amy

Las Palmas, Grand Canary Island (Farewell Europe!)

Med moored at the Las Palmas Municipal Marina
Grand Canary Island
Canary Islands
North Atlantic Ocean.
28'07'9N/15'25.5W

It is official. We are leaving tomorrow, Monday, for our Atlantic crossing. The past few weeks we have been patiently waiting for a package of goodies from home. You may have noticed our Mylo fund on the blog. Thanks to our awesome followers, and my creative writing skills for Latitudes and Attitudes Magazine, we achieved our goal and purchased our latest gadget. We are still trying to figure out all the features, but so far so good. Thanks to everyone, especially my mom, Pat, for all her help.

Sandpiper is fully loaded with lots of food, water, beer, and wine. Tomorrow we will top off the fuel tanks. Since being in the city marina the last few weeks we have been able to check off a few jobs as well. It is quite funny when we think about how we prepared so much and for so many months for our Pacific crossing. If you recall we attended meetings months before departure. We traded paper charts, provisioned like it was the end of the world, and had endless discussions with many sailors about what to expect. I guess all these years on the boat we are finally comfortable, have a routine down, and just going for it.

The crossing should take us 28 days. It’s a long time to be on a small boat. But we have plenty of books, music, podcasts, and movies (thanks Ron!). While out we will celebrate Tom’s Birthday, Christmas, and New Years. So I’m hoping the days just fly by.

It looks like we will have good winds for the next few days. So we hope to put the miles behind us. We look forward to hearing from everyone through our Sailmail to help pass the days.

Happy Holidays to all!

More from the Atlantic

One Love,
Amy and Tom

Note From Ron: Amy and Tom failed to mention where they are going. Barbados, in the Lesser Antilles! 

Las Palmas, Grand Canary Island

Med moored at the Las Palmas Municipal Marina
Grand Canary Island
Canary Islands
North Atlantic Ocean.
28'07'9N/15'25.5W

Happy Thanksgiving America! Here on Sandpiper we have our own dead bird of sorts to celebrate Thanksgiving with. While cleaning out Sandpiper's bow stowage area today Amy found our little 'feathered friend'. If you have been following us then you will remember that after leaving Malta for Gibraltar, during my 'mellow' morning watch, I was shaken by Amy screaming that there was a fire below. When I ran down the ladder there was a bird flying straight at my head. Due to my hearing loss, somehow what I heard was "Fire" what she had said was "BIRD".

Well anyway, we thought he had flown away after a couple attempts to get back inside Sandpiper. Today Amy found out that he was successful. Said bird had flown back down the forward hatch into Sandpiper's forward storage area and committed Hari Kari after deciding that he had enough flying around the ocean looking for land. Needless to say, he had been up there awhile in an area that we rarely access and was in less then stellar shape.

Last week Sandpiper left Lanzarote Island and all the naked Europeans at noon for a 90 mile overnight sail to Grand Canary Island to where Sandpiper is presently moored. An hour after leaving the anchorage we caught our mandatory Bonito, which as usual, we threw back. Then the winds picked up, giving us a nice beam reach sail. This lasted till 2am when the winds blew out and forced us to motor the rest of the way to Grand Canary Island.

We arrived just after sunrise to the harbor entrance to Las Palmas. Once inside the very large shipping port we found a crowded anchorage and dropped the hook. Las Palmas is a much larger city then we had imagined. It has a huge port with several marinas. There is just about every American corporate business here along with several huge shopping centers. There is a huge Carrefour grocery store with 'Roller Girls', customer service girls skating up and down the isles. There are several McDonalds and Burger Kings in town to get our junk food fix as well. The best thing about McDonald's in Spain is that you can have a beer with your Big Mac!

The anchorage is very protected and right off a beach where you can land a dingy and can be downtown in seconds. We spent several days at anchor waiting for the Atlantic Crossing Rally with their 200+ boats to leave on Sunday. The ARC Rally is a huge annual event where hundreds of fancy/expensive boats all gather here in Grand Canary and depart on their Atlantic crossings together. Some are racing, and others are just along for the ride. This event costs thousands of dollars to join. For 'Team Sandpiper' and every other boat we know,  found no reason to join this rally.

It was fun the night before going out to the 'Sailors Bar' in the marina and seeing everyone new to cruising wearing all their brand new foul weather gear on (nice sunny day). All of us non-rally cruisers, wearing their dirty shorts and flip flops, where all drinking beer together. The rally members were celebrating their last night ashore. And us cruisers were waiting for them to leave so we could bring our boats into the marina.

Early Sunday morning we dinghied ashore and walked out to the harbor entrance to watch all the ARC Rally boats pass by as they left the harbor in matching outfits and nice shiny boats. There were thousands of people out along the shoreline to watch the start, and many boats just out in the harbor to watch the start. And just like that, all 200+ boats were gone, all heading west for St. Lucia in the Caribbean.

Since Sunday, once the marina was clear of all the ARC rally boats, cruising boats have been showing up from all over the place. Now the marina is filled up once again, but this time with much less shiny boats.

We pulled Sandpiper from her anchorage to her slip here in the marina where we plan on staying until Monday morning where we might be possibly leave the Canaries ourselves to the Caribbean. Sandpiper is pretty much ready to go, with only a few minor projects left to complete. And we need to load up the Piper with enough beer and wine to get us to warmer latitudes.

More before we go,
Tom and Amy

Naked Frisbee at Playa De Las Mujeres

Anchored Playa De Las Mujeres
Lanzarote Island
Canary Islands
North Atlantic.
28'50.8N/13'47.5W

Naked Frisbee! That's right. Just off of Sandpiper's stern are hundreds of naked Europeans laying out on the beach, and 2 very overweight naked men running around playing Frisbee. It could be worse, at least they are not playing leap frog.

As attractive as a beach full of naked people sounds, the reality is somewhat less then attractive. I am not sure why, but on any other beach in the world, everyone lays around on their towels soaking up the sun. But on the naked beach behind us, everyone (mostly overweight men) just walks around with their hands on their hips. And every few steps, they stop, spread their legs, and starts up a chat with the next naked person they see.

We left Rubicon Marina after Amy walked into town to get groceries for the next week. We then motored a short one mile east to where we are currently anchored among 10 other boats. All the sailboats here in the Canaries are getting ready to cross the Atlantic. We are among many European boats that are just setting out on their cruising adventures. There are a very few that have come as far as the 'Piper, some of whom we have encountered in different ports the last 3 years. After all this time, we are anchored right next to each other.

Next to us is S/V Ohana Kai and S/V Moorea that we left Mexico with. Out of all the boats that left Mexico in 2006, only 3 boats that have come this far.

One reason that we are all anchored here is because the normal port for boats crossing the Atlantic to depart from at Grand Canary Island. Right now there are over 200 boats anchored over there getting ready to start their Atlantic crossing (The ARC Rally) this Sunday. So any boat not in the ARC Rally is killing time here at this island until this weekend when  the Grand Canary Island anchorage clears out.

We have been part of several rallies in the past. But this one makes no sense. It costs thousands of dollars to join, and one receives very little in return. Most of the boats in the rally are from the UK and are quite large.

Sandpiper's current plans are to hang out at naked beach until tomorrow, and then head out for a 90 mile over night sail to Grand Canary Island to watch the ARC Rally depart. Then we plan to take one of their spots in the anchorage.

More later from our next stop,
Tom and Amy

Lanzarote Island, Canary Islands

Moored at Rubicon Marina

Playa Blanca

Lanzarote Island

Canary Islands

North Atlantic Ocean
28'51.4N/13'49'0W

Sandpiper pulled up the hook and sailed south 30 miles to where we are moored at Rubicon Marina on the southern end of Lanzarote Island. It was a bit of an extreme sail as the winds were blowing 25 knots all along Lanzarote Island which is covered with lava. In fact, all the islands are. It was a bit unnerving to be sailing for 30 miles along jagged lava cliffs, and being only 1/2-mile away with large ocean swells smashing against them and winds wanting to push us towards shore.

We did not have much information about Playa Blanca other then an old guide book that made us believe that there was just a small anchorage with a small town. To our surprise we arrived in a new booming tourist development full of pasty white European tourists, most naked, laying all along the shoreline. Most of Playa Blanca has been built within the last 5 years, along with the ritzy Marina Rubicon that Sandpiper is moored in.

There is not much of an anchorage in Playa Blanca. So we decided to pull into Rubicon Marina to catch up on laundry and other boat projects as this might be Sandpipers last marina for a very long time.

We were also able to meet up with some other American boats. There is Don and Anne from "Redwood Coast" that we had met in Malaysia,  and who helped us to fill our propane tanks in Gibraltar. Also, there is Veutus and Tracy from "Sunshine Daydream" who have hosted us on their boat twice since meeting them last week. However, after I brought the Tequilla the last time to their boat, it may be awhile before we hang with them again.

More if it happens,
Tom and Amy

Playa Francesa, Los Graciosa Island, Canary Islands

Anchored at Playa Francesa
La Graciosa Island
Canary Islands
North Atlantic Ocean
29'13.0N/13'31.7W

Sandpiper has her hook buried deep in the sands on the southern end of La Graciosa Island, our first stop in the Canary Islands. We were not sure if we should heave to and await sunrise to make our approach to this anchorage. But the moon being so bright, and having confidence in our electronic charts, we decided to make one or our very rare night approaches to anchor. The moon has been so bright that its almost like being out in the middle of the day. When out on deck there is no need for a flashlight.

Once we got the hook set at 4am we cracked a cold beer then fell asleep for the remainder of the day. We awoke to find two other American boats anchored next to us that we had met in Gibraltar.

We are quite lucky to be here as once we arrived the winds have picked up and are blowing 30 knots offshore. Once again our weather planning has paid off and the 3 week wait in the in the Straits of Gibraltar has made this last ocean transit uneventful.

Today we pumped up Sandpipers dingy and went ashore for a bit of exploring. La Gracisoa Island is a small island that is all sand with several volcanic hills. It has one small town (Caleta de Sebo) that tourists come to visit on the daily ferry that pulls into the small harbor here. There is not much to see other then lots of sand, and the very small town that loses its population once the ferry leaves.

Sandpiper's plans are to leave tomorrow for a 30 mile trip to the southern end of Lanzarote Island where we plan to stay for a few days and rent a car for a bit of exploration if possible.

More soon,
Tom and Amy

Canary Islands

The captain has decided full speed ahead. So out with all the sails, bring on the wind, we are pulling in tonight.

Hook is set at 4am!!