Who upset Neptune??? (Gran Canaria)

 

27 Nov 2021

Our guests all having headed home, we once again find ourselves anchored within earshot of the chiming bell tower at Morro Jable.

Both tired we went to bed at 9 ish - it’s been a big few days.

At 3:30am there’s a gentle tapping on my foot - it’s Chez:

“Do you want to go to Gran Canaria?”

...and d’you know what: I did!

So we did.

This - on the face of it - rash decision, was in fact well considered. We have an upcoming bout of strong winds hitting from the North - Gran Canaria has better protected anchorages to the South than Fuerteventura, and it’s a 12hr journey, so we’ll be arriving before sunset - all of which Chez had been researching as I slept.

...and as we don’t have to be up for work in the morning - why not go sailing at 4am

We had something of an uneventful journey initially - both managing to snatch little naps as we bobbed along.

Not sure exactly what we’d done to upset Neptune, but with the barometer dropping rapidly, ominous clouds on the horizon and the occasional flash of lightening, something had obviously ticked him off quite badly. With three hours to go to Gran Canaria, the inevitable storm hit. Two things rattled around my head as the boat got battered:

1: ‘Do something everyday that scares you’ - which having Googled, was first suggested by Eleanor Roosevelt. Not sure she was envisioning a howling storm though.

and

2: ‘Storms pass’

Which I sincerely hoped this one would hurry up and do!

As the waves grew and the rain lashed us, out of the grey spray a large, once white, rusty Taiwanese fishing trawler appeared a few hundred meters off on our Starboard bow. This ghost like apparition (not visible on AIS) was close enough that we had to turn into the wind and waves to avoid the possibility of a collision.

As the weather and waves hammered on, the autopilot began beeping to tell us it was struggling in the hard conditions. I took over hand steering - this coincided with one particular wave deciding that then would be a good time to crash above the rail and absolutely drench me with three or four bucket loads of salty water in the face.

Not the most fun of times by any means.

Other than getting a bit wet and worried, no harm was done. A few items had been scattered around in the cabin below, most notably, the large container of dry rice in which we’d been unsuccessfully trying to dry out Chez’s iphone for the last few days: rice everywhere.

As you’ve no doubt guessed while reading this, we did eventually make it safely to a protected bay on Gran Canaria - not the prettiest, just a small industrial port, but the water is flattish behind the port’s wall, and although the wind is still howling, we’re safe and sound.. and both ready for a good siesta - which we did.