Tenerife to Cap Verde

Eventually Dave got the generator working and we left Los Cristianos in the afternoon of the 17th. The wind was easterly and Hocus Pocus picked up her skirts and headed south at around 4-5 knots. We started watches, Dave had initiated a four hour system that gave us all 8 hours off and 24 off every four days or so when that person would cook and be responsible for domestic duties. We were all glad to be on our way and posted last posts to Facebook as we left the EU.

We soon fell into the routine of watch keeping and the cockpit speakers were given a workout as we listened to every number one single from 1952 onwards!

We soon began to feel the ocean swell, something which would become our constant companion for the next 750 miles. Catamarans are great trade wind boats however they do have an Achilles heel in a seaway, they are very noisy! The waves constantly hit the bridge deck between the hulls making it difficult to sleep for the off watch crews.

The course on the plotter remained very close to the optimum not deviating by more than 1 nautical mile. However electronics being what they are I borrowed Daves sextant and began to take daily sights. At first and until I had adjusted the instrument ( a Davies plastic frame ) my sights were out by nearly 50 miles! However I soon had them down to a reasonable degree of accuracy getting within 2 miles or so at times. Due to a happy accident the Sin and Moon were in the sky at the same time in the afternoon allowing a great two body sight.

Life fell into a routine, the fishing rods were deployed and the winds blew, we wee not quite in the trades but life felt good nonetheless.

The fishing was proving disappointing at one point we hooked into a nice Dorado and played it right up to the back ladder before it broke the line and escaped the gaff by inches!

 As the winds steadied we deployed our trade wind secret weapon, twin headsails. These proved to be stunningly efficient maintaining a hull speed about two thirds of wind speed. Two Genoa sails without poling out the windward one as catamarans are very wide, excelent stuff. Need to get a twin groove luff foil for Dark Tarn.

So we read books listened to music and generally looked after the boat as she eat up the miles.

As we got within a couple of hundred miles of Cape Verdes we began to see lots of flying fish and in the morning we found them on deck along with an occasional squid.

The boat performed superbly as did the crew. The watch system proved to work well and  we had a perfect trade wind passage in many respects. Lynne had proved to be a great crew member and all her fears about being on an unfamiliar boat were soon forgotten as she applied her knowledge to learning new systems, finding that basic principles always applied.

On the morning of the fifth day, the distinctive cone of the Island of Sal appeared over the horizon.

We piloted Hocus Pocus into the very crowded anchorage at Palmeria and aftwr a couple of attemts to sqeeze into the available space we were secuela ancho red along with a flock of other faded and slightly tatty ocean cruising boats. In Africa.

Ennui

The replacement water pump for the generator aboard Hocus Pocus was proving difficult to release from customs in Santa Cruz. We sat at anchor off the beach and each morning Dave would ring to enquire as to the whereabouts of said pump only to be disappointed once again. As I may have mentioned in the past ocean cruising seems to consist largely of maintenance in sunny places, it also now appears to have a large element of waiting for spares involved! Dave was getting mildly frustrated to say the least, but life went on.........

We replaced two of the starter batteries, one for the generator and another for the dinghy outboard. Batteries are very heavy so it needed a beer break to carry them to the harbour.

The weather continued warm and sunny so we spent a day swimming off the boat.

We also arranged to meet up with Geoff and Gill for a night out, we met them at Havanas, suitably attired after a brush with the "lucky lucky" men and women who haunt the resort.

It was nice to finally all get together for a drink, however everyone else was a smoker do a shisha pipe also made the rounds......

Dave was again accosted by the " lucky lucky" ladies and was decorated in a very Christmassy neon outfit....

Mr Seddon however was looking a bit the worse for wear after several Long Island ice teas and a shisha....

A good night was had by all, 

The following day Lunne and I met up with her elder brothers family who had flown in for a holiday, we were so busy chatting we forgot to take any pictures with the exception of our new great niece Olivia, who was born in July and we met for the first time. She turned out to be delightful company!

It was quite a social whirl weekend and we were left hoping that Monday would see the arrival of the water pump so we could begin the voyage to Cape Verdes.

The British ketch " Bessie Ellen" which joined us at anchor.

On Hocus Pocus

We began to plow through the many and varied jobs involved in a long ocean crossing. Supplies had to be bought and we also needed an exit visa stamp in our passports as we were leaving the E.U. Dave had hired a car to facilitate this process and we had to make several shuttles from boat to supermarkets to shift the mountains of food. Of course it was then down to our two " supply officers" to stow it all.

I had been up the mast to retrieve a broken main halliard and had unfortunately made another sacrifice to the sea gods of my glasses, luckily I had another pair. Lynne and I had been to Los Christianos on the bus, really just for a look around it turned out to be suprisingly nice down by the harbour it even has a real beach with sand!

We had an enjoyable afternoon exploring and discovered a great chandlers amongst other things. We would later

Return with Dave and Carol to buy rope to fashion a new main halliard, Dave was also taken by a glass bottomed bucket.

This would come in handy for inspecting anchors etc. In clear tropical waters, also could conceivably be used to retrieve glasses. This turned out to be sadly optimistic as the waters in the marina were a bit cloudy and very weedy.

We enjoyed a meal in Los Christianos in a small bar overlooking the spot we would anchor in a few days time whilst waiting for a part to be delivered.

We had a lovely evening drinking and eating burgers while watching the sun go down.

The trip to Samta Cruz proved interesting not least as the passport control office was very effectively camouflaged and proved quite difficult to find. However persistence and doggerel Spanish proved up to the job and after a while we were the proud possessors of a piece of paper with all our passport numbers etc. On and a suitably impressive array of official stamps.

Santa Cruz looked to be very interesting particularly the old town. However we didn't have a lot of time as we had to return the hire car. We were surprised however by a group of trees on the main promenade that had been 'knitted'

This particular one had rather a nice nautical theme.

Also while in Tenerife we had arranged to meet some old friends, one of whom " Fliss" had been living on Tenerife for 13 years so was a valuable source of local information. She worked as the manager of a Japanese restaurant and we had a lovely meal there along with Ron Atkinson the ex England manager.

Soon the jobs were down to single figures.

Await spare part for generator.

Splice new hard eye in main halliard ( Carol came in invaluable here with her knitting and weaving skills )

Find English tea bags

We decided to test out the new trade wind rig on Hocus Pocus, this was a twin headsails arrangement and it turned out to be very effective on a short sail around to Los Cristianos.

We had sailed here to await the delivery of the replacement water pump for the generator. We anchored just off the breakwater opposite the beach at Los Vistas. 

Dave kindly ferried Lynne and I ashore for a meal with our old friends Geoff and Gill ( parents of Fliss ) and we only got a  bit wet. However the meal in Domingos restraint was very memorable.

The following day was a national holiday and the spare part was still stuck in Santa Cruz. Fliss was on the case with the teabags and Dave and I were looking forward to the trip to cape Verdes.

Later we got a phone call from Fliss to say she had cleaned out Iceland and we were now the proud possessors of 3600 tea bags, PG Tips to be precise. So we took the dinghy to the beach to meet and collect them.

Gill was having her hair done and we all met up for coffee.

Meanwhile a large cruise ship had anchored just by Hocus Pocus and was ferrying its passengers ashore. We managed to get wet again carrying our precious cargo back to the boat but luckily it was just our clothing that got soaked!

It made a very brightly lit neighbour that night, we were also joined by two other boats , one yacht and a square rigged ship. It was getting quite crowded!

Tenerife

 They day began to approach when we were due to meet Dave and Carol in Tenerife. A last flurry of preparation on Dark Tarn to prepare her for a winter alone unfortunately coincided with the worst weather we had experienced in Getxo. We also had some very bad news from home regarding a relative which knocked us for six a bit. We spent a quiet week aboard watching the rain and being bounced around in the high winds.

Nonetheless the fridge was defrosted and all lockers were inspected and aired, clothes were packed in bags and Lynne finished the spring clean of the headlining show etc. A season early.

After a last con flab with Álvaro who promised to look after Dark Tarn we took the metro into Bilbao to get the bus to Santander. The plan was to give ourselves plenty of time and possibly explore Santander itself for a few hours before catching the bus for a 15 trip to Seve Ballasteros airport. The trip took us an hour and a half along the coast road through some steep mountains and spectacular cliffs and scenery. However to our total surprise before reaching Santander the bus stopped at Seve Ballasteros airport, we decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and de bused with our luggage. Quiet wouldn't begin to describe Santander airport, we had a meal and a coffee before clearing immigration into the deserted departure lounge.

We had a few hours wait being far earlier than intended but it was a not unpleasant  time. There seemed to be 4 flights that evening and it made a marked contrast to Manchester or Dublin!

The flight was 3 hours and we de ended to Tenerife south at midnight local time. We caught a taxi to the marina where we found that neither of our phones had recovered from flight mode in a working state. Lynnes in particular saying it had no SIM probably due to being sat on on the plane by a passenger. We trundled along what appeared to be the visitors pontoon and soon discovered Hocus Pocus moored near one of the strangest craft we had yet come across, a local "party boat" which was tricked out as a Viking longship!

After Dark Tarn, Hocus Pocus was something of a revalation, as we were welcomed by Dave and Carol it was difficult to get used to the vast amount of space aboard, after so long aboard our wee boat!

It was very warm, although we were obviously in "Fernandos" as every other voice was speaking English. Dave and Carol suggested a full one for breakfast and we were delighted to agree. Tenerife itself is fairly obviously a volcanic island as a quick inspection of the local beach revealed.

Dave and Carol had come here for the transport links, to facilitate visits from friends and family ( and us of course! )

And also to provision for the Atlantic crossing. A quick look around the Marina showed a number of boats doing exactly the same thing and the ensigns of Sweden, the U.K. France Poland Netherlands were all in evidence. We got stuck into the snag list ( every boat has one of these ) and things were going well until after a trip up the mast to retrieve a broken halliard I managed to get my specs flicked of by a lazyjack which then gracefully dropped into the briny, oh well I had my spare pair and I'm due for an eye test anyway! Dave manfully volunteered to attempt to dive for them but neither of us is in the first flush of youth and hanging around at a depth of four metres on one breath is a young mans game, but it was worth a try. Monday night was "steak night at the local Irish bar, so we decided that sounded good and it turned out to be just that. 

Of course it's not all work and chatting, some serious relaxing was called for too and I took advantage of Hocus Pocus's hammock to laze a bit while we spoke to Alex on the telephone.

Birthdays and awaydays

Coming up to that time again, another year on............I have to be honest here, birthdays are not my favourite times. I tend to get slightly introspective and while not being shockingly aware of my own mortality as I was when my son was born,  I am certainly concious of time passing....

  This time I am lucky, I am living in a country that is new to me, I have the love and companionship of my wife, and we live on a boat.........Life is good. The future doesnt seem to consist of more of the same, it is that undiscovered country that lies ahead, its exciting.

We have a few weeks left before we join Dave and Carol on Hocus Pocus on our first ocean crossing, in the meantime we are still enjoying exploration on the small scale.

we decided to use our Barik cards to take a trip on one of the funicular railways that climb out of Bilbao. Appaerntly the local name for Bilbao is " The Hole", as it is amost completely surrounded by mountains.

The views from the top of the Hole are stunning.

There are several high level walks that begin from the funicular stations, just my kind of walk with all that tedious climbing up eliminated.

As everywhere around Bilbao you just trip over art. We admired this particular piece for several minutes before walking behind it and noticing that when backlit it is a representation of a fingerprint. No i have no idea either....

 

Of Course we also were trying to get Dark Tarn shipshape for winter, and a fair bit of time was spent painting and getting her ready for a three month winter sleep alone, we have re-jigged the cleats on the pontoon and her mooring lines, so all is prepared for the expected winter surges. Rust has been eliminated from decks and fittings, fresh gloss and non slip deck paint has been applied and headlinings cleaned, engine serviced and minor faults fixed.

So it was party time, Halloween again........we set off to the next bay along for lunch.

we discovered some hippys on the beach had spent ages making a rather neat if seasonaly out of kilter alpine village, complete with snow. Rather neat! However my wife requires food so we repaired to the beach Hotel and sat down at a table only to be told we should have booked so vacated to the next restraunt along "La Terrace" for lunch.

after lunch we continued along the beach to the old fishing village for yet more alcholic beverages and another "selfie".

here it is.........

I believe we patronised a couple of bars here before climbing the steep hill to Algorta.

Obviously after such a steep and winding climb a drink was in order.

The selfies were geting a bit rough around the edges at this point, 

Also,l I had been using the marvels of modern digital technology to speak to my old boss, who wa telling me how neatly I had evaded the huge problems that local authorities were facing at home, or rather their employees were. I also managed to speak to various members of my family. It was late afternoon and as Lynne and I sat on the balcony of a bar in Algorta I realised I was 58 years old and incredibly lucky, the sun set in a glorious display.....

we wandered back down to Getxo and crossed the wonderful transporter bridge to have a drink and Pinxos in the Grand hotel.

This is a fine establishment and is a relatively new discovery for Lynne and I as we had previously considee that it may be a bit too posh for the likes of us, we were wrong and its now a regular haunt.

After a few drinks on the balcony, after all it is only the end of October, not properly chilly and it does provide a lovely view of the Ria.

We moved on to our heavy metal bar of choice, where you can drink a bottle of strong beer for the princely sum of 1€ while listening to Death metal played really loud...

To be honest by this stage in my birthday celebrations things could have got a bit messy but luckily we happened upon a bar we had never been in before, not really that difficult as there are hundreds!

However this one had a disco type thing going on and I was at the stage where I would dance to anything, suffice to say we were made very welcome and we requested some Manchester tunes.

along with some very large Gin and Tonics...................it all gets a bit hazy after that. Best gay bar in Portugalete, and we didnt miss the last bridge home.

After a few days recovery time it was back to  the grind for the wee jobs. however we did walk out to the north coast again.

Isnt it fabulous? The waves just off the point are 3-4 metres, there are 20+ surfers in the break,  the beach has naked sunbathers on it as the air temperature is in the mid 20s.

its the middle of November.................

Im 58 and a very lucky guy.......................and I really must thank my wife for getting me home!