Puerto Mogan, Gran Canaria

We head to the marina office in the morning to get a forecast for a departure over night and settle up, as the Wifi had stopped working to get a forecast ourselves. Marie-Therese told us it was a rough sea state and Force 5-6 that afternoon as even a late evening departure would probably still be quite a swell, she didn’t have the next day’s forecast until 8am tomorrow, but a very early departure seemed most likely and the wind invariably slows overnight.
We passed Marco having a coffee, one of the dayboat skippers/salesmen who has a stall just behind where our boat is moored. Kevin and he had been exchanging banter for a few days – “Hey Capitan, for you everyday is holiday, no?” etc. Marco speaks 10 languages to a level that he can sell trips and we were constantly amused by his selling skills and tenacity. We joined him for a coffee and he told Kevin about the Tuna and Blue Marlin to be had in Cape Verde, not to mention the ladies in Tahiti. He lives in Las Palmas but stays on his boat in the week. He’d holidayed for a month or more in each one and told us about his travels and the variety of tourists now visiting the Canaries – Polish, Czech, Slovakian, German, Austrian, Russian, British, French etc. that he had to learn to converse with on the boat. He spoke a mixture of Spanish and English to us.
We head back to the boat, I risked another Pilates session despite yelping every time I sat up for the last two days, though it did seem to do the trick. Kevin did all of our departure checks before our set off. Bill and Jean arrived at 3pm as originally planned to wave us off but we told them we’d been delayed by the weather and agree a couple of drinks at 7pm instead.
Next Marco turned up to show Kevin his boat and the fishing gear they use followed by a tour of our boat. He spoke to Antonio for us a Spanish tuna fisherman of several decades who works the waters to Tenerife to get some advice for our crossing. He suggested 3am, because of winds building after 7am. We went to the marina office to pay (as they needed the latest electric and water readings then joined Bill and Jean for 2 drinks then got an early night.