Johanna
N 28° 7.643', W 15° 25.510'
When we were still in Europe we kind of thought that we'll be in Las Palmas in November or December. Well, what's an other month more?
Sailing from Tenerife was nice and easy for a change. We sailed close hauled for the whole way.
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| Our windvane was doing the driving. When wind is shifting a lot, the windvane is much better than the autopilot. Sails have to be trimmed a bit better, but then it's easy when we don't have to worry about the wind shifts. |
In the evening the wind stopped and we motored the little way we had left. This was a good test for our newly fixed autopilot. It worked perfectly. So hopefully we don't have to do any hand steering for the next decade or so...
When we left Santa Cruz, we motored out of the harbor. Our speed was not good. When we motored the last miles to Las Palmas we were missing at least one knot.
It was late in the evening when we arrived in Las Palmas. We anchored outside the marina for a few reasons. One, it's easier when you just want to go to sleep and do nothing onshore. Two, we might have to pay for the night we spend in the reception dock, even thought we don't use any facilities. Three, we wanted to know where our one knot had gone.
After breakfast I took out my mask and snorkel and jumped to the almost filthy sea. Water was quite dirty looking, so it was no pleasure swim.
When I took the first look under the boat I saw the problem. There was lots of thin rope around our propeller.
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| I'm very bad at diving and I'm actually quite afraid to dive under the boat. So we made me a tool out of boat hook and bread knife. |
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| This is the largest part that was in our propeller. Lucky for us it wasn't stronger so we still could use our engine. |
After freeing our propeller we moved to the marina. We got a place that feels very good to us. We are right next to the reception pontoon, so we see the boats coming and going. The nearest shower building is a few steps from our place and so is the nearest mini market (gas station) to buy fresh bread in the morning. And the best part, we have a very good wi-fi connection.
We have started to do the boat work we have been planning to do and I think in a couple of days we are at full speed.
The weather has been good, mostly sunny. Sea temperature is about 20 C and the air is about the same during the day. In the sun it's actually pretty hot.
