Lindisfarne – Forgus 37 – 7,5t (>9t with equipment)
Lagos in Portugal to Gran Canary
16 April - 6 May 2006

We left Lagos on the 16th of April, after more than 6 month of winter sleep in Lagos, heading for Madeira 450 miles to southwest. 
We where rather exhausted after some intensive final weeks in Lagos.
There was plenty to be fixed before take of. Our new Pilots covering South America told us not to expect much of chandleries and to be prepared to be self-sufficient regarding the boat. This information contributed to the list of "to do" before we left Europe.

A high pressure with northerly winds made us leave before the list was finished, but before leaving Las Palmas it must be finished! Summing up our experience from Lagos; a very god place to spend the winter, the climate (short trousers almost the whole winter!), close to the centre of the town, lots of shops and nice old buildings, well protected harbour, both from the weather and from not wanted people.

Finally a nice live aboard life with about 50 habituated boats. We really did get on well and got many new friends. Of course the only other Swedish yacht Ayla with Pia and Tord was the most frequent companion, whom we spent  a journey to London boat show and a sailing trip to Gibraltar in February.

Unfortunately for us, Ayla is now, like most of the yachts in Lagos, heading for the Med. But you never know where we will meet again and there is always e-mail...

We got the wind on the beam, and the force was nicely 15 to 25 knots the whole w ay to Madeira.
We have newer sailed that fast for such a long time! We reached Porto Santos, 450 miles from Lagos, in three days minus two hour.
At this time of the year we where quite lonely in Porto Santos, so despite our bad sea legs, we continued the 30 miles to Madeira.

We made landfall in the new marina Quinta de Lorde, close to the north-east point of Madeira, moored, cleaned the yacht with a lot of fresh water and then went for a nice walk in the nature park, covering almost the whole cape east of the marina. 
In spite that the marina wasn't ready (showers and toilets where very poor and not the finally ones) they charge 28€ for a 12 m yacht!

We motored to Funchal the next morning, after a night with lots of gusts from the mountains around the marina.

Funchal yacht harbour, always crowded in the autumn, offered us a good berth on the pier outside another yacht, couldn't be better in tidal water!
The first yacht on the pier has all the troubles with long ropes taking care of high and low water. Funchal was full of flowers.

The yearly flower festival was to be held next week, so we had really picked the right time.

In the marina we found friends from Gothenburg on their way back home. We spend five pleasant days together with them, lots of talking, eating and some playing (two boys, 8 and 10 years have a lot of extra energy!!)



 

They left for the Azores and we where alone again and headed of for the Canaries the next day after some work on the yacht.

Once again we got a nice wind on the beam, lasting the whole way to Lanzarote and marina Rubicon.
The marina is nice and not to expensive (18 €) but the surroundings... Quite extreme and totally artificial.
The beaches north of the marina in the desert where a very nice walking area. 
After three days in marina Rubicon we sailed to Isla Lobos, just over the straight between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura where we anchored for the night.

 This was our first night out of a marina for the last 6 months, a nice feeling being alone with no neighbours in fender distance... 

We celebrated our first year aboard since we left Gothenburg. A year full of new impressions and reflections. Have we taken the right decision to leave everything "back home" when we left?  Leaving all our friends! Sometimes you wonder.

But we feel that this life is the right life for us!
You have only one life and you can only be at one place at a time!
They say that you seldom regret what you have done, but the things you thought about but didn't do!

We kept on south along the east coast of Fuerteventura in a slow speed, waiting for the wind shift to north said to come in one or two days. We anchored one night before the harbour Morro Jable where we spend the last night on Fuerteventura before taking of for Gran Canary and Las Palmas in a good northerly breeze.

In Las Palmas we met s/y Ellinor from Stockholm with Anders and  Cathrine whom we met in Cascais Portugal in October.
It's very nice when it's not only goodbyes!
We spent lots of evenings together and even some days, walking around in the beautiful mountains of Gran Canaries with very pictures views with Teide, the snow cowered volcano of Tenerife, in the background.

We will stay here until the 23rd of May, to fix everything that we didn't do in Lagos. This is probably our last port before Cape Verde and we feel strongly that we can't postpone anything anymore.

6 May 2006
Annika & Björn
S/Y Lindisfarne

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