My sister did a "brilliant" move: not only did she leave the passports that they used to enter Morocco on the boat, she also left the documents for the rental car in the same bag. The latter led to a lucky incident while we were driving. Diego was following me, and not being sure what the speed limit was, I was going 70 in 60 km/h zone. However, only their car was stopped. Julia explained to the officer that all documents were on a boat in Rabat, and to our amazement, the guy let them go with "watch your speed". Diego later opined, "in Canada, you'd be arrested, in Colombia you'd end up paying $1000, and here the guy just trusted us." In any case, they had to follow us to the boat in order to get the documents and as a perk we ended up having dinner together.
Formalities
In the morning Mark took the kids to get groceries and I walked over to the police department to see what needed to be done to check out of the country. "It's pretty straightforward, but you need to plan on an hour, just pull up to the dock here." I thought they were kidding, but in any case, we didn't have a choice, so after we said good bye to Julia, Diego and the kids we motored over to the other side of the marina. The jetskis were not yet active, so it was pretty easy to dock.
They were not kidding about taking an hour. There was whatever back office stuff (did they call the king?), then a big black dog came aboard to smell out whatever he is trained to find (he was disappointed). Then the woman from the customs and the police chief boarded Salty Ginger to do an inspection. They opened a couple of drawers, the police chief remarked "c'est magnifique de vivre ici! c'est la vie!". Then finally our passports were returned to us and we could leave the dock.
We went through the Bouregreg river without hitting anyone, but once we were outside in the ocean, there was absolutely no wind, so we started motoring. Within half a mile we were absorbed by fog. It was just like what we experienced in Maine: 100 meter visibility and fish traps that we had to go around. Not my favorite type of fun. There was one big difference: it was warm!
Damn garbage
After lunch I took a quick nap, mentally preparing for the night shift. That felt nice. All relaxed I came up on deck, and suddenly the engine made a funny noise, changed its sound and our speed got halved. I suspected we hit something even though nothing was visible. In reverse, the engine made the whole boat shake. We definitely cannot continue motoring like that, and we surely cannot enter a marina! Luckily we were already outside of the fog, the sun rays pierced clear blue water and the swell was minimal. There was only one way forward: someone (the captain) had to dive to see what was happening.
A huge piece of plastic, looking like a sack for something industrial, was wrapped solidly around the propeller. I got gloves, a mask and on the 3rd attempt I was able to free the propeller. Doing this in any sort of swell would have been very difficult. I could get enough air to reach the prop, yank on the stupid bag and come up to breathe. Later in the evening the propeller hit a rope! This time diving was not necessary to free us off this garbage.
Leo got seasick and barfed, but kept being in good spirits. Peter fed his dinner to the fish as well. Mark didn’t eat much and was “a little queasy”. I was the only one who was not affected by the rolling of the boat too much. And I was hungry!
We went under motor until 4am when finally enough wind filled in for us to be able to move faster than 2 knots. It’s a great feeling to be able to shut off the engine and move without the loud noise that it makes. There is still plenty of noise from the wind, the rigging, the water, but it's different, and doesn’t make it too hard to fall asleep. Usually.
Towards the end of my shift, I raised the larger foresail and then we furled the mainsail so that it wouldn’t interfere with the code 0. The wind almost dead behind us, we were in the Portuguese trade winds and the Canary current which were carrying us directly towards Lanzarote.
The second day of our sail was rather uneventful. We tried to fish, but were not lucky. Kids and Mark were still feeling a bit seasick, but despite that, everyone was quite upbeat even if they slept 16 hours per day!
At 11pm, as we were quite far off the African coast, I was watching a fleet of fishing boats. At least they had lights, because they were not beaming their position through AIS. And then I felt a jerk, as if we hit something soft. Indeed, the speed through water went from over 5 knots to 3. And then I noticed a big orange buoy that Salty Ginger was dragging through the water. Ugh. How did she find this 30 miles offshore!?
I rolled in the sail and pointed the bow into the wind to slow Salty Ginger down. I was ready to cut the line of the buoy, but I figured I should first ensure that when I do that the operation will be successful. A meter under the surface of the water I could see a thick rope, which was clearly attached to the culprit that was slowing us down. Once I started pulling on the thin marker line, it tripped the line wrapped around the keel and the entire thing started drifting away. Fine, I won’t cut the line. Maybe the owner will be able to find it…
Rolling, rolling, rolling
46 hours into our sail we were at the half way point. The wind picked up and started gusting above 20 knots. Good time to swap sails to avoid accelerating to 9 knots in the gusts. Typically, I would want to go as fast as possible so long as it's responsible, but based on our calculations, if we were to average 6 knots, we would arrive to Lanzarote at 2am. Not the best time of day to enter an unfamiliar harbor. Arriving at dawn would have been much more preferable.
On the afternoon of our 3rd day, Mark asked if we had any bread left. Of course not! Leo ate the last piece of a baguette 24 hours prior. Mark laughed, “at least I grabbed two more baguettes at the store; the kids were trying to convince me that one is enough”. Having James, our windvane, as a trusted helmsman who does not need to eat or sleep, gives us time to do other things rather than drive the boat. While the rest of the crew were napping I used the flour and yeast that Frank got last summer to make simple flat breads. Our baking capabilities are limited since the oven doesn’t really heat up that high, but using a frying pan worked very well to improve crew happiness.
Another set of boring night shifts. Given the shorthanded crew, it’s better than way, of course. In the morning the wind decreased enough that sailing under the jib alone got quite slow. As I went on deck to change the sail, I noticed a little squid that somehow landed under the forestay in the middle of the night. Salty Ginger continues to prove herself as a superior fisherman! (She caught a flying fish on the Transatlantic passage.) We tried to use the squid as bait and despite the stink that it made (which led Peter to donate his breakfast to the fish), no fish took it with the hidden hook. When we got to Lanzarote, we found another squid and a flying fish on deck!
I finally finished Stefan Zweig’s book about Magellan and switched over to the book about German expeditions to the poles that my German teacher gave me with a notice “to enjoy during the hours at sea”. The reading example was finally taken up by Peter, who went through a Chekhov short story (in Russian!), which we then reread together. Leo on the contrary declared that he hasn’t yet found a book that he likes to read, and instead prefers to spend his time in the cabin “thinking his thoughts to himself”.
Arrival
On the evening before our arrival, Peter helped me switch to the smaller jib before he went to bed. It was a good decision: the wind kept getting stronger and stronger during the night. To the point where Mark realized that we would be arriving at 5am in complete darkness unless he would have shortened the sail. At 4am when I took over, I shortened the sail further. At dawn we were at the entrance to the channel into the Arrecife harbor and at 7am we were tied up at the first free dock that we could find. I wrote a short message to the marina office and immediately fell asleep.
We got our assigned spot and went to check in at the marina. A girl at the desk, clearly just started working there, did all of their formalities and to my question about where we were supposed to register with the authorities, she said "if you want, you should go to the police." What does she mean by "if"?! We just arrived from a non-EU country!!! The police office she sent us to was the wrong police office. They ended up explaining to us in Spanish where we were supposed to go. There was one issue: we didn't know how to call a cab. We talked to one cab who was passing by and he supposedly called someone for us, but after 10 minutes of waiting I did an executive decision to walk 25 minutes. Leo was not a big fan of walking under the sun, but we did finally make it to the right police while passing by a small beach.
The border control officers took their time (island time), and kind of ignored my request to call a cab. "Later, when we're done." Turned out, "later" meant that we got driven back to the town in a police car. Ok, the seats are not comfy, but how frequently does one get to ride in the back of a police van!
We were finally free to have lunch having gone through all the necessary procedures to clear into Spain!
Solar eclipse
Arrecife was only supposed to get 75% coverage of the sun by the moon, which we could easily ascertain by looking at the sun through the sextant. And I was able to figure out how to point the camera through the filters to be able to get okay shots of our closest star covered by the moon.
Salty Ginger gets a break
We spent quite a bit of time doing lots of projects to prepare SG for a long stay without humans. We did end up walking over to a beach for a swim, but Peter and I couldn't find time to explore the island before our flight on Friday morning. The marina is much better protected from the ocean swell than Ponta Delgada, so I'm a lot less worried about leaving the boat there than on the Azores. And marina staff promised to regularly check on the dock lines.
There will be a next adventure. If all aligns as I hope it will, we will carry on in Februrary 2027.
No comments:
Post a Comment