To the Canaries

Eileen and I travel west from Chipiona, 30 miles back to Mazagon and then 30 miles back to Ayamonte - which looks like a lovely place to spend some time - the river Guardiana starts here and you can go up the river and find a number of places to stop. The entrance can be tricky and I contrive to enter and leave near high water - I had 5 metres of water and I guess in a heavy swell the entrance should be avoided. We have no swell and are able to pick up Ken successfully. We leave around lunchtime after a walk around the town - pleasant place. We head for Faro and encounter an interesting thunderstorm en route, I take the mainsail down before it hits (we had been motor sailing) For 10 minutes we endure horizontal rain and peak at 47 knots, the engine has us going forward at 2.6 knots into the 47 knots. The rain drives through the louvres on the aft cabin hatch! We get into the Faro estuary just after dark after dodging many many lobster pots and some fishing boats. There are massive "fish" farms to avoid too - probably mussel but with without rafts - just a sea of buoys delimited by some lit yellow marks. Be careful here!

After a good nights sleep in Faro we have a leisurely breakfast and leave at lunchtime. The gribfiles show light winds for a couple of days and then thicker weather on the Tuesday night and Wednesday with 20-25 knots. Thursday will have some patches of 25-30 although (a) we expect to be in by then and (b) the patches are to the West of our track. The Navtex from the Spanish Met office shows nothing evil in the 3 day forecast. (I got the gribs from passageweather.com on this occasion). Both are wrong... Pressure chart shows nothing out of the ordinary either...

We depart into a very rolly swell of at least 2 metres and winds of 20 knots instead of the 10-15 we were expecting. We put two reefs in the main to give us some comfort - a bit over-reefed but no bad thing at night The (electric) autopilot copes well but after three days the batteries are low - I try juggling charge from domestic to engine as I realise the autopilot is on the engine start battery - note to self, change this. We hand steer the fourth and fifth days. We had been fairly rigorously keeping to 2 hours on watch and 4 hours off watch and the three of us are well rested. I had managed hot meals every evening and reasonable lunches (Eileen on Salad and Ken and I on Ham and Cheese sandwiches!) We rigged the twin headsails and sailed really well with little rolling.

In the middle of my watch at 2 am I see another yacht on AIS about 3 miles away - we are 150 miles from Casablanca at this point - you remember Casablanca and Ricks Bar? Well, the boat turns out to be Iroquois with Debi and Jack on board, I had met them in Oban on the way back from Norway to Belfast and subsequently met them for dinner in London.

"Of all the bits of ocean in all the world" Amazing coincidence, although I knew they had been in Lagos for the few weeks previous. I radio Debi and have a chat, they are going slow to rest themselves and had not enjoyed the rolly swells nearer Portugal. I hope to see them for a beer soon.

 However I discover a loose nut (again) on the autopilot coupling and take the sails in to lock the tiller so I can remove the nut. The bolt is screwed in to tapped brass and locktited so I expect it to stay fixed. This may explain the battery drain as the Neco autopilot has a massive 30 Amp stall current and the nut had been catching on a bracket. Whilst the sails are in and the boat is lying to bare poles the wind suddenly comes up. Ken assesses the sky and smells the wind and says - keep the sails off for a bit.

The wisdom of age, a full gale arrives very quickly - sustained winds of 34 knots plus, peaking at 44 knots, each of us on watch saw periods above 40 knots and we have a day of gales. The boat runs downwind at 2.5 to 3 knots (up to 5 knots in the 40+ winds) and steers easily with one hand. We are heading in roughly the correct direction - the west of Lanzarote, we had thought of heading to the East but the west will do - there is a marina on the South coast in the shelter of the Island.

The boat does roll and occasionally gets a massive splash from a breaking wave - the rear cabin windows all leak which is a new thing - note to self, apply mastic.  On a 2 hour watch you get wet about three times, at least it is warm water! I wrap the rubberised rug around me and rig an igloo out of the yellow PVC cushions and try and keep dry-ish. We are able to sail at 30 degrees to the wind so a 60 degree spread is pretty good - the boat is magnificent and does not slew left or right much. Cooking and peeing is difficult but possible, sleeping and lying in a bunk reading is easy - we have lee cloths up and this works rather well. The cooker gimbals are not right and the cooker swings and locks with a jerk - dangerous - I am cooking pasta in a shallow saucepan when I get boiling water over my right hand, I am holding the pot on the cooker with my left but I am able to put running coldish fresh water over my hand continuously and then keep it submerged in the basin.

God bless Mrs McCrum and her first aid kit, an antiseptic wipe and dry bandages for a couple of days get it well on the way to mended - surprisingly not much pain - just hassle.


The wind declines on the fifth day and we motor into Marina Rubicon, just up the coast from Playa de Blanca on the south coast of Lanzarote.

Marina Rubicon is a manufactured "town" but very twee - think "The Prisoner" but no mini-mokes. As soon as we arrive Eileen spies a dive centre and manages 4 dives in the next 2 days, I take one in and dive on the Museo Atlantico - a set of scupltures in 45 feet of water. I try out the £59 clone of the gopro and take 25 short videos - all uploaded onto youtube without editing so there are the odd bad bits. If you search youtube for "Voyages of Shadowmere" you should find them - here is a link to the one https://youtu.be/mBJKy-i7IpM





Meanwhile Ken fixes the gimballing cooker problem and we head to Fuertoventura - we just anchor overnight off the main town and the next day head for Tenerife so that Eileenn and Ken can fly home.

Heading to Seville

We arrive at Mazagon Marina - 50 miles from Faro and 30 miles from Chipiona at the mouth of the guadalquiver river that runs inland to Seville and moor to the reception pontoon - the office is shut for lunch. Shirley feels ill with stomach cramps and suddenly is losing weight from both directions at once (D&V). She has a thoroughly miserable time over the next couple of hours and I help her as best I can and also get Shadowmere moved to a overnight berth. Off to bed with a hot water bottle seems to help her and next morning I move the boat to Chipiona - very light winds and no swell thank goodness.
 I cheated here - the shots below was taken a few days later after we had visited Seville
 Palm trees and beaches, sun and sea, what's not to like
After arriving in Chipiona we realise that going 50 mile up a river in very hot windless motoring conditions will take all day and be boring - and a waste of Shirley's precious time, we only have Saturday and Sunday, maybe Monday as she flies home on the Tuesday. Also messages are mixed over the hassle of berthing in Seville. People have done it and the Cruising Association I belong to has reports online for its members. It goes like this; there are three marinas, two near the city centre but these are through a lock and an opening bridge. The lock opens half a dozen times a day and the bridge twice a day. The third marina is Puerto Gelvis about 5km from the town - a simple bus ride on the 140 bus which runs every 10 minutes. But.... both my charts (Garmin and Navionics) show an electric cable half a mile before the marina that has 16.5 metres of clearance. I need 18 (16.85 plus length of VHF antenna...). Now, I have a cruising report from two people who say tosh they got under ok and one boat had a 19m mast. If I was ultra keen I would telephone the marina. You can also anchor in the river and could use motor up in a rib (Simon and Paula!)

So, we hire a car in Chipiona and base the boat there (nice marina - a municipal one identical to Mazagon and just over 20 Euros a night - November is not high season. The car hire is painless as it gets delivered to the marina and you leave the keys behind the bar there when finished. It is nearly a 2 hour drive to Seville but we get to see the countryside and it gives us the flexibility to see roman ruins some way out of the city and also visit the sherry capital of the world on the Monday - we visit uncle joes (Tio Pepe) the biggest Bodega in town (Jerez)



The road is long... and straight mostly, the country side is enormous "fields" the scale is really incredible. This area of Spain has the highest amount of sunshine - I think the hire car guy said in Europe! Along the way there are amusing roadsigns on the top of hills, we meet Tio pepe a few days after seeing him by the roadside...

 This is uncle Joe... in Spanish the PePe comes from PP as Joseph was the parent of Jesus and PP is an abbreviation for a religious phrase. Now you know.
The bull is scores of feet high!

We arrive in Seville and rendezvous with Eileen and Reg. I will add photos here later when I get them emailed to me but we have a lovely time, we book in to see a Flamenco and Spanish guitar presentation and visit roman ruins which have the third largest Roman gladiator pit, of particular interest to Shirley as Game of thrones used it for a Dragon Pit in the last series.







The roman ruins are amazing - what stories can the rocks tell us.
The Flamenco performance in the evening is also amazing - the Spanish singing is bit like high pitched gurning but the dancer had passion and the guitar playing was incredible.

I will try and get more pictures from Shirley and Eileen's phone in due course...
We also loved just walking about Seville - the buildings are superb.






 Shirley and Ian - I am the one with the knees

The next day we visit the Sherry bodega in Jerex - there are a number who do tours but we opt for the biggest Bodega Tio Pepe (think Harvey's Bristol Cream) This proves to be a very entertaining way to spend an afternoon - as was my visit of the Port Warehouses in Oporto. We are now fond of a wee dry sherry before, during or after meals  - as long as it is cold. I like the sweeter sherries too - again best very cold. Boy am I glad my solar cells allow running the fridge 24/7!

Ole

 All aboard for the first part of the tour. Castleward - you need one of these!



 Each barrel is labelled with a country that Tio Pepe (Gonzalez Byass) export to - a lot of countries!



 A part of the warehouse is set aside for the special sherry named after the uncle of the owner - uncle Joe who helped the young 24 year old entrepreneur when he started up. Forever honoured as Tio Pepe

 A small but happy mouse lives in the cellar - and the workers put out a glass with a wee ladder just for the mouse. I hope it can swim, or drink lots..


 And there was flowers!
A well dressed bottle

Speaking as a man who built a light back home, out of copper pipe making up three anchors I applaud these light designs




and well dressed thirsty girls
 Dammit, they are all good, do we have to choose?

A good looking nose methinks

Finally a wee walk through Chipiona - a funny wee town with no real heart, pleasant narrow streets and good seafront walks though. A good marina with a couple of good restaurants attached. 





And all too soon Shirley has to return home, I take her to the airport early next morning, initially through peasoup fog, but it clears a few miles inland and she gets her flight ok. Then to prepare for the voyage South. Ken is flying to Faro a few days hence but it is hard to pick people up there, so he gets a bus to Ayomonte on the Spanish/Portuguese border. Eileen and I have to get there before him!