Gary's Deliveries

 Thursday 27th Nov '25 The day started nicely with a colour sunrise.  But, you should always take note of old sayings - "red sky in the morning sailors warning".  And how that was right today.  We have spent the past 2000nm's in really nice conditions and now we are nearing the end the weather has turned up to slap us in the face.  It was a sign of things to come..... It is now 21:00 and we have spent the day with little wind from behind to 30kts and a change of direct of 90 degrees within seconds.  The head sail has been in, out, in, double reefed, in, out.......... you get the idea.  You can see the squalls lined up around us on the radar, and when you look outside all you see is an angry sea and black clouds with lots of rain.  It's been like that all day.    If that wasn't enough the GPS has spent the day spitting it's dummy out and saying it has lost satellite  signal.  Autopilot defaults to "heading hold" and we loos...

Wednesday 26th Nov '25 Obviously by the day numbering system you will notice I have skipped a day.  Well there's only so much you can talk about when every day seems to be the same, that is until it isn't! You may have already noticed the photo - so we had some guesty winds this morning on Kel's watch which got up to the upper limit of "big red" so he called Richard (the next on watch) to help him take it down.  Which they did successfully.  Wind dropped back to normal 15-18kts range so after 20mins or so "big red" came back out to play.  That was about 06:00 and everything got back to normal.  I came up for my 10:00-14:00 watch and sat in the seat at the downstairs nav station playing games on my phone and we were sailing along nicely.  Kel went out into the forward cockpit to sun himself while he read a book.  After 10mins he called me and pointed up, I went out looked up and saw this -  NOT GOOD!   We had no gusts, no rolling, nothing unus...

 Monday 24th Nov '25 We finally got into the trade wind belt again and turned onto our final leg towards Martinique with only 500 and change nautical miles to go. Since leaving Cape Verde some 1,600nm ago we have averaged 7kts which is pretty good considering the lack of decent wind.  Unfortunately 90% of the time we have been motor sailing so a reasonable amount of fuel has been burnt.    The boys having our daily sundowner on the flybridge lounge Richard, myself and Kel  

 Sunday 23rd Nov '25 Not a lot to report today apart from no wind, wind, no wind, wind................ It's been one of those days.  We are still heading WSW trying to get to the wind band that is slightly lower than us.  Current time is 23:00 and we are still 81nm from the waypoint where we should pick up a decent trade wind and 1kt current in the direction we want to head so fingers crossed we find it.  At the moment the wind is ranging from 10-15kts where the trade wind should be 15-25kts.  Regardlless of if we find it or not we will be turning and heading towards Martinique at the waypoint and from that point it's only 600nm to go. Sorry for the very boring blog tonight but it's been a pretty boring day - which is always good as it means nothing has broken or needs fixing!

 Saturday 22nd Nov '25 Midnight on Saturday and 850nm to go....... Due to the wind dropping yesterday we had another look at the forecast which showed the wind is still further south from where we are so we changed course from W to WSW to try and pick up the trade winds again.   This seems to have worked.  As we are heading further south the wind has picked up nicely.  We have had a steady 15-20kts of wind for the past few hours but we will continue heading further down probably for the next day of so just to make sure before changing and heading back towards Martinique again. We have had the 2 headsails out for the majority of this trip but as you can see from the photo there's not a lot to see from the flybridge!  Its like sailing blind and if you stay up there while sailing wing on wing you have to rely on the instruments to "see" what's ahead so we spend 99% of our time on watch downstairs in the saloon where you have normal visibility.  We have al...

 Friday 21st Nov '25 I thought today would be another "ground hog day" but I was wrong - Started with the wind dying off to a sniffle and our speed dropping down to a sedate low 5kt range.  We have motor sailed most of the way across so have used up a reasonable amount of fuel so I am now monitoring how much we are using to make sure we don't run out before we get there.   For those interested in the numbers  - the boat comes with 2 fuel tanks of 600lts each and we have 31 x 20lt jerry cans so we had a total of 1,820lts of fuel, thast a lot for a sail boat!  Running 1 engine at a time at 1850rpm (5-6kts) we burn about 4lt per hour and the 17kw generator burns about the same but we only run that when we use the washing machine or water maker which is every 3 days using 15lts per wash/water making.  As of today we have about 200lts left in each tank and all the jerry cans are still full giving a total of around 1,000lts.  I always like to try and ca...

 Thursday 20th Nov '25 Thought I uploaded this on Thursday night (Sat 03:00 now) but obviously not, oopsie....   Great day to be a sun worshiper or powerboat owner as the sun was beating down, sea was slight and wind minimal, again! BUT - I have just come back up from my cabin after a little nap to do my 21:00-000 watch and the wind is finally starting to fill in.   When I looked at the weather forecast a couple of days ago it was obvious that if we continued in a straight line to Martinique we were going to be doing a fair bit of motoring as the wind was going to die the further west we got so I decided to head a bit more south west as there seemed to be more wind a hundred miles or so further south from where we were.   It seems I got that right as we now have 15-20kt trade winds blowing from the east and we are once again sailing properly with big red and the headsail out "wing on wing'' trucking along nicely averaging around 8kts, whoop whoop. Also tomo...

Wednesday 19th Nov '25 I had what we call the "double header" watch last night which is 18:00-21:00 and 03:00-06:00 which means I'm not on watch again till 14:00 so get a full 8hrs to rest up.   The watch system I use when there are 3 of us is 4hrs each during the day 06:00-10:00, 10:00-14:00, 14:00-18:00 then we change to 3hrs each 18:00-21:00, 21:00-00:00, 00:00-03:00 and 03:00-06:00  doing these hours means everyone rotates so we do not do the same watch every day that way you get to enjoy sun rises and sun sets as well as the "double header" mentioned earlier and the "graveyard" watch 00:00-03:00 Today was yet another day of trade wind sailing using both the headsails averaging around 7.5kts which equates to a healthy 180nm's a day - not too shabby! Last night we had a small mono hull yacht a few miles away form us who started heading our way and ended up passing just 0.4nm behind us.  In such a massive ocean why would you decide to get tha...

 Tuesday 18th Nov '25 Another chilled out day of motor sailing.   We have had big red out basically since we left the Canaries and the other head sail out when we are straight downwind so wing on wing and rolled up when we are sailing off the wind.  The main has been up twice for an average of about 20mins each time!  It just gets in the way, flaps around and is a complete pain to raise and drop so it's down, folded away and will probably stay that way for the rest of the trip. When we left Verde I decided to set the clocks to Martinique time.  I usually set all clocks/watches to the arrival destination.  So out of habit I decided to follow my normal routine.  This proved to be a bit of a mistake as sunrise is around 03:30 and it starts getting dark around a similar time in the afternoon.  Ooopsie!  Our usual dinner time of 18:00 is had in the dark which makes the daily "sun downer" beer a bit strange so we decided to have the "sun downe...

  Monday 17th Nov ’25 Another day heading towards the middle of the Atlantic with no one in sight and no one else seen since the day we left Verde. The only visitors we have seen are the odd pod of dolphins and a few flying fish, several of them head butted the front windows leaving an oily stain behind.  While Richard was having shower yesterday one of them even flew through the open hatch (see the pic) and landed on the floor flapping around while he tried to pick it up and send it back to where it came from!  We are making good progress with sustained 20kt winds we are have averaged 8.5kts for the last 24hrs with just the “big red” headsail out.  Long may it last! Well the day went a bit sideways. While I was sitting in the forward cockpit trying to get a bit of a breeze to cool down I looked up at “big red” only to see a little bit of daylight through the material two thirds of the way up the sail - BUGGER! So we headed downwind to reduce the pressure on the sail...

 Sunday 16th Nov '25 It's currently the middle of Sunday/Monday night and we are 310nm west of Cape Verde which means we are 310nm closer to Martinique.  Only 1,793nm to go! The weather since leaving Verde has been a constant 15-25kts from the North East so we have been sailing along quite nicely with either "big red" (our large downwind cruising sail) only, the normal furling gib only or both when the wind is directly from behind, thats when we are "wing on wing".  Currently "big red" is the only sail out along with one of the engines to keep up our average speed which is currently around 7.5-8kts so we are doing good speed.  

 Saturday 15th Nov '25 A long day today. We were running a little early to enter the port of Mindelo in Cape Verde so we slowed right down to enter at first light as it's an unknown area to me so safety first. It started getting light around 06.30 as we slowly entered the port area with 2 other yachts a few miles behind us.  The plan was ot go straight to the fuel dock, hope nobody was there, and wait till 09:00 for it to open.  As luck would have it the dock was empty so we tied up along side and was told by a member of the marine staff that we needed to move along a bit to allow for another cat to tie up.  Thankfully we were first in the line for when it did open. We timed it perfectly as 2 other boats arrived looking to top up but had to anchor and wait. When the guy came down to open up he found there was an issue with the one and only diesel pump - it was broken and we had ot wait for the engineer to come and fix it!  It's early on Saturday morning!  S...

 Friday 14th Nov '25 As you will have noticed there was no blog yesterday, this is partly cause there was no wind, the sea was calm, nothing happened, I didn't take any photos and no change from the day before.  Also I forgot! With that in mind today has been the same again.  It seems we have been following a high that caught us up after we left the Canaries and either it has followed us or we have followed it, which ever way you look at it, down to Cape Verde. It's 14:40 on Friday and we are about 90nm from Mindelo, Cape Verde so will be there in the morning for a top up of fuel, a few fresh fruit and veg and back out to sea again. The Cape Verde Islands are a group of islands about 900kms (550 miles) off the coast of West Africa sort of level(ish) with Dakar, Senagal which explains why the temp has risen so much! We are heading for the port of Mindelo which is one of the most north westerly islands.                 ...

 Wednesday 12th Nov '25 It's the end of a VERY calm and sunny day, currently 19:30.   Sunrise was amazing as was the whole day really. Wind was basically zero all day and the sea had a slight ocean swell with a near mirror sheen on the surface.  I have added a couple of photos which will give you an idea of the conditions. We also saw a couple of pods of dolpins and several small turtles floating on the surface bobbing their heads up to see who was making all the noise.  And only one vessel all day which has just shown up on our radar about 6nm ahead.   Sunrise!  Looking out my cabin window! Sunset!

 Tuesday 11th Nov '25 We have had an amazing day with the sun shinning and calm seas.  Unfortunately that meant zero wind. We have been wing on wing for most of yesterday and overnight the wind slowly died to nothing.  In came the sails and up went the revs.   We have 475nm to go to Mendelo in Cape Verde where we will top up the tanks and get going.  The forecast is for little to no wind for the next 350-400 of those miles so looks like the old iron horses will be pushing us along for a bit yet.   I am hopeful we will get there on Friday before the fuel dock closes at 18:00, fingers crossed!

 Monday 10th Nov '25 We have had a pretty good day today.  The wind has been 15-20kts from behind along with the waves and we have been sailing along with the 2 headsails out "wing on wing" doing a respectable 7kt average. Who needs a tricky spinnaker when you have 2 furling sails?!  Just one small problem if you want to be up at at the fly bridge - can't see anything!  So we have to be at the helm station down in the main saloon and control the auto-pilot from there.

 Sunday 9th Nov '25 After a couple of days in Las Palmas doing some provisioning, refuling, buying spares and doing a couple of repairs it was time to leave. Belinda, the owner, decided that the big passages were not for her so she booked a flight to Martinique via Madrid and Paris.  She also took Coco the dog with her.  Now Coco is the cutest and most loving dog you could meet and she gives cuddles as good as our dog Tori so I am going to miss her!                                                         We got some final items from the shop this morning, stowed everything, lifted the anchor and out we went.  Heading down and around to the bottom of Gran Canaria into 20-25ktrs of wind from behind and a decent little chop.   After a few hours we finally managed to get the nose pointing down sort of in the direction ...

  Thursday 6th Nov ’25 Sorry about the delay in uploading the latest blog, better late than never.   We arrived into Las Palmas, Gran Canaria around 16:00 (900nm) and had to anchor outside the marina as it was full with a couple of regattas/rallies, even the anchorages were full but managed to get a spot a little further out.  Not only is the place full for yachts there were at least 30 ships I counted that were anchored outside the harbour presumably waiting to enter.  Busy place. Went into the marina office after we anchored asking about clearing in and I was told the police stamp the passports and they work from noon till 13:00 every day!!  And there is no formality to clear the boat in.  All very different from where I usually go in and out of!  Everything is so relaxed.  The next day (Friday) we all went in to have our passports stamped for entry and while we had that done I asked if we could clear out on Sunday and they stamped us out for Su...

Wednesday 5th Nov ‘25 Another day of smooth seas and light winds.   Even fewer ships and a pretty uneventful day all round except for the turtle poking its head out the water to check us out as we passed it by! 8pm and the moon is already out in force. Only 140nm to go and we hope to be in Las Palmas tomorrow before night fall.

Tuesday 4th Nov '25  Traffic has not been a busy as the first couple of days but we still have to keep a good look out and monitor the radar. Managed to finally do some sailing without engine today, albeit for a short period of about an hour.   We have had the "Code O” (very big light weight sail) out for most of the day but as we got closer to night fall the wind dropped and came round onto the nose so in it came and will probably stay there till the morning as the forecast is for light winds overnight. We have been averaging around 6.5kts for the whole trip so far.  If we can get the 20kts plus that is forecasted then we could get into Las Palmas late on Thursday if not sometime Friday.  As you will see from the photos we had our usual nightly dinner in the cockpit around 18:00.   We had Tuna fried in bread crumbs with a hint of chilly flakes, oven chips and salad, very nice.   Coco was showing her usual interest in food! The tuna was caught by my yo...

Monday 3rd Nov '25 There has been very little wind so we have motored all day with the occasional sail put out and taken back in pretty quickly. The unusual things that have happened  in the last 24hrs night -  *  Last night during my 18:00-21:00 watch there was a chunk of something re-entering the atmosphere which lite the sky up! *  Early this morning on my 03:00-06:00 watch there was another piece of something doing exactly the same thing but must have been smaller as it was not so bright but both of them were slow enough to be able to follow their passage across the sky.  Pretty cool! *  About an hour ago at 16:00 Kel noticed a noise, looked up and there was a humpback whale about 50m away from the boat going in the same direction but slower!  WOW!  Didn’t expect that out here.  After a couple of minutes he/she arched it's back, the tail came out the water and it disappeared into the depths.   WOW - again! *  Then 10mins ag...

Sunday 2nd Nov '25 Sunday 2nd Nov '25 Leaving Tangiers after being here since Wednesday (Sunday today).  We went to the fuel dock around 09:30, topped up the tanks and went to check out at Customs etc only to find a couple of people before me.  Cool, I thought, this will be quick as they only have to stamp passports.  Hmmmm, how wrong I was!  Even though it was supposed to be just a stamp in 4 passports I waited 2hrs!!  Then we had 3 officials come onboard and go through the cupboards and lockers looking for god knows what as we are leaving the country! We eventually left the dock at 11:30 and headed out.  No wind!  Then wind on the nose!  After 5hrs of motoring and still with light winds we finally put up the sails and motor sailed on 1 engine into the sunset headed for the Canaries.  Should be there in 4 or 5 days.   Leaving Tangiers after being here since Wednesday (Sunday today).  We went to the fuel dock around 09:30, topped up...