Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

In the morning when we woke up it was clear that the reason for the odd weather had been tropical winds from the Sahara because the boat was covered in red sand. We spent the rest of the day washing the boat of sand, disinfecting surfaces, washing up again every piece of kitchen equipment and replacing the galley. Still no signs of cockroaches and according to the marketing on Zum we should be protected for the year.

On the way to the showers we saw that the skipper had arrived on Swan Dancer, a lovely wooden cruiser at the end of the pontoon. He was out on deck, so we introduced ourselves. Malcolm is predominantly a solo sailor and we’d seen him arrive when we were at anchor here in July under sail, now we understood that was because he’d lost his engine on the way from Madeira not just that he was an enthusiast as we’d thought. He said he was in the ARC and would be around, so we said we’d see him about.

Sure enough we headed out with our intention of a couple of quick beers before dinner onboard to the Sailor Bar. We bumped into Malcolm and in the way that these things seem to go now another late night ensued with a late dinner at the Italian restaurant on the waterfront and rather too much wine. Apparently Swan Dancer is one of the last of the original wooden yachts made by Moody still around and he has sailed her thousands of miles with or without crew. Malcolm is currently heading to Sydney for 2010 to fulfil a bet made in Argentina a couple of years ago! It was a really good evening and we exchanged contact details as Malcolm was flying the next day for lunch on one of the other islands on his plane which he had also brought across to the Canaries. He’d hoped to be able to invite us too, but wasn’t sure if a third person was already joining so said he’d try and contact him first thing and give us a call.


Red sand on board after tropical wind