So we had a great sail from Deserta (Madeira) to Lanzarote. Constant 15-20 knots of wind, on the beam (side) resulting in 6-9 knots of boat speed for a day and a half.
Then we were hit by a few storms, top speed of 34 knots. Lanzarote had a number of days being battered by heavy winds and rain, so much so that the electrical system failed in the marina. They said they had not had this much rain for years. So glad we missed most of it!
The journey was so fast, that we ended up having to slow down a bit so as to come into the marina in dawn light.
Because we were up pretty much all night the following day was spent lounging!
We have a friend of Dennis (Rikard) fitting a new Bimini for us so we spent the afternoon working on that before we planned to head off to Puerto Calero further down the east coast for my favourite curry, Dahl makani. This is very hard to find outside of India. I’ve eaten here many times over the years and never been let down.
The next morning Rikard arrived with croissants for us and set to work in the calm of the early morning.
But sadly Rikard had to admit defeat to the wind so we cancelled Calero and stayed another night in Arrecife. We have nearly run our stock of frozen meals down so we had a slap up meal in the Italian restaurant in the marina. Prawn Carpaccio was outstanding.
Perfect conditions for the Blue Water runner to Calero
Then….argh a line got caught in the block which we could not release.
Richard used his finest rolling hitch to take the pressure of the line, which we fed back to another winch to allow us to remove the block and release the sheet to lower the sail. All handled with great skill and calmness by the crew and a great exercise in recovery. Really pleased with that as it builds confidence that we can handle difficult situations under stress.
Off for my Dahl!
Carioca Sailing 
Leave a comment