Pitufa.at

We’ve made it! We’ve just dropped the anchor in a bay on La Graciosa (mini islet north of Lanzarote) and a bottle of sparkling wine is waiting in the fridge to celebrate our first passage on the Atlantic.

Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar was rather tricky: instead of the forecasted calm weather we faced headwinds of 25 to 30 knots and the “favourable current” set us back up to 4 knots. First we considered turning back to Gibraltar, then we wanted to anchor in Tarifa (Spanish town halfway through the Strait), but in the end we motored along the Spanish coast for a while and then crossed the shipping lanes towards the African side of the Strait under sails. The different currents and the strong headwind resulted sometimes in completely flattened seas and sometimes in high, confused, cross seas—kind of scary, but at 8 o’clock in the evening we were out of the witches cauldron!

From then on we sailed downwind along the African coast, keeping some distance to stay away from shipping lanes. A constant northerly wind between 15 and 25 knots allowed daily runs that amazed us after crawling through the calms of the Med (best run was 135 nm in 24 hours!!), but it also resulted in quite high, long waves. During the first 3 days we all fought with symptoms of sea sickness (headache, tired, feeling queasy), but soon adjusted to the new conditions. Everything’s a bit complicated with the boat rolls violently in the high seas: Cooking becomes an adventure, putting on clothes seems like a real challenge – and due to the cool temperatures during the night watches we had to wiggle into several layers of warm clothing. Leeloo has shown again that a lioness hides behind her usual “frightened rabbit facade”: on the first day on the Atlantic she already crawled out of her favourite place in the pilot berth (the calmest bed on board, we sleep there during passages), climbed up to the cockpit, lay down on her cushion under the sprayhood and wondered with us at the high waves.

During the next few days we’re planning to relax a bit on La Graciosa and then we’ll head on to Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

Wind and waves are both from the north, so are ideal now. It’s sunny but rather cool. Seasickness is gone. Our daily runs for the first three days were 115, 113, and 135nm. We are approaching the Canaries faster than expected. 240nm to go!

A bit uncomfortable and seasick, but we are making good progress.

When we left Melilla, the weather forecast showed favorable conditions for both passing the Strait of Gibraltar as well as for the passage to the Canaries. So we were prepared for a longer sail non-stop to the Canaries. Yesterday’s forecast however suddenly predicted a change from the favorable northerly wind to a southerly for mid of the week. Therefore we stopped at Gibraltar which gives us the chance to do some sightseeing but also to lose our sealegs again…

Being in a marina for a week has definitely its advantages, however, we’ve totally lost our sealegs that way. Now, we are attempting to getting them back. On our current leg towards the Strait of Gibraltar we are experiencing uncomfortable seas from an easterly wind pushing against a counter current from the Strait. Our last noon-to-noon run was 96 nm.

We are sailing westwards again. Whether we stop in Gibraltar, Ceuta, or the Canaries depends on the wind again.

When we left Cagliari on Sardinia, we were not quite sure where we would sail next. We considered the Balearic Islands and the mainland of Spain. Also, we were not fully provisioned for a longer passage because we had to wait out the Mistral that was blowing with up to 40 kn while at anchor in Cagliari with the dinghi already deflated and tied down on deck. So we started the passage without much stock of fruits, veggies and fresh bread on Wednesday, Aug. 10th (however, we had lots of cans etc. on board so we always managed to cook fancy dinners…).

For the first three days, the wind was either highly variable, very light, or not there at all. Not even the blister was of much help. So we had to use the engine a lot. From Friday, Aug. 12th, evening on, however, we got relatively constant, favorable easterly winds.
This allowed convenient sailing, most of the time we sailed dead-downwind, wing and wing.

After being becalmed so often we couldn’t let this opportunity for fair winds pass, and the prospect of visiting another touristy place like Mallorca or Southern Spain didn’t seem very appealing anyway. So we continued towards Gibraltar. After noticing that the Spanish exclave Melilla was on our way, we spontaneously decided on a stop in Africa. Today in the morning, after 670 nm and 8 days at sea we reached Melilla, a Spanish exclave in Morocco.

We’re glad to get some rest after the many nightwatches, but Leeloo doesn’t fancy marinas with their strange people and noise. She prefers sailing passages when she can be sure that everything around is free of potentially dangerous persons (to her that means everybody except us). By now she’s grown accustomed to life on board again, has found her sealegs and is no longer afraid of high waves.

Like usually when we let the wind decide on destinations it seems we have been lucky choosing Melilla. Our first marina after Pula is really cheap (6 Euros a day compared to 140 on the Liparian islands…) and Melilla is an interesting town. We’ll explore the historic centre tonight and in the following days letting the wind decide when the journey will go on.

… not sailing-wise, though, we are making good progress. However, a clogged toilet can ruin a day.

In the Med you usually get no wind or too much of it. At the moment we have quite a lot and Pitufa is on her way west, a bit rough though.