Underway to the Cape Verdes-Day 1

Position: North 27*37'222 West 015*36'583

We were finally able to get underway today at 11am after spending most of the morning wrestling the dinghy on deck, getting everything stowed away and scrubbing the very fuzzy anchor chain before bringing it onboard! We've just passed the southern point of Gran Canaria and are making a decent speed of 5.5 knots under a reefed mainsail and poled out headsail. The winds have been slowly increasing as the day goes on and a predicted 10 knots is now blowing a breezy 20.

Our course is set at 219* True and we're slowly relaxing back to life at sea...just enough time for a chicken curry dinner before the sun goes down!

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Las Palmas ~ Gran Canaria

Position at anchor: North 28*07'971 West 015*25'478

We've been anchored in Las Palmas for three weeks and have slowly been getting Blue Moon ready for her trip across the Atlantic. This has been our last stop to get any repairs done and to stock up with food at the big hypermarkets before heading to the Cape Verdes where we expect only the basic amenities.

Caroline has just returned back from a trip to England to visit family and friends while we're still so close and Jimmy's brother in law 'Todd' flew out for a week long visit from the states to keep him company. Every day cruising yachts have been leaving the port and heading out towards the Caribbean so we're starting to feel that it's time to go!

Our plan is to leave tomorrow morning and head 858 nautical miles south to Porto Grande (Mindelo) on the island of Sao Vicente in the north west Cape Verde islands. We'll stay there for up to a week to explore and do some hiking and then make the 2000 mile jump to Barbados in the Caribbean. I have to admit we're looking forward to getting closer to the equator and warmer weather as it has been getting pretty chilly here!

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Day 4 underway to the Canaries

Current Position @ 20:00 GMT: North 30*00'458 West 012*34'642

With just 68 miles to go until we make landfall in the Canaries we've had a great couple of days sailing. On day 2 we were able to fly the spinnaker with light winds out of the north west, by night fall they'd increased enough for us to pole out the headsail on the starboard side and let the main out on the port for a beautiful down wind run. We kept that set up until a couple of hours ago when the wind changed more out of the west so we flipped the headsail onto the port and are now making a comfortable 5 knots on course.

The weather has been great with clear skies during the day, just a little too cold at night for our liking so the thermals have come out and we're kitted out with about four layers during our watches. The wind vane has been steering an almost perfect course so no need for hand steering, we're enjoying watching the miles slip away as the big Atlantic swell carries us closer to warmer latitudes.

We've been in contact with other yachts around us all making about the same speed and each morning the Mag Net on the SSB keeps us updated to where everyone is. There will be over 20 yachts making landfall in the same anchorage as us so it should be interesting to see how we all fit in!

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