Atlantic Crossing day 1. Goodbye now Europe (finally)

Finally back on the sea. We are very excited and happy but also very very tired due to having to wait for and search all over the island to get a hold on butane gas which were supposed to be awaiting us at the gas station yesterday afternoon. Anyway, today we got it solved and we're now underway. We are just rounding Gran Canarias most Southern point as we speak.

Too tired for any longer contemplations right now so let's speak again in the morning. /Taru

Not on a Friday

The document have finally arrived. Not a day too early. One thing very important to know about Spain is that you need a hell of a lot of patience when you're dealing with bureaucracies and administrative institutions. The fact that you will have to wait for things/deliveries/letters/emails/people much longer than scheduled, is something you just have to get used to and put into your calculations from day one otherwise it is very easy to go completely crazy over here. But Spain is, on the other hand, good in so many other ways so it might even out.

Anyways, the important boat document is now here and we are ready to go. Or at least I am but Alex refuses to leave today as it is a Friday and apparently it means bad luck to leave for a sailing passage on a Friday. Everyday you learn something new about the people around you. I never seen a superstitious side in my man before today. Very interesting. Or maybe just all sailors are living by this superstition. Who knows?

"In some cultures, Friday is considered unlucky. This is particularly so in maritime circles; perhaps the most enduring sailing superstition is that it is unlucky to begin a voyage on a Friday" - cut out from Wikipedia.

/Taru

Departures

The two days after NYE are the days when hundreds of boats leave Las Palmas for the long Atlantic crossing. On the 1st of January it was Swedish Marta, Magnus and their 14 months old son Fox's time to departure for new adventures across the ocean with their boat Mazarin, a Bianca 27. We wish this little family all luck and we're hoping to see them again in some weeks when it's our time to land on the other side. /T&A

P.S: Can you see that they also have the Sailomat windvane?  Good stuff!

NYE 2010

We went to make the food shopping for NYE yesterday and Alex studied me while I was picking up things for the soup that I was planning to concoct. Langoustine, spider crab, fresh salmon fillet, swordfish, prawns, clams etc.. and he said with a sceptic look: "Are you really going to spoil these beautiful fishes and seafood into a soup?" Soupe de poissons for him and for many other French people is a (sometimes) clear soup containing a couple of (or many) different types of bony fishes, garlic croutons, cheese, wine, tomatoes and spices and most of the times not much more ingredients into it, although it is very tasty. So he almost got upset when realizing that I was actually going to spoil and destroy such delicious things into a watery mix. That was only until he tasted my soup though. He had a spoon, then another and he went from a long delighted mmmmm to an ecstatic aaaah and kept on like that for a good fifteen minutes or so and I think he refilled the plate at least two times before he fell down in the cockpit couch with a satisfied grin. A proper food orgasm was delivered and he admitted that it was something of the best he had ever eaten. My soup, FYI, is made of a base made of shallots, garlic, persil, mushrooms, oil and white wine. Gently mixed with a couple of different spices, liquid cream , lemon juice and added are several types of seafood and fish. It is a true masterpiece and I still haven't encountered anyone who doesn't love it. Saffron can occasionally be added but this specific version I prefer without. 

We enjoyed the dinner just the two of us and after the dessert we left into town and found ourselves a perfect spot by the beach just before they shot off the fireworks at 12:00. Prepared with a delicious rose champagne, which we got from our friends Thierry and Nat when leaving Barcelona for two months ago, and the 12 traditional Spanish grapes (which are supposed to bring luck when you eat twelve of them just after midnight) and we wished each other and ourselves the best of luck for the future and the upcoming year under the sparkling sky full of colorful flashes and explosions. Afterwards we had a walk back home - a walk which took over two hours along the beachside as we got lost by the narrow cobbled streets. A beautiful night was spent and we crashed in bed around 3 am, tired, happy and excited for what the new decennium will have in store for us. All was perfect, only some of our dear people from home were missing and thank god I drank enough champagne that I barely felt the ache from my new shoes after all that walking. Feels good to know that I will not be in need of wearing high heels for, at least, the next four weeks or so. /Taru

Burning skies

The sky is on fire. We're just about to have dinner with a light wind, some luminescent plankton and a purple-pinkish shimmer around our boat as the only peaceful company tonight. See you tomorrow in Gran Canaria. /T

Surf in Lanzarote

I have always known how important surfing was to Alex for about 15 years ago or so. When he was a surf teacher in Biarritz on the French Atlantic coast and when he was traveling the world from Mexico to South Africa to Angola and Bali, Portugal and the coasts of Morocco in search for the best waves, but I had never seen it myself as yet - and as it was such a distant image for me. As I never seen it IRL, I had also hard to picture him as the surfer he obviously once was - even though I've seen some old photos of it. He's been mumbling about getting that board in the water once we get to warmer waters like the Pacific or such, while I at the same time have felt his worries for being a bit too old and rusty, and with time I have also somehow thought that yeah, he probably is a bit too old and rusty to get it going on the big rolls. But so today I finally got to see him working that board for real for the first time in my life and while sitting some hundred meters away, prepared with my tele-objective, I could slowly start to realize the deep importance the surfing have had on him - and obviously still does in a nostalgic, deep way and I felt such strength of seeing him excellently maneuvering the board after such long time. Obviously a lot more stiff than I can imagine him in his 20's, but still he had the flow. 

For some odd reason I even started to cry for fucks sake, when I saw him taking off on a two meters left. Two meters (6,5 foot) is really nothing when it comes to serious surfing but it did made me proud to see my handsome man making some action after such long time. Is that the second you know that you never loved anyone higher - when you're almost 30 and you begin to cry when watching the love of your life doing something he really loves from the bottom of his heart or is that just a sign of that human beings (me) gets more pathetic with age? Seriously. Either way I had an amazing time watching the show and Alex was obviously really happy to have found himself some good waves again. Can't wait to learn this sport myself and I'm glad I have the perfect teacher for it.

Also I definitely need to get a good waterproof camera/video cam so that I can shoot better pics and videos of Alex (and maybe even me) surfing on our tour around the world. This is something we cannot miss out on I'm telling you.

Lanzarote!

We had a peaceful Christmas night on the sea with 20-25 knots of wind coming from the NW, right on the beam. 240 nm was quickly done in 39 hours. This is how it looked when arriving to the islands this morning- It is so hot over here, one could almost mistake these islands to be Caribbean ones. Sorry for the bitchy-early-morning-look on my face but that's how it goes when trying to avoid getting too much sun in the eyes while balancing with a bony ass trying not to fall over board and at the same time dying for getting back into the cockpit to enjoy Christmas breakfast with my baby.

Anyway, now we're finally here! I'll speak to you later. /T