Red sky yesterday morning, Rich and Chez take warning (Gran Canaria)

 

From our previous home on the Southern end of Gran Canaria, we moved to the slightly less swelly but significantly prettier anchorage of Anfi. Dropped the tender and headed to the marina. We were welcomed by a friendlyish marinero, and although there’s no room at the inn for us to stay over the Christmas period, they’re OK for us to park the tender there if we come into town. We had a stroll around the hotel complex dominated town - its quite pretty in a false manicured sort of way, palms, perfect flat golf green like lawns, and an occasional incongruous sparkling Xmas tree here and there.

There’s people galore, mainly the usual holidaying German/English mix.

We spent a few lazy days there, one day taking the ferry up the coast to Arguineguin to visit the chandlers - which was sadly not as well stocked as we’d been led to believe.

We slowly came to the conclusion that although the anchorage is almost devoid of swell, the town is pretty and the marina staff are friendly - we really do need to beat back North to get to Las Palmas up in the North of the island. From there we can check out of Spain and hopefully pick up all the supplies we need for the crossing to the Caribbean.

Choosing what we considered the best weather window we set off at 8 in the morning and motored our way along the coast in initially flat waters and light breeze.

The previous morning I’d been up at dawn to fish - didn’t catch anything, but it’s noteworthy because the sky was a deep ripening plum red as the sun rose.

This came back to mind as we continued North in worsening conditions : ‘Red sky yesterday morning, Rich and Chez take warning’

The sea rose, and the wind howled in our face. So much so that Chez’s beloved ‘Skipper’ hat was blown clean off her head and into the rising chop behind us. Not wanting to say goodbye to it just yet, we did a series of looping turns around it, until I eventually managed to get the gaff hook to it and whip it back on board - the skipper was pleased.

The journey, on paper a comfortable 6 hours, soon became an uncomfortable slap around to be endured rather than savoured. Constant big 3 to 4 meter waves slapped our hull and frequently drenched us with spray as the bow dived in and out of the salty water. The autopilot, unable to cope in those conditions beeped a surrender, and we, mainly me, were forced to hand steer - not a task I usually shy away from, but by the time we eventually reached safe harbour, my shoulders felt like they were on fire.

We're now safely tucked away, anchored behind a large stone quay on the East coast of the island half way to Las Palmas - the other half of which can wait a few days.