We had decided to leave Las Galletas and Tenerife early Tuesday morning. The weather forecasts looked good, 4-5 beaufort from the NE. But then a guy who works on a catamaran in the harbour told us about a sirocco warning and we started to reconsider, a sirocco is a strong easterly wind which brings a haze of sand from the Sahara, it also gets very hot. In the end we took the decision to go anyway because non of the weather reports we had checked showed any sign of the sirocco. 5 am the alarm went of, one snooze later we stood up, but we were very tired. After a cup of coffee we started to look positively on life again, we’re actually very lucky not having to set the alarm most of our days and when we do it’s because we are going to sail, and we do love sailing. We waved goodbye to the guys on Johanna, they were sleepy and had decided to leave the harbour two hours later than us. There was no wind when we left and the full moon made it easy to navigate out of the harbour. As always there was a swell so it wasn’t that comfortable in the beginning, but as the day got lighter the wind started to blow from the NE and we hoisted the sails. We started with one reef in the mainsail because of the acceleration zones. It was great sailing and we couldn’t stop smiling. Then the wind continued to increase until it was steady on 7 beaufort, we furled the headsail to the second reef point and pushed forward on a close reach. The waves got bigger of course and we got some parts of them splashed into the cockpit, time to put on our foul weather gear again. When we were about midway to Puerto de Mogan, our destination on Gran Canaria, the wind changed direction and then died in a few minutes. We furled the headsail but left the mainsail up in case the wind would come back, which it did later. Now from the N and as powerful as before, this time we took to the second reef in the mainsail and still did around 6,5 knots, with a short peak on 8,20. Great sailing again! But it didn’t last that long, this time the wind changed direction to S and decreased to the predicted 4 beaufort. Ah…our arms got exercised by all the sail changes and the steering, Monitor wasn’t on duty. 5.30 pm we arrived outside Puerto de Mogan, we called the marina on the VHF, they asked if we had a booking, if not the marina was full. Escape was already at anchor outside, we joined them and five other boats, in the very nice bay. We had Johanna behind us the whole day and they arrived not long after us. Here we are again, the same Scandinavian boats. This morning we saw the small Swedish flag and the white and red hull of Inga approach the harbour, lot’s of waving and smiling, we haven’t seen them since Calais. I guess we have to stay here one more night! /The Captain

Our plan was to sail over to Tenerife, spend a last evening with Marcus, and then leave Tenerife the next day. But plans tend to change, and so they did. We are still here, in Las Galletas on Tenerife. We like this little slow village, not that it’s particularly beautiful or interesting. I think the fact that we don’t feel like exploring this island is the reason we have stayed. Here we have had time to relax, hang out with boat friends and think about the things we need to do before the crossing. Most people here in Las Galletas speak some English, but not at all that much as I am used to on the Canaries. Marcus speaks quite good Spanish and made some friends during his last night here. It’s fantastic how much warmer people get if you speak their language. I tried it myself in the fruit store, although my Spanish is very bad I managed to ask the assistant what the song they played at the moment was called. It’s a song we have heard a lot on the radio lately and a few verses starts with the word Cantare, so we have kind of adopted it as our new boat song. The artist is named Amaia Montero and the song is called Te voy a decir una cosa. Anyway, she started to ask me a few things back and I also found out that she had been at the same place as us on Marcus last night here. Now I’m really keen to learn better Spanish, one way to do it is taking Spanish classes in Cuba. Sofia and my sister seems to think that’s a good idea so I think we will stay on Cuba for more than a month. But plans can change! As days have passed by we have come to the decision that La Gomera is too far away, in the wrong direction, so today (I think) we will leave Las Galletas for the bay called Playa de la Terjita on the south-eastern tip of Tenerife.

The movies are from Marcus last night here, we found a bar that was about to close but let us in and locked the door. Marcus talked with the locals and after a while they started to play for us. It was magical! /The Captain