Have been unable to post a blog since arriving at Las Palmas due to the poor internet connection. We normally go to the inappropriately named "Sailor's Bar" for wi-fi but the connection breaks off frequently. The Sailor's Bar isn't quite the sleazy dive the name implies, but a friendly little cafe serving simple meals and good coffee. The internet cafes in the inner city have more reliable connections, so here goes...
November 1, 2009 --left our berth at Marina Bay, Gibraltar at 1:40 pm. High water at Gibraltar for today according to the tide tables is 1:41 pm. The advice from passage planning guides is to leave Gibraltar a couple of hours after high tide and to stick on the Spanish side to take advantage of the favorable west bound current in the Strait. We refueled at the Cepsa dock – 270 litres at only 40p per litre, a bargain compared to France where Gas Oil A sells at 1.35 Euro per litre.
Slipped the lines at the fuel dock at 2:45 pm – with time to spare before the outgoing tide works in our favor. It takes a while to transit the harbor, The apparent wind is about 45 degrees off the port side. We’ll sail for a while and see how the current works for us up to Tarifa.
After some 5 hours, a 3 knot adverse current works against us, so much for the passage planning guides. With sails out, we run the engine at low RPMs to maintain about 5 knots speed over the ground. As we pass Tarifa on the Spanish coast, the current slows to 1 knot which is a relief.
The lighthouse at Tarifa on starboard as the sun sets and we head for the traffic separation scheme on the Gibraltar Straits. The traffic separation scheme is an imaginary 2-way highway with ships in a "keep right" pattern along the designated stretch. It is a busy night and we are glad for the AIS to help us weave our way through the large ships under way. The commercial ships travel at up to 18 - 19 knots, making it necessary to anticipate their course and intentions in the dark. the picture below is a screen shot of our chart plotter, each triangle representing the AIS signal of a ship.
You can see the enlarged plot by clicking on the photo. The red boat icon is Skylark off Tarifa, the red dotted line is our course to the next way point and the solid red line is our intended course after that way point. The AIS information on each ship can be retrieved when we click on individual triangles and a read-out giving the ship's name, speed, course over ground, length, beam, destination, call sign, etc appears if we click on the triangles.
It is a long evening as we make way through the ships, most of whom are turning north to ports in Europe, although a few are headed in the direction of Skylark, towards ports like Casablanca, Las Palmas, Cape Town and beyond. The moon shows itself later in the evening and we have the wind almost directly from our stern. We motor sail for most of the night but as the wind shifts to our starboard beam at around 15 knots, we are able to sail on the Main, Genoa and Mizzen at about 6 knots for a while.
Francois prepares a meal with the jumbo sized pressure cooker he brought with him from Burgundy.
November 2 -- winds shift almost directly to stern making it difficult to maintain the course on the rhumb line under sail. Engine on again for most of the day.
The wind picks up to 20 - 22 knots and shifts to the starboard quarter, making it possible to sail at 6 - 7 knots on just Genoa and Mizzen. Progress is good and we may have to re-think the timing for our Las Palmas arrival, not wanting to approach an unfamiliar harbour in the dark.
The Atlantic swells are constant but not unpleasant as the waves have long periods. The nights are cool but day time temperatures allow for shorts and t-shirts.
Ed, with gin and tonic in Skylark's cockpit. Note rear curtain enclosure which was welcome protection from the cold and rain.
Sailing conditions are good for the next couple of days with intermittent engine runs when the winds shifted now and then. There seemed to be much shipping traffic on their way to the Canaries and other ports. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, we saw a ship some 30 miles away bearing down directly on our course at 18 - 19 knots. By the time it was 4 miles to our stern, we called the MSC Seattle, a large oil tanker on the VHF to ask about their intentions. The ship responded immediately and said they would alter course and pass us on our port side. some 20 minutes later, the ship passed about half a mile t our port. While we had our navigation lights on and visibility was good, it is always reassuring to hear from the ship and to confirm that they are aware of our presence (which should have been evident from our own AIS signal).
By late afternoon on Thursday, the winds had built to 25 knots and we were making up to 8 knots on reduced sail even in the increased swells. We needed to slow down as that speed would have gotten us to Las Palmas harbour in the wee hours of Friday morning. The Genoa and Mizzen sails were reduced to tiny little triangles but Skylark still made in excess of 6 knots. We went off the rhumbline for a while to delay our entrance to Las Palmas. The extra distance sailed slowed our arrival at the harbour breakwater at around 7 am UTC, on Friday, November 6 -- still a little dark as skies were overcast.
The reception dock and the fuel dock at the Muelle Deportivo de Las Palmas were fully occupied newly arrived ARC boats. We hovered around that area of the marina until approached by a marinero (dock hand) in a dinghy. He guided us to a temporary berth alongside some very large boats and told us to wait for a berth assignment which we would get to directly prior to checking in. An hour later, we were assigned berth T-13 where two other Amels were already docked. One of them was Voyageur with David and Susan Mackay on board. We'd met them in early August at Gibraltar and they recognized us immediately and even remembered our names. Check-in was quick as we had provided the required information ahead of our arrival through the ARC organization.
The journey from Gibraltar to Las Palmas covered about 760 nautical miles. Since leaving La Rochelle in July, Skylark has accumulated some 4000 miles under her keel. The lady is now quite experienced...
More on Las Palmas in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment