North of Canary Islands

We are now approximately 150 nautical miles from La Graciosa and are still
looking at a Wednesday arrival likely to be late afternoon. We are still
motor sailing as the reputed trade winds are still eluding us, which is as
per the latest forecast we have arrived into something of a doldrum, in fact
only about an hour after our last update the trade mark bands of clouds
denoting tradewinds even disappeared leaving clear blue skies for 360
degrees and flat calm seas. I don't think I have ever been in anything so
calm so far out to sea and it really did feel as if literally you are on top
of the world as the horizon was so infinitive.

We are finally out of our thermals both day and night now, we were amazed we
had to be off Africa before we managed that. The sun is very hot during the
day and we are making use of the bimini (sun shade) on the back of the boat
to protect our unseasoned northern skins. Total ship count for the day and
night yesterday was 3 which also makes for some very much more relaxed
sailing. Kevin also saw our first turtle yesterday, which passed very close
to the boat sunning itself on the surface. There are a few seabirds, but
much less wildlife than Biscay to be seen, although we do keep having close
encounters of another kind, yesterday morning we had 5 squid like creatures
lying on the deck, two of which were on the coachhouse (saloon) roof, which
must be 2 meters off sea level which is a bit of a mystery as we have very
little spray on deck, in fact I can count only 3 occasions we have been
splashed since we left La Rochelle.

So, it is slow and steady progress for the last day of sailing, we are
busying ourselves with various boat jobs, I am polishing internal chrome,
woodwork and windows whilst Kevin is seeing if he can make progress on our
jobs list whilst we are afloat. We have also started to study the Pilot
Guides and charts for the Canaries in more depth and have found quite a few
places of interest. Our previous holidays in the last couple of years were
places such as the Western Isles and Orkney Islands, so you might imagine
that we are not planning to spend a great deal of time in Playa de Las
Americas etc, Kevin found a really interesting looking lagoon in Isla de
Lobos just north of Fuerteventura which is accessible only by relative
shallow drafted boats (such as 36ft catamarans..), by day it is a
uninhabited nature reserve with fantastic views and long sandy beaches
unfortunately though with tourist boats arriving, but by evening you have
the place to yourself in a sheltered anchorage - I'm sure you can all
picture that one ;-)

The last part of any trip always seems the slowest to me, especially with
the frustrating progress under motor, so all your comments and emails of
encouragement are being received and are much appreciated, please do keep
them coming and we will do our best to get back to you as soon as we have
access. We moderate comments posted to the blog as we get some spam, so they
will not be posted until we get to the internet cafe on La Graciosa, which
is actually a bar oh dear never mind!

Position @ 09:00 (BST / Canaries Time - Changed ships clock from Continental
Europe time):
Distance Logged: 712 nm
Position: 31 50'.008N, 12 28'.212W
Distance to La Graciosa: 155nm
Total Ships Log: 1103nm

Update: Error correction- Isla de Lobos actually has one village and one restaurant, gets better and better ;-)