Machico To Lanzarote

Day 0.
I decided to leave the fishing harbour wall and return to Baia Da Abra for a nice relaxed start to the journey. This in itself proved to be stressful! Due to limited space we decided to warp Doris’ bow round to open water as I didn’t want to spring against the wall itself and use really long ropes to do so – big mistake. Needless to say Doris now bares another scar due to her incompetent skipper.

It seems as if Madeira really had it in for me because no sooner had I got out into clear water two squalls came down from the hills and drenched everything and tried to blow me out to sea with 30kn winds. Luckily they abated as I reached the anchorage. However, as expected the gusts came throughout the night but with my new found trust in the 10kg lump of galvanised steel at the end of my bow I slept reasonably well.

Day 1.
I awoke naturally around 0800am and had a bite of breakfast before getting Doris ready to sail. Finally lifting the anchor around 0900. We were on our way at last! I knew the seas were still big out of the shadow of Madeira so decided to take it nice and slow as they continued to drop as forecast.

I sailed most of the first day under headsail alone at around 4kn until clearing the Isla Desertas. Over the radio it was clear that a lot of people were taking advantage of the weather window with a small flotilla heading for Isla Graciosa.

Once clear of the Madeiras the seas and wind started to increase and with the mainsail now up for increased drive through the swell I was finding it hard to get the Hydrovane to steer reliably with the wind on the beam.

After what seemed ages and failed attempts to sleep in the cockpit by lying on the asymmetric, I finally found the answer. REEF! Like an idiot I should have known better with the wind around F5 and 2-3m beam seas I found the answer in a double reefed mainsail and ¾ jib. This may sound like under canvassed but I have learnt that the ideal canvas for general sailing in daytime is completely different for long distance cruising, especially if you do not want to spend your life behind the wheel or worrying about the boat either rounding up and tearing off at a rate of knots in the wrong direction or gybing and threatening the rig while you (try to) sleep.

The Hanse boats carry a lot of sail for their size and needless to say are very fast, but can be temperamental when it comes to Self-Steering not unlike comparing a Volvo with a Race car in terms of handling and I have been told that the mainsail is the same size as other production boats with 1 reef in!

Once the boat could be relied on to look after herself I started to get some sleep. For some reason, immediately after indulging in some chicken noodles I began to feel sick and couldn’t make up my mind whether it was mild sea sickness or the food. This nauseous feeling continued all night and was most prominent after waking up from a ‘Cat Nap’, so sea sickness I’m guessing.

Another lesson re-learnt was closing the heads stop cocks while at sea. Excessive heeling fills the shower tray with water and thus leaks into the fore cabin and salon – doh!

Day 2.
While I had some sleep I found myself feeling very tired on the second day and therefore extremely lazy. The wind (and seas) had dropped and instead of working to keep the boat at around 5kn I relaxed and listened to music. I did try several alternative sail configurations but as the wind continued to drop the flapping sails drove me mental with frustration. I should have pulled out the asymmetric but this seemed like a lot of hard work. Eventually in the late afternoon I even pulled down the mainsail ghosting along with the self tacking jib at around 3kn and sleeping.

Just before it got completely dark I reraised the mainsail as this chore is almost impossible with the lazy jacks at night and continued to focus on sleeping with a speed of around 3-4kn. The mainsail was as tight as a drum, flat and heavily reefed to stop it flapping in the flukey light winds and I could (should) have shaken out the reefs several times but simply could not be bothered!

Throughout this trip I slept my usual 30 minute shifts from around 1900 (dark) to 0700 (daylight), several times trying to sleep for a complete hour. However, the longest single sleep was 30mins. For some reason I wake up at the 20min mark and while through the course of a night I must sleep several hours the fragmentation does start to affect me. I noticed that while awake I constantly hear music in my head as a culmination of several different songs and also voices of people outside the boat. When I say ‘in my head’ I actually ‘hear’ the sounds externally – which is mildly disturbing! Several times I was convinced a yacht of people were almost alongside me! I was also aware of the approaching landfall and knew there would be a cut off point where no further sleep would be possible. It seems that 2 nights (3 days) at sea are not long enough to fall into the proper groove of sailing properly.

Day 3.
On day three the actual realisation that I would be arriving in the dark finally hit home and I started racing the clock! A bit of a pointless process to be honest as I would probably have to maintain around 10kn throughout the day, but it seemed to provide me with some motivation to sail harder. It did occur to me to simply stay offshore but that seemed a bit excessive for such a small trip.

I sighted land around 40nm offshore, the sun was out and ELO’s Mr BlueSky was playing loud at the time. Its always a nice feeling when you first sight your destination – assuming it is the place you intended! I thought that Kat might actually see me from her plane above as she was due to arrive that same day.

Needless to say Doris done me proud maintaining a speed of around 6-7kn SOG. On approaching landfall (not long after dark) the wind rose to 20kn and the seas got quite steep as the waters shallowed, with Doris regularly surfing over 10kn.

Getting the mainsail down was exciting and looked like a dog’s dinner once I had finally wrestled it into submission. With the engine on and the wind blowing the approach seemed very scary in the dark and I soon aborted the original plan to go into Playa Francesa anchorage. Mainly due to what seemed limited space and a fear of boats without anchor lights! If anyone concerned is reading this - Go out and get an anchor light you stupid B*STARDS and make life safer for the rest of us. I am sure there was room to fit in but I didn’t want to weave my way through those boats I could see into a bay surrounded by reefs containing other unlit boats.

The next bay up the channel was almost empty and a lot bigger. With the anchor touching the bottom in just under 5m of water I was completely shattered! I said a little prayer that the anchor would hold as I was in no fit shape to deal with a dragging anchor and would probably sleep until washed up on the rocks!

I made myself tidy the boat as the sight of the cockpit full of ropes was depressing before getting a phone call from Kat to say she had arrived in Rubicon marina south Lanzatote. Again it feels weird to be in the same area (40nm away) for the same reasons but separately. Anyway after a quick chat I dived into bed immediately falling into a deep sleep.