A 5 am start out of Gran Canaria meant pulling up anchor in the dark and motoring out to light winds as the sun rose over the Islands. We were headed about 53 miles to Tenerife, our last stop in the Canary Islands chain, to finalize provisioning and wait for the best weather window to […]
Tenerife, Canary Islands: One Last Stop Before The Big Jump. Read More »
Only our second overnight sail with just the two of us on board. We had a smooth 24 hour, 126 miles from Lanzarote down the eastern coast and around the southern tip of Fuerteventura and westward over to Gran Canaria. Fuerteventura offered beautiful views involving a variety of landscapes from rugged volcanic cliffs to long
Next Stop: Gran Canaria. We attempt to recreate a large American holiday abroad! Read More »
The Canary Islands, formed in the early 1700s by volcanic eruptions, are considered the sunshine center of Europe with year round mild temperatures and a plethora of outstanding natural attractions. Five out of the the eight islands that make up the Canaries are actually Biosphere Reserves, basically major conservation areas. The Canary Islands are the
The Islands of Eternal Spring – First Stop: Lanzarote Read More »
Drama on the High Seas in the Strait of Gibraltar On October 28th, we decided to chase a slight weather window to make the jump to the Canary Islands. One longest multi-day trip to date. It will be a good test to make sure everything is working and in order for the big crossing. We were
Sailing Gibraltar to Lanzarote: 90% Tranquility, 10% Terror Read More »
The original plan for our stop in Gibraltar was to pick up some replacement provisions, hit the local chandlerys for needed safety gear and spare parts (Gib Yachts being a go-to place), refuel, and go! As I mentioned in the previous post, weather had other thoughts on this plan. We were refreshing our Predict Wind
Gibraltar (Part 2): The Weather Doesn’t Care What you Want To Do! Read More »
Getting settled and Climbing “The Rock” The fun, but tricky thing about having “crew on board” is you make basic plans for a sailing trip: you know who, when, where. You make this plan sometimes months in advance. Then you execute said plan and well, mother nature has other plans she didn’t discuss with you.
Gibraltar (Part 1): Exploring Gibraltar from top to bottom Read More »
Atlantic Crossing Leg 1: Valencia, Spain to Gibraltar, UK Arriving in May, we had no idea what we were really walking into. We were excited about being brand new boat owners of this beautiful newly designed catamaran. What we found when we arrived was that it was not quite ready to go. We toiled and
Departing Valencia: Things get weird in the dark! Read More »
Before we leave Valencia behind in our blog for good, I would be remiss if I didn’t cover some of the amazing sights and events we took in while we were there. After a couple of weeks of being in Spain, we were so focused (stressed) and bogged down fixing up the boat (we had
Exploring The Beautiful History and Architecture of Valencia, Spain Read More »
Return to Valencia After pulling away from the dock at Puerto Gandia we ran our autopilot configurations, then we were off for our 6 our journey north back to Valencia. It was a nice sail with 8-15 kts of wind pushing us the whole way. We had the main and jib up, then swapped to
The Final Push: Prepping to Leave Valencia Read More »
Back at “home” in Valencia, it was time to get serious about addressing any remaining concerns and needed preparations prior to the big Atlantic Crossing. Our primary goals for the haul out to was to get a good look at the bottom of the boat, address minor thru hull leaks, a potential fiberglass repair on
Our First Haulout in Gandia, Spain Read More »