Fairwinds Goes South . . .

Adventures in a small boat on a big sea

If you remember the diagram of our little incident when the starboard bowline came adrift on our first afternoon in Las Palmas, you will recall that we were the last berth in towards the sloping rock breakwater. Fairwinds' prop kicks to port (which caused the incident when we left Radazul). The light breeze died away to nothing as we let go the bowlines, and although I used the stern groundline to angle our stern thirty degrees away from the breakwater the inevitable happened - in reverse the stern kicked in towards the shallows, and although I quickly dropped her into neutral there was nothing I could do to stop the inexorable progress of the stern towards the rocks. I had hoped that a puff of wind would blow her stern round the other way, but of course it was flat calm.

Fortunately I had a plan B - into ahead and back towards the pontoon, swinging her round to put her sideways back onto the pontoon. There was just enough space between Esteri's stern line ashore and the pontoon pile and a light breeze worked in our favour to drift her on sideways. Now all we needed to do was swing the bow out so she was stern on to the pontoon. For once the wind co-operated by ceasing to blow altogether, and with ropes and some shoving I got her round. The difficult bit during all this was making sure the Navik didn't contact anything and get damaged. Once her bows were pointing towards open water Kathy put her in gear and I scrambled on board over the very crowded pushpit.

Once clear of the pontoons I let her drift while we tidied everything away and composed ourselves. Another fifteen minutes and we were ready for the open sea. Out of the marina an half way to the inner breakwater it began to pour with rain. The visibility dropped and the semi-submersible oil ring and attendant tug a mile off the outer breakwater vanished in the murk. I began to get soaked, and we returned to the marina to drift about hiding under the sprayhood and large golfing umbrella waiting for it to stop. Finally we left the marina at a quarter to two - an hour and a half after first dropping the lines. I made a vow that never again would I put us in the position of having to leave a difficult berth unassisted at night. Watch this space to see if I stick to that!

Once clear of the harbour we fond a low swell and very little wind - five or six knots from almost astern, with too much rolling for it to be worth putting any sail up. I connected the autohelm and Kathy got her head down. At half past three I was just considering altering course for a ship approaching from the South when I thought I saw a white flare off to port, apparently fired from somewhere maybe a mile off our port quarter. I couldn't see anything there, and gave Kathy a shout as I felt I needed a second pair of eyes. By the time she came up I had altered course and was passing port to port about half a mile from a large container ship. We saw no more flares, and I began to wonder if it had been a shooting star. I think it must have been - it didn;t stay illuminated long enough to be a white flare, and if it was then it was fired by an invisible vessel. Kathy went back to her bunk, unnecessarily disturbed as it turned out.

About half an hour later I was watching a couple of nearby ships carefully when the wind began to get up - we now had about twelve knots apparent on the port quarter, and I deployed the genoa. I set the Navik, but I couldn't get it to hold a steady course. No matter what I did the paddle went all the way out to port and stayed there and the boat began to try to sail in circles. While I was trying to work out what was wrong it began to pour with rain again, the visibility dropped and the wind got up to twenty-five knots. I disconnected the Navik and hand steered, but with no visible reference and the steering compass not fitted up the digital display on the fluxgate was too slow to respond, and we ended up careering all over the place, sixty degrees or more to either side of our course. I cursed a lot, locked the Navik, switched the engine back on and rolled away the genoa. I reconnected the autohelm and stability was restored. Not long after the rain stopped, the wind died away back to eight or nine knots apparent and I managed to reaquire and check the course of the two ships, neither of which as it happens was about to hit us.

I investigated the Navik. Even with the windvane centralised and locked the paddle remained all the way out to one side. No jammed lines, no having set the windvane 180 degrees out (which I had done once before at night) - but it seemed as though something was causing the angled lever that operates the trim tab to be forced to one side. The autohelm seemed to be coping with the paddle being at that angle and it didn't look as if anything was actually going to break. I was fed up and a bit freaked out by the events of the night so far and didn't fancy retrieving the Navik paddle by myself (which involves stopping the boat completely and performing contortions on the poop deck as she wallows about) so I opted to continue under engine and autohelm until dawn even thought there was enough wind to sail. Disgraceful behaviour I know, and all you purists will be quietly tutting to yourselves, but I just wanted a quiet night after this. I left Kathy to sleep because she could and I wouldn't have.

By seven o'clock the sun was rising and so was Kathy. She stood by in the cockpit while we lay ahull and I got the Navik paddle in, then we unfurled the genoa and set off with what was now NW F5-6 on the quarter. It was good sailing, and we were making between five and six knots for the next five hours - but hand steering all the way, as the autohelm is not efficient with large following seas.

By midday we were approaching our waypoint three miles South of Punta Jandia (which has a lot of rocks and shallows extending SSW of it - the pilot warns of disturbed water and whirlpools, but the author has obviously never sailed in our home waters). It was by now obvious that with a NW wind the acceleration zone which we had expected to encounter was not working, and we were still bowling along nicely in fifteen to twenty knots from the NW. I wondered if we would meet a different acceleration zone beyond the point. The pilot warns of 'sudden vicious gusts up to 50 knots or F10' in the harbour at Morro Jable and on the approach, which of course makes for a relaxing end to a passage . . .

Once well past the point and closing the shore of Fuertaventura the wind did swing round to run paralell to the coast and picked up speed a bit with gusts of 25 knots; by now we were on a cracking downwind run at six knots under full genoa. We appeared to have sailed almost all the way from La Gomera to Fuertaventura with the wind aft of the beam, which is a little perverse.

We dropped the genoa and got the engine on just under a mile outside the harbour to avoid any sudden embarrassment with the devil gusts, and once in the harbour it was gusty - from flat calm to 25-30 knots for maybe half a minute - but nothing worse than that. We immediately broke our new rule about not going into difficult places by going a long way down a narrow channel between the inner S breakwater and a broken pontoon, looking for a cleats to tie up to. Most of the cleats were either missing or being used to hold the detached sections of pontoon together, but we eventually found two a suitable distance apart and made the boat fast to the rather crazy looking z-shaped pontoon. We had averaged five knots for the passage, seven hours under sail and five under engine.

An interesting pontoon

After lunch and a couple of beers I slept for a couple of hours while Kathy had a wander about. We didn't bother to check in anywhere as the Finnish couple in Las Palmas had told us no-one had come to see them in the three days they had been here. A couple of Policia Local drove down to have a good look at us - apparently they come down regularly - and Kathy had met and said hello to a security guard, but no-one had suggested we should present ourselves anywhere. Later we walked over the hill for a quick look at Morro Jable itself. It is a German holiday resort with a very good looking beach. We returned to the boat at dusk and had an early night.

Morro Jable

Tues 27th March 2007 - Morro Jable

Woke up this morning to find the clarinet-playing German on Zenon parked behind us. He had ripped both his sails on the run over from Maspalomas in the South of Gran Canaria, and was throwing the genoa out as beyond repair. I dug out our spinnaker tape and helped him patch up his mainsail, then later we went for a leisurely wander round Morro Jable.

The end of the town nearest the port is a pretty normal Spanish town, nothing special but pleasant enough. You can get pretty much anything you need here except specialised boaty stuff. Walking East along the seafront the beach is backed by an attractively planted esplanade which goes up over a large dune, flanked at one point on the landward side by a high drystone wall infested with what look like small grey squirrels. Once past the squirrels you are in the other Morro Jable - a huge modern tourist development with all the usual apartments, shops and thousands of milling German tourists. Marginally more tasteful than similar developments in Tenerife Sur, but not my idea of a holiday.

Promenade, Morro Jable

Heading back towards the port we finally found the tourist information point - but it had shut five minutes earlier at three o'clock. We had a beer and some tapas at one of the places down by the beach then checked out the local Padilla (Eurospar) supermarket - one of the biggest and best we have found anywhere in the Canaries - before tracking down a useful internet cafe in Calle Senora Carmen which would let me plug the pen drive into one of their laptops - many places won't. I uploaded the blog and checked my email, then we wandered back over the hill.

Back on the boat we amused ourselves watching the windspeed indicator in the gusts, but it never went above 35 knots - we are still waiting for the F10 promised in the pilot book. A Danish Sun Odyssey 44 with a couple and two teenage kids came in and moored behind Xenon, making me wonder about the loading on our rickety pontoon. They are heading back to Denmark for July via Madeira and Portugal. They had come from Argeneguin and had had the wind well forward of the beam with some unpleasant sea conditions. We seem to have got our timing spot on so far, having enjoyed a downwind passage pretty much all the way from Las Palmas. Now all we need is another small weather miracle to get us up the E. coast of Fuertaventura.

Morro Jable harbour

Weds 28th March 2007 - Morro Jable

This morning the security guard came down and asked us to go to the office to check in. We were told we would have to move as they were going to be working on the broken pontoon, and were offered a berth on one of the pontoons in the main part of the harbour. The Port Captain told us that we would have water and electricity if we wanted, but that he would not charge us for it. We paid a bit less than 21 euros for a week, and he told us to come back on Monday if we wanted to stay longer.

We went back to the boat and prepared to turn her round with warps. Herr. Clarinet and his crew assisted us. He was very insistent that we could manage with just one rope on the quarter and leave immediately the manoevre was completed, but I explained that we had had too many marina mishaps recently and that I intended to come fully alongside and make fast again before heading off for our new berth. He seemed to think I was being a wimp, but the state of Zenon's topsides suggested that perhaps his approach (in both senses of the word) doesn't always work perfectly.

Once snug on our new pontoon we went for a walk into town. We just made it to the tourist office before it closed. The very helpful girl there lamented the fact that although she had learned English in school all she ever got to speak in this job was German. She gave us a handful of maps and leaflets and showed us where the car hire place was. We wandered up and booked a car for Friday morning then walked down the promenade a bit for a rather chilly and expensive beer at an establishment on the beach. The sky was full of dark grey clouds, there was a cold gusty wind and then it rained! Not so bad for us, but not so good for those on a week's sunshine break.

Cold grey beach . . .

We retreated to the boat. There is nothing much around the harbour - a fish restaurant behind the Cofradia de Pescadores (fishermen's co-operative) which only cooks from 12 - 4 each day and a bar in the ferry terminal which closes at eight o'clock - so there is no temptation to spend a fortune on the nightlife. Kathy beat me at scrabble for the second night in a row, which was more than enough excitement for her.

Thurs 29th March 2007 - Morro Jable

There is a market on Thursdays, so we got ourselves into town at a reasonable hour and walked over to it. It is down in the tourist complex at the East end of Morro Jable, further into German territory than we had previously penetrated. It was the usual collection of stalls - tens of thousands of pairs of sunglasses, fake designer clothes, bags and watches, thousands of African masks, jewellery - some hand made and some imported - sand paintings, massage stalls, t-shirts . . . there were a few nice items and it is worth a browse if you have cash burning a hole in your pocket and somewhere bigger than a 27ft boat to put stuff. Kathy bought quite a nice leather handbag for E15 but when we looked inside it was Made in China.

After the market the secondary missions were to get a haircut and to see if there was any hope for my glasses, which I had sat on for the second time. (I think memory metal frames might be a good idea). The haircut was relatively painless, although the small talk was still difficult. My coiffeuse was a woman from La Coruna who had lived on Fuerteventura for nine years and wouldn't go back to La Coruna because it was too cold and miserable. She should try Scotland . . . we thought La Coruna was warm and exotic when we were there.

The optician, a plump German with a ferocious squint, pronounced my glasses 'kaput' this time but then produced a pair of frames and fitted my old lenses into them on the spot. The frames cost E35 with no charge for anything else. Norman Duncan, are you reading this? With all mission parameters fulfilled for the day we repaired to the German tapas place down by the beach that we had been in before for sardines and tortilla and a couple of large beers in chilled glasses. Kathy thought I looked very intellectual with my new glasses and haircut - you can judge for yourselves.

The new look

Veg and pasta for tea and an early night as I have to be up early to get the car tomorrow. I did finally get my revenge at scrabble, but by an alarmingly narrow margin.

Fri 30th Mar 2007 - Desert Island Tour

Setting out from Morro Jable the new autovia heads into a sandy wasteland, then further on it gets bleaker . . . We took a quick detour down to one of the windsurfing schools on the 20 mile long Sotovento beach to check out wind and sea conditions, then it was back to the main road and on to Costa Calma, a hideous new tourist development. Further North the landscape grew, if anything, bleaker, but passed by swiftly thanks to the new, straight roads. We went into Gran Tarajal to check out the harbour there and got the Port Captain's permission to berth on the pontoons if/when we arrive, then drove upto Puerto Castillo, the island's only purpose-built marina at the moment. It was vile . . . right beside the marina the 'Boot and Ball' british sports bar promises all the horrors of home, while the pontoons are fenced off from the marauding crowds and look pretty uninviting. We saw one British boat in there, from Great Yarmouth. We decided there and then that it would be an emergency stop only and that we would try to go straight to Lanzarote from Morro Jable or Gran Tarajal.

Still heading North we investigated the harbour in Puerto Rosario, the island's capital. There was obviously no space for visiting yachts there, so we headed back through the 'city' to the main road. Kathy remarked that the place looked like something out of a spaghetti western, and it is perhaps worth mentioning that the Spanish foreign legion was stationed here for a time. We did not feel the urge to go sightseeing. Once we had escaped Puerto Rosario we took the road for Antigua, a town in the centre of the island. We were promised agriculture and handicrafts but we saw dust and not a lot else - a church and some welcome greenery around it, and a couple of smallholdings with sheep, goats and even a horse but no sign of anything for them to eat. Heading for Betancuria, the original capital named after the Norman gent who got the conquering license from the Spanish, we wound up into the dry hills to the Morro Velosa viewpoint and interpretation centre, a spectac- ular spot from which to appreciate just how much damage man and time has done to Fuerteventura, a classic example of dersertification.		Desert landscape		Made it to Antigua
		View from Morro Velosa		Road to Betancuria
		Betancuria		Ajuy

Coming down the other side into Betancuria the immaculately restored buildings and abundant (irrigated) greenery of this settlement nestling in the bottom of its parched valley were the most attractive sights we had seen all day. The dry riverbed running through the village carried water all year round when Jean de Bethencourt and his merry men first set up camp here.

Betancuria was the first place all day to encourage us to linger, but time was getting on and we wanted to see Ajuy on the West coast, as the guidebook mentioned an intriguing sounding bar and restaurant with an eccentric proprietor. We stopped for a few minutes to look at the church and water wheel in Pajara, then headed down to the little village of Ajuy. The Atlantic rollers were crashing on the black sand beach as we walked down the narrow street of little fishermen's cottages. We walked up the cliff path a short distance and looked back at little Ajuy trapped between the wild ocean and the desert hills behind . . . it was the most real place we had seen all day.

Sadly the Golden Cage was about to shut, with no eccentricity in sight, so we had a quick beer and chatted to a woman from Cornwall before speeding Southwards back towards the Jandia peninsular. Hoping that perhaps the dirt road had now been tarred all the way we headed for Cofrete to watch the sun set over the Atlantic - but the tar ran out after about a mile, and although we carried on for three or four more miles with the lowering sun in our eyes the dirt road got twistier and I got hungrier, so we turned round and headed back to Morro Jable for a meal. After what we had seen of the rest of the island it seemed a haven of civilisation.

Sat 31st March 2007 - Morro Jable

Quiet day on the boat. The Danes on the 44ft Jeanneau left in the morning to head N. to 'do some anchoring' - but they were back again in the afternoon complaining about the waves. Kathy went to the supermarket in the morning while I was on the computer. We went for a short walk in the afternoon, had a beer at the bar at the ferry terminal then went back to the boat and Kathy made a curry. The strange old guy who fishes off our pontoon gave us a bucket of small fish. It was too late for tea so they were gutted ready for breakfast.

Inner pontoons, Morro Jable

Sun 1st April 2007 - Morro Jable - Gran Tarajal (23nm)

After a breakfast of fresh fish we left Morro Jable about half past ten on the strength of a WIndguru forecast of NE winds under twelve knots for today. As usual there was more wind than forecast, and once we got round the sandy point with the storybook lighthouse we found ourselves beating under double reefed main into fifteen to eighteen knots in smallish seas and able to lay our course of 65 degrees for Gran Tarajal quite easily. It seemed that we were in a mildly accelerated wind coming from the N across the neck of the Jandia peninsular, and it was all very pleasant for an hopur or so. We hove to for a bite to eat about two o'clock and promptly ran out of this wind zone and into the normal ENE wind, about 20 degrees off our direct course for Gran Tarajal. We tacked back in search of the Northerly we had been enjoying closer inshore, but it soon became obvious that with 12-15 knots almost on the nose motor-sailing the rest of the way was the easiest option.

After about five and a half hours on passage we tied up bows to in our pre-arranged berth alongside the German catamaran. The skipper - who spoke no English but was very friendly nonetheless - came on deck in his underpants and fished us up the lazy line with his boathook, which made mooring a lot simpler. Stage one of the windward slog up the coast of Fuerteventura was now complete - and it had actually been a pleasant sail until half way. After that it had been a bit slammy and spray-ridden but not too bad - we decided we were probably going to continue N. tomorrow to Puerto Castillo tomorrow.

The harbour at Gran Tarajal

The pilot book promised a security guard who chucks you off the pontoon if you don't produce written permission from the Capitano de Puerto 'issuing dire threats' as he does so. Instead we got a very pleasant woman in a very well fitting uniform who didn't question our presence on the pontoon - she just took our details and told us to visit the port offic in the morning..

We talked to the German - it turns out this sizeable cat was trashed in a F10 during a December Biscay crossing . . . a lot of repair work is needed before it goes anywhere. Why do people do this sort of thing? To starboard a bunch of teenagers were partying on someone's Dad's yacht, and we decided to go for a walk and have a meal out.

Gran Tarajal is quite special - no tourists and a pleasant normal sort of Spanish/Canarian town with a nice seafront and beach. After a walk round we had a wonderful meal in the Cofradia de Pescadores, the best Calamari Romana I have ever had while Kathy had about half a pig in the shape of tender delicious pork cutlets - with tatties, salad, mojo (garlic mayonnaise for the squid). A bottle of 6 year old rioja (vino de casa, 6 euros), a couple of cafe cortados and a large Magno (Spanish brandy ) for 23 euros total.

We were very impressed with this place and could happily have stayed longer, but Windguru and the Gribs were predicting ten knots in thte morning so a swift motor up the coast was indicated. You can read a little more about Gran Tarajal in BlueMoment's Canary Marinas section here

Mon 2nd April - Gran Tarajal - Puerto Castillo (17nm)

We had a nice surprise when we went to see El Capitano in Gran Tarajal this morning - there was no charge for our overnight stay. What a nice place Gran Tarajal is.

We left at 10.30, managing to reverse away from the pontoon in good order in spite of a bit of wind and a lot of ropes in the water. We waved goodbye to the German and hoisted the main with two reefs. Once round Punta Lantailla we had 15 knots or a bit more about 30 degrees off our course and splashed and sploshed our merry motorsailing way into the usual cheeky little seas with between 20 and 22 knots over the deck . . . it seems to be the rule that you can add at least five knots to Windguru and the Gribs round here.

I suppose all the sailing purists will be horrified, but we motorsailed all the way getting here (16nm) in three and a half hours - what else, after all, did we spend all that money on a new engine for? We arrived very salty and with a wet carpet - the winch cover is shot and water is getting into the starboard under-bunk locker again.

The marina here is expensive - E17.60 a night, the most we have paid since Madeira, but it was good to get a shower . . . we have paid for three nights, and will be watching the weather. Windguru is currently predicting a few days of very light winds and sub-1m seas starting Thurs or Fri which would make a delightful change.

All around is the hideous Calheta tourist complex with British bars, Sky TV with football and Eastenders, fish and chips and karaoke. Now I have found a wifi hotspot I think we will mostly stay on the boat . . . maybe do a little swimming or snorkelling, write up the Fuerteventura marina pages for BlueMoment and work on the next module in my Ocean YM correspondence course.

(Although we may go to the Slap and Tickle bar for Happy Hour tomorrow as we have a voucher for a free shot each . . .) There is one other Brit boat in here - a guy called Tim from Great Yarmouth on a 1986 Benford 41 called Missee Mollie, a stunning looking beamy canoe sterned US design built in Taiwan with lots of gorgeous hardwood joinery inside. We went on board for coffee. An interesting guy, he claims the boat is haunted and is one of many we have met who got a scare in the tail end of Hurricane Gordon last year.

Missie Mollie

Tues 3rd April - Puerto Castillo (Caleta de Fuste)

We have finally identified where the strange smell is coming from, so first thing we took the carpet out and gave it a really good scrub on the pontoon. Afterwards I got stuck into module 4 of my YM ocean course - sun's meridian passage (noon sight) and so actually completed my first astro-nav process. While I was thus engaged Kathy walked round the bay past the Sheraton to the big Eurospar supermarket, but she was unable to carry enough beer back so after lunch we made a second trip for liquid consumables as we had invited Tim round for a beer later.

Tim turned up about six, just as an elderly but elegant Swan flying the red duster came in alongside us. We took their lines and chatted a bit, then retired to Fairwinds for beer and frutos secos. Tim has spent a few months in Puerto Calero on Lanzarote, which sounds as though it has an interesting expat liveaboard community.

After our evening meal I bought some more WiFi time and ended up spending several hours investigating and fixing a problem with SailRoom before staying online until a ridiculous hour drinking Jamiesons and posting nonsense on YBW.

Weds 4th April - Puerto Castillo (Caleta de Fuste)

This morning I wrote up the marina pages for the three places we have been on Fuerteventura. Later on the pontoon we got chatting with Ann and Arthur, the couple who came in on Star Swan yesterday. We had thought they seemed strangely familiar - it turns out we had met them in the Tigh an Truish not long before we left Seil to head South. We then remembered them immediately . . . Ann is Miranda's cousin, and when we met them the last time it was not long before our planned departure date. We had been in the throes of ourfinal preparations for departure and were a bit stressed, and they they had urged us to just go as the boat would never be finally ready. They were delighted to see that we had indeed finally got away.

Star Swan

In the afternoon we took a short stroll round the resort and ended up having a beer in an Irish pub because it meant we could read the Daily Mail for free. We went on board Missee Mollie for drinks about six and Tim regaled us with tales of derring do from his time in the RAF flying Phantoms, then it was back to Fairwinds for a massive plate of Kathy's version of ensaladilla before falling asleep in the salon for hours.

Thurs 5th April - Puerto Castillo (Caleta de Fuste)

A very lazy day reading and on the web for a while. There is a hotspot here and you can buy time online, but it keeps dropping the connection which ius a little frustrating.

Went for sundowners on Star Swan this evening. We are both hoping to head for Lanzarote tomorrow . . . Windguru is looking good - a light NorthWesterly which should be ideal for getting up the coast, with perhaps a little beat at the end to get into Marina Rubicon. We can't leave too early as the office doesn't open until nine thirty and we need to hand the keys in, but it is only 30 miles so we have loads of time. We are looking forward to a pleasant day's sailing to our last major Canary island - watch this space!

Windguru