Given our lethargic mood, we enjoyed a very lazy day. Besides Roy spending time testing his Anchor Plus application after all the new Apple software releases for the various devices, we also had a long chat to Justine and Paul to touch base with them before their arrival, following which we enjoyed a barbecue for dinner.
Yesterday, with our body clocks all messed up with the time change, Roy walked to the mini-market to get us freshly baked croissants for breakfast, following which we walked to the HiperDino supermarket to get the last of our passage provisions; the emergency supplies, stopping for a coffee at the Sailor’s Bay café on our return to the marina. All that remains now from a provisioning perspective is the fresh produce, which we’ll purchase with Justine and Paul a few days before our departure. Although we won’t be cooking and freezing any meals for this passage ahead of time, given that we’re all going vegetarian to accommodate the lowest denominator of dietary requirements, there will be some preparations required to chop up ingredients and package these per meal prior to departure.
After sanitising and stowing our purchases, we wrapped up our day watching the first of two PredictWind webinars offered by ARC 2023.
We also noticed the arrival of the SSL Gold Cup racing yachts and the various participating teams of a competition designated as the ultimate challenge for sailors, by officially crowning the World Champion of Sailing Nations. Like the major World Cups in other sports, the SSL Gold Cup is an “equal opportunity event with no social, geographical, financial, or cultural discriminations”. The conditions are the same for all teams, with identical racing boats, the SSL47, and training made available free of charge to all teams.
40 teams, each comprising 11 athletes, amongst them Olympic medalists, will be competing in the SSL Cup Finals held here in Gran Canaria, including the world's top 24 sailing nations in the SSL Ranking and the 16 teams who came through the Qualifying Series.
Although we both had a very restless night last night, Roy still went for his morning walk, but this time to do a reconnaissance of the large Carrefour supermarket on the island, in the hope of finding a few “luxury” provisions to help provide some variety to our passage meals.
After breakfast, we then set about our trek around the various hospitals in search of a COVID and/or flu shot for Elaine, since we were unable to get feedback via email. Although we knew this would be a frustrating undertaking before we started, it was made worse by the total disregard the hospital staff had for Elaine, compounded by their rude, dismissive, degrading attitudes.
While be able to access readily available, excellent, inexpensive healthcare for everything Elaine has needed during our circumnavigation since Australia, up to and including Türkiye, from doctors to specialists, blood tests, x-rays, medication, vaccinations, you name it, that has certainly not been the case since entering the Europe Union. On the contrary, Elaine has struggled to get the simplest of care like her blood tests done, procure the odd medication and now getting a common vaccination has become a challenge. We’d hoped that Gibraltar would have been able to provide the latter, but to no avail unfortunately. Our last chance was here in the Canary Islands.
While Elaine still has not had either shot, she eventually managed to secure an appointment for next week to, at least, get the COVID booster, but she’s not entirely convinced something wasn’t lost in translation. She’ll know soon enough.
Shockingly, every European country we’ve visited coming through the Mediterranean was unable to provide any care for Elaine, calling into question which countries are truly the first world countries of the world, able to provide appropriate, timely healthcare without any problems.
What we’ve found alarming too is the availability of antibacterial hand wipes and gels or rather, the total lack thereof. We’ve visited numerous convenience stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, etc, in every country since leaving Türkiye and have received the same answer: “Sorry we don’t have”. With Elaine’s supply dwindling, she’s had to ask Justine and Paul to bring these items with them, in the hopes that they are, in fact, available in the UK.
It’s fair to say, these are all challenges we definitely weren’t expecting to encounter in this part of the world.
Back onboard we watched the second of the PredictWind webinars and caught up on the videos showing the South African Springboks arriving home this morning to a wonderful welcome. Elaine’s brother, Laurence, was actually at the airport, so we received a firsthand account of the celebrations. Very special indeed.
With the shorter days, darkness ascends rather quickly these nights, but that meant the trick or treat goblins, ghosts and fairies were out early. Happy Halloween everyone!
Before getting onto the dock, though, we stopped at the Sailor’s Bay café for a coffee and bumped into Lost Abbey (Lu and Jeff), meeting one of their crew members, Amy, too and enjoyed a good chinwag.
Back onboard, we were delighted to find Roy’s efforts on the saloon sole had paid off and it resembled what he had first envisaged when he started this particular yacht project back in Türkiye.
The rest of the morning was spent packing the last of the tools and materials away, tidying up Paw Paw and stowing all the extra items for our passage properly, eventually restoring our liveable space.
Then, while Elaine cleaned the starboard cabins and heads (aka bathrooms) and got everything ready for Justine and Paul’s arrival, Roy returned to the Sailor’s Bay café to help Lost Abbey with the upload of various electronic books from our library, meeting their additional crew member, Mark, while he was there. It was early evening by the time he returned to Paw Paw, ending our day with dinner and a movie.
Unfortunately Elaine didn’t have a good night’s sleep on Thursday night, given the residual fumes still lingering from doing the sole; our own fault for not airing Paw Paw properly when we got back onboard, a tad difficult with the rain showers that kept passing over.
Regardless, yesterday was a low-key day with very little to do, other than to air Paw Paw properly, fill the water tank, backwash the watermaker and run the generator. To be honest, we were both looking at each other wondering why we didn’t have a yacht task to do; it was a rather refreshing feeling actually!
Since we had time on our hands again, we removed the strut bracket from the anchor locker, something that broke a while back, but we’ve been unable to replace. Hopefully the bracket can be repaired and the struts replaced once Justine and Paul deliver them.
Afterwards we did the laundry, although we’re really annoyed that someone actually stole our laundry bags that we left on top of the watching machine in the laundry facility while our clothes were being washed. They were old, but very useful and versatile for a yacht. Nothing is scared these days!
Elaine’s last task of the day was to raise our ARC 2023 flag in addition to having our World ARC flag flying, since the latter was causing mass confusion on the dock.
Unfortunately neither of us had a good night’s sleep again, waking up feeling worse for wear this morning and making for a very sluggish start to the day, although Roy did muster up the energy to do his morning walk, returning with freshly baked croissants and a baguette for breakfast. We both, however, went back to bed after breakfast and managed a nap before walking up to the Sailor’s Bay café for a morning coffee, meeting a few more ARC 2023 participants in doing so. The atmosphere in the marina is definitely becoming very festive as yacht after yacht arrives; not surprising, given that there are 96 ARC+ yachts and 161 yachts on ARC 2023. Heaven alone knows how many crew that amounts too, but hundreds nonetheless.
Then, while Roy walked to the grocery store to top up our provisions, Elaine enjoyed a chat to her sister in Ireland, but not before we’d worked out a backup plan for the time period following our arrival back in St Lucia and, more importantly, what we’re going to do if Paw Paw is still not sold. Pleased with the results of that discussion, we can now concentrate on the mission at hand; getting across the Atlantic Ocean safely and soundly as well as enjoy all the upcoming festivities.
The day was wrapped up with the start of the festivities; a walk to the beachfront, where we enjoyed a tasty dinner at the family restaurant, Canteras Playa, before getting settled at our reserved table in Paddy’s Anchor bar to watch the Rugby World Cup final between the New Zealand All Blacks and the South African Springboks, joined by the crew of Lost Abbey, their indoctrination into the sport, and a myriad of other folks jammed into the little pub, with our families scattered across the world ready to watch the final too. To say our nerves were shot is an understatement. What a match, what a final and, although the All Blacks played their hearts out with a man down, the Springboks managed to hold onto their World Championship by one point. It was a brutal match indeed, but our celebrations continued well into the wee small hours, as did celebratory parties around the world.
Most of the day was spent preparing the saloon sole for its final coat of varnish and a walk to the large Hiperdino supermarket, firstly to purchase a few provisions we needed, but, more importantly, to see what was available for our final provisioning exercise once Justine and Paul arrive. While Roy tackled the floor, Elaine restarted her detailed research into County Donegal.
A bit of unwelcome excitement for the day, though, was Elaine’s watch that kept calling the emergency services while she was alone onboard. No matter what she did to cancel the calls, it kept dialling until she removed it from her arm, apologising profusely to the responder on the other end of the phone calls. It was subsequently discovered that the button to control the emergency calls had got stuck for some unknown reason, much to Elaine’s relief, though, knowing that her watch wasn’t picking up some or other health issue she wasn’t unaware of.
A fun dinner outing with Lost Abbey (Lu and Jeff) and their son, whom we’d met in Gibraltar, wrapped up the day with plenty of laughter.
Yesterday saw the test area of the saloon floor show positive results, following which Roy replaced the last of the burners on the stove, something he was unable to do when we returned from the US in March because only some of the parts arrived before we returned to Turkiye. The outstanding bits eventually arrived and Keenan was able to ship them to Gibraltar, affording us the opportunity to finish an outstanding upgrade.
Elaine finished her detailed research of County Donegal, in particular, the southern areas of the county and was delighted to find that the areas we liked had nothing sinister we would have to contend with. Afterwards she started her analysis of County Leitrim.
A midday coffee break at the Sailor’s Bay café helped break up the day, although this was cut short when literally every table around us lit cigarettes, all of whom were sitting upwind of the non-smokers. This has become a major bugbear, mainly because the smoke affects Elaine really badly, resulting in her coughing for days.
Since we were already out and about anyway, we also took the opportunity to collect our helmstation weatherguard, after receiving notification that the repairs had been completed.
Back onboard a flurry of activity ensued to wash the weatherguard and the other sunshades, before re-installing them all.
It’s fair to say, though, that Paw Paw remains an obstacle course unfortunately, forcing us to climb over or walk around all sorts of stuff scattered around her decks, cockpit and saloon, as well as having to push stuff out of the way to make space on any working surface, including the cockpit table; shore power cables, the hosepipe, the new propane bottle, a gaping hole in the sole, since the cover over the emergency hatch was used as the test area and needed to dry, emergency water jerry cans, petrol jerry cans, the shopping trolley, plastic containers full of our provisions for the crossing, etc. Hopefully at some point this will all be stowed properly and we can bring some order and liveable space back to our lives.
Today we could take a wee break from the chaotic scene after Roy finished the last big job on Paw Paw; varnishing the saloon sole, following which we walked the short distance to our hotel, where we stayed overnight to allow the sole to dry, stopping for a coffee, once again, at the Sailor’s Bay café, but sitting at the first table upwind of everyone. That ensured that anyone smoking would be downwind of us and alleviated the issue we’ve had with smokers.
After checking into the hotel, we visited the hotel’s swimming pool, perched right on the top of the circular building, sporting fabulous panoramic views of the surrounding seascapes, before taking a short walk to the nearby plaza, where we enjoyed a light lunch at the Nuevo Rio restaurant, then walked to Playa de Las Canteras, where we whiled away the rest of the afternoon at the Madre del Amor Hermoso on the promenade, delighted to find the restaurant actually had a non-smoking area outside and from where we could enjoy the beautiful views of the bay and the long sandy beach.
Our day was wrapped up with a delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant, situated on the 23rd floor of the 25 storey building, where we got to enjoy the night views of the beautiful surroundings.
Unfortunately choosing Vinver Café was not the best restaurant in town for a light lunch. If we’d looked at the online reviews ahead of time we would have known to avoid this establishment, since the reviews were definitely an accurate reflection of our experience. It didn’t help matters that we’d barely sat down at one of the outside tables, when a smoker lit up right next to us; another bugbear we’ve endured throughout our travels in Europe. That resulted in a move to a table indoors and precluding us from enjoying the very pleasant weather and surroundings outside. It’s staggering to us that, in this day and age, the minority can ruin an outing for the majority in being allowed to smoke where food and drinks are being served, never mind the well documented health hazards. This has been a consistent issue throughout Spain after the implementation of a recent election promise removed the smoking ban.
With regards to our restaurant of choice, everything was hit and miss on whether or not sugar accompanied the coffee, whether the coffee was hot or cold, whether or not the meal we’d ordered arrived with a knife and a fork, never mind that everything arrived in drips and drags; first Elaine’s cold coffee without any sugar arrived, then her meal, but without a knife to eat it, then Roy’s meal with cutlery and finally his hot coffee, each delivered with at least a ten minute interlude in between. It was ridiculous!
Setting that experience aside, we then enjoyed a meander in the shade of the huge trees lining the walkway through the interspersed gardens, before stumbling upon the fresh produce market, selling everything we need; fresh fish, fresh meat, fruit and vegetables, cheeses, eggs, olives, dried fruit and nuts, etc. We were absolutely delighted to have found it. However, now we have to learn to count in Spanish. Counting in a foreign language was a big enough challenge in Türkiye, one we’d barely mastered by the time we enjoyed our last visit to the Saturday market in Finike.
In the afternoon, while Roy finished off his yacht tasks for the day, Elaine completed our second video of our adventures through Greece; Tilos and Astipalaia Islands, before starting the third one of our visit to Santorini Island. With our new sim card service, she was also able to upload the first two completed videos to our website. Enjoy!
Our day ended with yet another Rugby World Cup match, but a rather scrappy one at that, between the Springboks and England, ending in a 16/15 score, with South Africa winning by the skin of their teeth in the final minutes of the game.
Today Elaine spent most of her day chatting to family in Ireland, receiving phone calls from her sister and from her folks. Having the opportunity to chat to her dad was a rare treat and one she thoroughly enjoyed, given that he was in good spirits, in stark contrast to how he was yesterday when Elaine’s sister had seen him looking like death warmed up. We’ve no idea why his health keeps swinging so wildly from one day to the next, but he’s comfortable, which is the most we can ask for.
By midday we were ready to take a break and enjoy a coffee, before Roy started the task of packing away tools again and rinsing the deck; this was a good sign. It felt like we were eventually coming out from under a burden of yacht issues that has required attention over the past number of weeks, something Elaine puts down to the extreme weather conditions we’ve found ourselves in over the past few years, taking its toll on Paw Paw too. But, just when Elaine thought our cockpit table was back from the brink of remaining a workshop bench for the rest of its days, it was covered in supplies needed to redo the saloon sole.
On the upside of getting yacht projects completed, we’ve had cooler weather to work in these past two days and, indeed, we’ve had rain on and off overnight and throughout the day, thanks to the weather system to the north of us, packing very strong winds and high seas, the weather that was initially forecast to arrive last week, necessitating our departure from Isla de Lanzarote. The rain has been welcomed, though; something that’s definitely been needed to wash our rigging.
Before Roy got started on hauling out the starboard hotwater tank for the umpteenth time, though, he walked back to the shop where we’d purchased the new propane bottle to purchase the new regulator we now needed.
Fortunately the hotwater tank had not sprung a new leak; the issue was that our previous repairs didn’t actually work properly. With that, Roy set about a more robust method to plug the hole, which hopefully will do the trick. It will, however, require a few steps, the first of which requires a day to set.
After our coffee break at Sailor’s Bay café, Elaine set about her more aggressive advertising campaign to sell Paw Paw, expanding the target audience to include Europe, Australia and New Zealand in order to get maximum exposure.
Dinner was a barbecue just for a change, given that we had slightly cooler weather. As our day drew to a close, though, we had a lovely surprise phone call from Brooke and Keenan, allowing us to catch up on all the news relating to the grandchildren and to start making plans for a Holiday Season visit.
With rain and wind overnight, we woke to a rather gloomy day today. It was a day marked in our calendars, though, for Elaine to apply for her US pension, but what a fiasco that turned into, when the online system didn’t function as intended and eventually locked her out, leaving her with very few choices other than to visit a Social Security office in person. This was somewhat expected anyway, because it happened to Roy as well a few years ago. Of course, it happens at the most inconvenient time, but will just have to wait now until we get back to the US.
Afterwards Roy finished his efforts on the second step to plug the hole in the hotwater tank, which also required time to set, then walked to the Yanmar supplier to purchase more engine oil. Before changing the oil on both engines and the saildrives, however, we enjoyed another coffee break at Sailor’s Bay café. His last task of the day, was to connect the new propane regulator and bottle to ensure it was all working as expected.
Elaine spent her day completing our video of our time on Symi Island, then started work on the next one for Tilos and Astipalaia Islands, bringing back fond memories of our time in Greece.
So, while Roy took a walk to the closest chandlery after breakfast, Elaine brought some order back to Paw Paw once again and, fortunately, Roy returned with most of what we needed. Getting items repaired is one thing, but getting the parts we need has remained a challenge throughout Europe, something we definitely weren’t expecting in this part of the world, never mind the astronomical expense associated with what we have been able to procure.
Roy’s first task was to replace the motor on the last, of what we hope, will be problematic heads (aka toilets), given that this was the second new motor fitted in less than two months.
Before tackling the more difficult task of the day, which required a team effort to replace the port engine blower, positioned in the most awkward spot, we decided a coffee break was necessary, enjoyed at the very popular Sailor’s Bar, where we came to understand the reason for its popularity; good coffee and free wifi!
Back onboard and after a few attempts, we eventually got the port engine blower installed, but guess what! Yep, it didn’t work - initially! Thankfully, all it needed was a new fuse. After that palaver, though, Roy definitely qualifies as a contortionist, but regardless, we were delighted to have a working engine blower, although both new parts came at an exorbitant price; €377, of which €277 was for the new motor for the head, normally costing around £100! Daylight robbery to say the least!
After tidying up again and a wee rest, we walked to the closest grocery store to get a few provisions, mostly fresh produce. Given the intense heat, we were both too tired to be bothered with anything else for the day other than to sanitise and stow our purchases.
However, besides being up to our eyeballs in yacht activities and preparations, we’ve unsuccessfully ignored what’s happening in the Middle East. It’s tough not be extremely concerned as the situation continues to escalate.
Today Roy was up early to enjoy his morning walk, but to coincide that with stopping at the Repsol service station to enquire about getting our propane bottle filled, the new one we had to buy in Concepción de La Linea after discovering we couldn’t get our regular bottles filled anywhere in the Mediterranean. It was, however, very annoying to learn that, although we were told we would be able to get the new Spanish bottle filled anywhere in Spain at any Repsol establishment, this information turned out to be nonsense and, in fact, it cannot be filled and we now have no choice but to purchase yet another new bottle. Such a scam and something we would have appreciated being highlighted to us by the ARC rally as a major issue; every cruising yacht needs propane. Talk about ripping off a captive audience that involves the majority of yachts arriving in the Canary Islands, all needing to top up on propane before undertaking the Atlantic Ocean crossing. Anyway, it is what it is, and we have no choice.
Regardless, after a cooked breakfast, this time complements of Elaine, Roy set about completing the engine blower task of replacing the fibreglass surround; another time-consuming task that first required the surround to be positioned, allowed to dry, then sealed. While he waited for the surround to dry, he replaced all the fuel filters on both engines, in preparation for running the fuel-polishing systems after we filled both tanks the other day.
Elaine, on the other hand, enjoyed a chat to her sister in Ireland, before we enjoyed a coffee at the Sailor‘s Bar, then removed the helmstation weatherguard and dropped it off at the sailmaker for repairs, a repair needed after one of the zips was torn with the strong winds we encountered as we approached the northern end of Isla de Lanzarote during our passage from Gibraltar.
Roy also took another walk to a different grocery store, which turned out to be only marginally better than the grocery store we found yesterday. Guess we’ll just keep trying various ones until we find one that has what we need.
This afternoon the engine blower surround was ready to be sealed, but ended up another frustrating job just trying to get the needed tools to work properly. Our final task of the day required us to walk another country mile to purchase another propane tank, only to discover, when we got back to Paw Paw, that a new regulator was required too - Oh, we just love the lack of standardisation! Needless to say, this was not only time-consuming and just a tad frustrating, but costly too. Had we known about this situation ahead of time, we wouldn’t have bought a bottle on mainland Spain; we could have waited, but decided to be proactive. The troubling aspect, though, with having to purchase all these different propane bottles during our circumnavigation is that they all have had to be disposed off along the way, since they can’t be filled and reused, impacting, not only our pockets, but the environment. We hate to think about just how many empty propane bottles are at the bottom of the world’s oceans or sitting in landfills.
The highlight of our day, however, was receiving photographs of the grandsons and enjoying a nice long chat to Keenan.
The single yacht task undertaken for the day was to swap out the starboard after head (aka toilet) with the forward head so that Justine and Paul don’t have to deal with a leaky toilet when they join us. Well, that’s the hope anyway!
Afterwards we walked along the waterfront to the “nearby” mall, a 6.5km round trip, which included a reconnaissance in the vicinity of the marina, finding a number of restaurants and cafés, as well as the all important self-service laundry facility, all of which left Elaine exhausted though. Unfortunately the walk to the mall wasn’t even worth it, although a coffee and baked delight was enjoyed before returning to Paw Paw.
It’s fair to say that, what we’ve seen of Las Palmas thus far, it is definitely the only grubby place we’ve seen in Spain and Elaine doesn’t do grubby!
Back onboard we whiled away the rest of the afternoon, in the comfort of our air-conditioned interior, watching a lighthearted series Roy had downloaded at some point during our travels when we had wifi, the air-conditioning necessary due to the scorching temperatures and higher humidity we’ve had since our arrival on Gran Canaria. Thankfully, the nights cool down significantly, forcing us to reach for our duvets; quite an extreme actually.
With Elaine being completely over walking another step, we settled on watching the Springboks vs France World Cup Rugby match onboard and what an electrifying match it was. Both teams played exceptionally well, but South Africa managed to win the game in the latter part of the second half. We thought the previous quarter final between Ireland and the All Blacks was a battle of the Titans, but this unbelievable performance by both sides was phenomenal; the best rugby we’ve seen and a delight to watch. That said, it definitely made for a far more enjoyable experience with a more professional and fair referee overseeing matters.
Today was a flurry of activity from the minute we opened our eyes, getting up early to take advantage of the calm winds to unsock and resock both the gennaker and the spinnaker. After breakfast we then put the dinghy in the water so that Roy could undertake a few diesel runs to top up our diesel tanks and fill our diesel jerry cans. Once that was done, we hauled all our dirty washing to the laundry facilities and enjoyed a coffee and very fancy baked delight at the Pier 19 restaurant, while we waited on the cycles finishing.
Back onboard Paw Paw looked like a Chinese laundry, but we definitely weren’t paying to use the dryers, given the €8 we paid per load to use the washing machines, the most expensive we’ve ever paid at twice the price of Gibraltar and we thought that was expensive. Of course, unlike other parts of the world with coin operated machines, the biggest challenge here was getting the correct amount of change, since there was no change machine or coins available at the marina office.
Afterwards we filled the water tank, washed the starboard topside, which had got marked by one of our freebie fenders, picked up after we found it floating in the middle of nowhere and removed the dinghy engine, lashing it to the outboard engine mount, something we’ve never had to do before, but our new engine doesn’t sit very well against the davit when the dinghy is lashed, noticed on our passage from Gibraltar. Of course, this was never going to be a simple task after we discovered that our very expensive stainless steel lock wouldn’t unlock so that we could actually remove the engine. We’ve lost count on just how many times we’ve had to cut a lock off with the angle grinder and this time was no exception. The final task of the day was to lash the diesel jerry cans.
It was early evening by the time we’d completed the tasks earmarked for today, with the exception of a visit to the local chandlery in the hopes of purchasing the additional parts we need, including an engine blower, a head pump and two struts, the latter giving up the ghost in the anchor locker while we were in Isla de Lanzarote. Oh my word; when does this end! We think Paw Paw knows we’re trying to get rid of her!
