Time: 1930 UTC
Position: 27° 29.48’N 015° 37.062’W
Diary Entry
Day 1! It’s finally here… I arrived in Gran Canaria on the 9th and, after a lot of prep to get the boat ready, we’re finally at sea.
LodeStar herself has been raring to go for a couple of days. Andrew (the skipper/owner) and I were right there with her. She’d been pulling hard on the lines in the marina and making it clear that we needed to go sailing.
Chris (Andrew’s Dad) and Neil (Andrew’s cousin) arrived on Sunday, so the crew itself is still quite new as a team.
So far, though, so good! Today saw us take a walk across town to check out the conditions on the windward side of Las Palmas. Once we were happy, a final dash to the shops, then a topping up of the water tanks, swing by the fuel berth, and off we went.
The sail started with a test of the newly constructed water maker – it works! But slowly…
Then, sails up and southwards we went! I took a quick GoPro video while we were near the shore, as well as a timelapse of the first sunset at sea. I’m on morning watch so I hope to get some nice sunrise pictures.
Andrew cooked us burgers for dinner, and we’re now cruising into the first lot of night watches.
Unfortunately, the great wind we had has just dies down, so we’re under jib and port engine.
Comments
The “swing by the fuel berth” comment doesn’t really do the experience justice.
We had to wait for a Swedish Navy tall ship, the HSwMS Gladan, to finish fuelling before we could start. LodeStar looked tiny beside the two-masted monster and I rather wished I was going to sea on that kind of a ship… until we noticed that there appeared to be no auto-helm feature, nor a seat at which to sit while helming the massive ship!
While waiting for our turn on the diesel hose, a young couple asked if we needed any more crew for the voyage. This was a regular occurrence while on the dock, but we were all rather surprised that these two thought we might be their lucky ticket out of the Canaries!
A Briton Abroad 