Into the Atlantic
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Our Moment on Game of Thrones
After the first 2 days of our journey to the Canary Islands, the morning's weather download now included a new feature; a storm would blow 40 knots right on our nose. We needed a hidey hole and we found one on the Moroccan coast. We would head for Essaouira and drop anchor in Slaver’s Bay, Astapor, the fictional home of the Unsullied Army on Game of Thrones. This location was rumored to be a favorite place to film, mostly because they didn't have to do much to capture the dark and ancient castle atmosphere.
https://exploreessaouira.com/game-of-thrones-essaouira/
We had not checked out of Spain because the Canary Islands are Spanish and we had no plans to stop along the way. Best laid plans... we stopped. A trio of the Unsullied visited Ashika.. just kidding... a trio of very nice officials (not Unsullied) visited us the following day and gave Ashika permission to wait out the winds in their lovely bay but her crew would be relegated to the boat. But such are the breaks.
I can see a Canary from Here
We resumed our voyage to the Canary Islands the following morning. The big winds had retreated and took the promised sailing wind with it. When we provisioned for this leg, we had bought only a minimal amount of fuel. So Dois had to clean out tank no. 2 while underway to get rid of residual water and make 20 gallons useable. This is a ghastly experience if we are sitting dockside. The cleaning process is messy. Bouncing around on the high seas we descended into the 5th circle of hell. But he did it and we spent the rest of day and most of the night on the bridge waiting for the dinosaurs to evaporate in the salon. That’s what makes sailing here so effing hard (almost a direct quote from Dois); either too much wind or not enough.
Skipper Goes Missing, Again
We arrived in Lanzarote hours before the next storm. Skipper was thrilled to be on the docks again but the evening delivered big wind as promised and when the boat started bouncing and the docks were groaning, I checked on Skip and he was gone. We scoured the dock. We scoured the marina for the next three days. He was nowhere to be found and I had begun to lose hope.
I think we met every cruiser in the marina. As we walked along calling for Skipper, boat owners would pop out of their boats responding to the common call for a boat captain. In the end we are sure it saved his life because when he was spotted in the rocks, there was an immediate group effort to rescue and return him to his boat. Two young ladies walked up to Ashika and there he was, cuddled in one of their arms. He fell off the dock in a storm and swam a long distance to the rocks. He must have been sitting in water at high tide for 3 nights. He hadn't eaten in 3 days and would not eat a full meal for another few days until he was rested. It was quite the ordeal for this highly spoiled feline. Dirty, wet and completely exhausted, he needed a bath. After his adventure you can imagine how reluctant he was to play with water. It was another ordeal played out at the galley sink. But he was full of salt and dirt and I didn't want him ingesting all of that. We compromised after he ripped my bloused to shreds with a sponge bath and a rigorous toweling off and he sounded like a Lamborghini at idle as he purred himself to sleep (or I should say; until he passed out).
This begs the question of what we can do to help keep this cat safe and we wrestle with this all the time. Locking him in a very small space seems a cruel thing to do to a very big cat. It does seem that he is not as quick to jump off the boat. He still wants to get off but he wants me to chaperone him. So for now, as long as I take him for a walk before bed, he seems satisfied. If you have any other ideas, don't hesitate to share.
Since arriving in the Canary Islands we've been moving at the speed of conch. It's not that we aren't working on boat projects all the time, but we wake up each morning to coffee and a deep dive into the weather. Should we stay or should we go? The weather has not been great but the forecasts are often just wrong. The weather has taken on the character of a Game of Thrones winter. It hailed on the mountains, there are cold winds one moment, then horizon darkening dust storms coming off the Sahara. This would be Calima (Haze) season, where Lanzarote Island takes on a post-apocalyptic world of dirt everywhere.
The weather forecast for tomorrow can change by morning, the wind direction often turns 360 degrees, like the hands of a clock. That reminds me that time is a-ticking.
I've been bit sick, adding to our lackadaisical movement. Perhaps a wicked flu. Our plan is to move on to Las Palmas where we hope to find cheaper solutions to a few problems. Ready or not, we will jump off from there. We ordered an AIS to replace our malfunctioning device. We still need another battery and a shroud but fuel requirements loom large as well as a month of provisions. The weather looks good so we've emptied our pockets to settle with the Marina Lanzarote and move along. See you in Gran Canaria!
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Dois Brock and I, Lauri Hamilton Brock, splashed our boat Ashika into the Pacific April 2017. Our around the world tour paused in Indonesia for a Covid Vacay in March 2020. We successfully left Indonesia January 2022 and splashed into the Med from the Suez Canal/ Egypt July 2022. The plan WAS to get to the Canary Islands by December...nope. 🤔 uh, January, definitely January for an Atlantic crossing to the Caribbean, nope. We were late and made it to Lanzarote, Canaries on February 5th 2023! We are evaluating our final requirements for our transAtlantic crossing. See you on the other side. Lauri Categories |