G caught a dolphinfish (this is NOT a dolphin!!! A Goldmakrele, mahi mahi) of a bit less then 10 kg. G was trolling about an hour with a boat speed of about 5 kn.
As G is a great cook, we all look forward to tonight’s dinner.

Night was very quiet. Not much wind, low swell. With daylight we pulled the genoa out, stopped the engines but still made 2 kn and had a nice sunny breakfast. Then we pulled out the gennaker and made almost 9 kn with AWA of 80 deg. To reduce the pressure on the starboard hull, we changed course more to W. And then we started using the flow generator and got about 4 – 7 A and charge overall the batteries with up to almost 3 A. Great!
G is working on the fishing rod… Fish dinner tonight!

We departed today from Las Palmas about 1600. Wind with F3 on the nose. Later F2 – 1. Glassy sea. About 1m of swell from different directions.
The sailing cook or cooking sailor made out first dinner en-route to Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten. Needles to say it was delicious!
Right now we are running with our engines and expect that this will continue until at least tomorrow afternoon. Hope that the weather forecast is wrong and we get a good sailing wind earlier.

Departure preparations got very intense. All crew members are on board; it’s a very strong crew.. several tasks are tracked in parallel, thus prices is good. Today, the first large volume of food arrived and is stored. In the next 2 days, the last 2 days, it will continue like this. Assuming the wind fits somehow, we will depart on 29th.

As there was no good wind around for a few days – we even had glassy sea – and yesterday all day long rain, we stay here in the harbor area at anchor doing boat jobs, and look for interesting historic places at GC. Thus we also visited the ” House of Columbus”, traveled by car through the mountains and above the clouds and will do more of this.

A place in the marina is like playing in a lottery. The ARC pandemic continues to degrade all non-ARC sailors to a lower level until mid January.

Please, can someone develop a vaccine against the pandemic?!

Had no wind start at the anchorage this morning. Made it easy. Almost no wind for while. Comfortable breakfast.

When I finally, close to Punta de Maspalomas, came fully out of the lee of GC, I got 5 Bft from ENE. MaRe’s wind!

Main at reef 1, Genoa full, and the small storm jib. Storm jib for easy tacking, less weather helm, and about 5 and a bit deg higher up in the wind.

Sailing 50 – 40 deg up into the wind, MaRe still runs around 7 – 9 kn at 19 – 23 kn
AWS.

After an additional day in Marina San Miguel, Tenerife, because I told have have arrived at the SSW corner of Gran Canaria only in the darkness of the night, I stayed 1 d more in the marina to do urgently needed homework among pretenders, to secure internet connection via mobile phone.

I sailed single-handed to Gran Canaria. Nice sailing wind of 4 – 5 Bft. Sail 50 – 55 deg AWA and hope the wind turns more N in the afternoon. MaRe sails between 6 and 9+ kn, which gives me currently and ETA of 1619.

However the wind died with just 20 NM to sail….

After a day of seeing La Gomera’s fascinating landscapes and rain forest, especially the laurel forest, we are heading back to Tenerife. In Marina San Miguel, I could, despite of the ARC epidemic, get a berth for 1 night. Tomorrow I will sail single-handed back to Las Palmas. Poseidon and All the other gods of wind and sea, please a nice sailing wind tomorrow.

After a day at anchor at Los Cristianos, with site seeing for the friends joining this sail (Mount Teide) and for me looking at the city, it’s life, and some things I needed, I had “office hours” on board, we are now on our way to La Gomera. No wind at all. The sea area here is in the slipstream (lee) of Tenerife that much wind cannot be expected as long as the wind blows with a northerly component.

I am calling Marina La Gomera since hours but get always the automated reply to call later again. Maybe “later” means next year I can expect someone answering the phone – manana-land. We most likely will continue to Playa de Santiago and hope we get a buoy in the harbor. Does calling makes sense?

Again a different sailing. From Tenerife’s NE corner to it’s SE corner. Wind of 4 – 5 Bft between 120 deg STB and P. Only the genoa up and we made mostly 5 – 7kn. Gybing a few times were the main actions of the day. Comfortable sailing with the Atlantic swell rolling into the waters between GC and TF..

Marinas along the route are occupied with the ARC epidemic. Thus, we will (have to) go into a bay at the S coast of Tenerife.

Also a sunny day, temperature goes hardly to 24 deg and drops in the afternoon pretty fast. I’m wearing my oil skin and a sweater beneath.