Back on La Gomera

So ... Back to La Gomera, an island both Scruffbag and I love. The scenery is amazing and we walk every couple of days in the mountains. We try to start off high and walk down for obvious reasons.

We originally intended to stay here until a parcel,sent express delivery, arrived from the UK and then go to the smallest island, El Hierro. However, the parcel took forever and, with, Christmas fast approaching and the arrival of our friends from Cherbourg, Hansueli and Helen, we decided to spend Christmas here and then go on to La Palma, saving the delights of El Hierro for later in the trip.

We have now decided to postpone the Atlantic crisis g till next October as we love the Canary Islands and want to see more. This is a journey not a race and we are having a fantastic time. It also allows us to fly to the UK next August for Freyas first birthday and Mark's mums 90th. We will then probably go via Brazil, Guyana and Surinam as that sounds interesting  ..not made any final decision yet.

Meanwhile  enjoying walking and swimming

We have been to a couple of Christmas concerts, one by a gospel choir with absolutely superb voices. Christmas here is a world away from the rampant materialism of the UK, lots of decorations in the marketplace are actually made by children and there are lots of free musical events and other performances.

Our friends Hansueli and Helen took us out in their hire car yesterday and one of the places we visited was this glass bottomed viewing platform high up on the mountain. Those of you who know my fear of looking down from heights, walking down spiral staircases etc. will be amazed that I actually walked out over this one,albeit holding on to Helen's hand the whole time.

So we await Chritmas aboard , hopefully with a Christmas day swim and then a sail before new year to LaPalma.

Full English Breakfast and Carling Black Label

Readily available in San Sebastion Tenerife - all the English food and drink you could ever want (or not).  The marina is fine but  as for the rest - well let's just say that if this is what I wanted I would have stayed in the UK. I suppose some people do want little England in the sun but their reasoning is lost on me.

Actually it did get a bit better once we scraped away at the surface. About half an hour's walk away we found a fishing town which, albeit there was a glut of restaurants on the front, was still a Spanish town with Spanish people working behind the counters. A bus ride away was Las Gallettas, also a Spanish town despite the huge community of retirees from the UK. Les Gallettas also had impressive rock formations on the outskirts of town.

There was a beach bar there overlooking the sea where we sampled the very tasty margerrittas.

Sue ans Mally left on The Friday and I followed them on the Sunday to spend a week in the UK with my daughters and my grandchildren. The newest member of the family, Freya, is growing so fast and I watched her develop  even in the week I was there.

 The week passed all too quickly and then it was back to Tenerife, where  my brother in law, David was staying for a few days. Once David had left we spent a few more days there and planned to travel to El Hierro. Unfortunately Scruffbag's bag was playing up badly (not helped by the fact that e lifted up the heavy wind vane) so we felt it was unsafe to sail so far (60 + miles). We waited for a calm day and motored across to La Gomera, which we love, in order to await his recovery somewhere other than Little England in the Sun.

Beautiful Island

So - three weeks in La Gomera, a beautiful small island with the friendly marina right in the heart of the capital town, San Sebastion.

The internet connection in the marina was not good so we became regulars at the cafe under the huge, shady drago trees in the centre of town. We also managed to get a lot of swimming done from the beach that was 5 minutes from the marina and came complete with fresh water showers in situ. We even managed to dig out the goggles and snorkel, although the beach did not have the selection of fish that was to be found in the marina, which seemed like a huge open air aquarium. My particular favourite was the strange tube like trumpet fish and Scruffbag liked the big, black, red legged crabs to be seen scurrying across the rocks,

Donning our walking boots we took the bus to the national park in the centre of the island and walked through the green forest, which opened up to some spectacular views along the way.

At the end of the forest trail, we set off to walk to Hermigua, a town we had previously visited and from whence we knew we could catch a bus. Our guidebook said it would take 3 hours but the sign said 3 kilometres. Somewahat confused, we set off. It turned out to be one of the hardest 3km we have ever done - almost vertical all the way on steps cut into the rock face as an old mule trail.

Stunning views and a huge sense of achievement but legs that suffered for days.

The next walk was easier - though still 9,5 km steep downhill back to San Sebastian and when I repeated it a week later with our friends Sue and Mally,who had joined us for a week's visit, they thought I was crazy



After a few days with our friends we left La Gomera to sail to Tenerife on Tuesday, from where they would leave for England on Friday, to be followed by myself leaving Scruffbag behind and going to visit the family on the Saturday. More of that in the next entry.

Not Lanzarote

So - off we set for Lanzarote  - 9am Sunday morning forecast 15 to 20 knots of wind from the quarter. Ha - 30 - 35 knots on the beam.. Soon we were getting stronger gusts and when the wind instrument read over 40 knots, Scruffbag looked at me and said, "Back?" I concurred so we returned to port.

2pm same day and the wind appeared to be dropping so we set off again (hindsight is a wonderful thing and with it we would not have set off). The winds were still strong but were forecast to drop to practically nothing by Monday so we were confident that if we went south for a while to be more comfortable then we could turn and head for Lanzarote once they dropped a bit.

Sunday night - strong winds
Monday - strong winds
Monday night - strong winds
Tuesday morning - dropped a bit but still over 20 knots

Flying fish commits suicide by jumping on to deck

 By now we were closer to the southern part of the island chain and setting a good course for La Gomera, whilst Lanzarote was still 218 miles upwind.

Abandon passage to Lanzarote and head for La Gomera. Agreed.

Winds did not really drop till Tuesday evening and  later that night we slowed right down in order not to arrive in the dark. We were worried as we had not booked a berth and we had been told the marinas get pretty full this time of year but Scruffbag knew of a good anchorage if we could not get into the marina.

Tennerife looked good as we passed it at sunrise.

Fortunately our fears were groundless and we booked into the marina for 15 days. Friends  told us this island is better than Lanzarote and Scruffbag loved it when he was here 18 years ago so here we are in the hot sun ready to enjoy it.

A second ocean sail over - another windy and stressful time for me but another delightful island at journey's end.

A week in Madeira

After the  strong winds and fun times of the sail to Porto Santo, the gentle winds and motor sail to Madeira was a bit of a walk in the park. The only thing of note was the very rude crew of the cargo ship we encountered. When we wanted to change course and head for the marina here at Quinta do Lorde on the eastern tip of the island, I tried to call up a cargo ship which had been behind us and gaining on us for a while since we were about to change course and cut across his bow. This would have involved him in a slight course change. Clearly this was too much trouble for him and he (rightly) assumed that if he ignored us we would just have to slow right down and let him pass. In this case size clearly mattered!


So - Madeira - a truly beautiful island - hot but often humid and more rain than we have seen in a while but so verdant. I had never really thought before but I guess all our garden plants are native somewhere. Here we have hydrangeas, agapanthus, lillies of all varieties, swathes of cammomile to name but a few and it is not even flower season. Terraces are cultivated everywhere and the mountain scenery is stunning.

 We went up in a cable car from the centre of Funchal, which called upon all my courage.

At least we walked down rather than pay 30 euros (skinflints ever) for a sled and were glad when we realised the sleds only went one third of the way down anyway. Our calves paid the price and I would like to say ah huge thank you to the two young women in the car who gave us a much needed lift for most of the last two thirds of the way,

Further challenges followed - an 11km walk along the levada ( complex system of irrigation channels. around the mountains, constantly maintained). For those of us who suffer from vertigo, the narrow paths with their steep drops presented a huge challenge.

This was, however, amply rewarded by the views and the glorious scenery

Today we visited a whaling museum to learn about the island's history of hunting the sperm whales from 1941 to 1981 - a horrible industry but one which thankfully has not existed for some time and has now been replaced by education and conservation.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here and look forward to our next stop - Lanzarote - with hopes for fair (and not too strong) winds.

How to make tea for 2 in strong winds

• Take 2 cups and place them in the sink (this means spillage is contained)
• Add teabags (only attempting to open cupboards in a lull to avoid bruising)
• Boil kettle
• Pour water into cups (you need a lot of water as much will go directly down the sink)
• Add milk (don't be too fussy as to how much - some is good)
• If you take sugar make sure you have stolen some sachets from cafes as these are much easier to manipulate
• Hand tea to person in cockpit one cup at a time. Make sure he has kitchen roll to hand.Make sure you have kitchen roll to hand. Kitchen roll is your friend -have a huge supply.

As you can see our crossing from Portugal to Porto Santo was a bit of a rough ride with unforecast top end of force 6 gusting 7 quite often. That in itself would not have been bad but the waves were large and the underwater topography meant that they were quite confused. Sleep was not really an option and we realised that our preparations were lacking as we stuffed towels into cupboards to stop bangings and rattlings. By the end of day 3 things had calmed down but we were too tired to enjoy what could have been a reasonable end to the sail.

We arrived at Porto Santo to find that the 2 yachts we had set off with had arrived a few hours before us and were there to welcome us and take our lines as we berthed alongside one of them - the crew - Bernie and Gerda are great company. If I had a euro for every time  Bernie says, "this is such a good life", I would be a rich woman.

Porto Santo is a dramatic, volcanic island with a small town about 20 minutes walk from the marina. As we go south it gets warmer and, finally , now the sea is warm. We have been walking swimming and drinking with friends and generally having a great time, though my right arm has not yet recovered from the bruising it sustained on the journey here.

Bus trip round the island later today and 35 miles to Madeira tomorrow where we will spend a fair bit of time at anchor.

Last stop in mainland Europe

The journey to Sines was fine - the compulsory lobster pots all over and light winds with several pods of dolphins to smile at. Also our first flying fish of the trip followed by said dolphins.

Sines is great - a really nice Portuguese town, friendly marina and helpful people. Rui, who is an electronics expert who has a boat here and works at the hospital, came over in his lunch hour and spent 2 hours fixing the AIS connections and then returned in the evening to complete the job. He would not accept payment and he was really good company too. Hence our last bottle of good malt whisky went to a good cause and we were happy to part with it.

Scruffbag fixed the loose wire in the alternator so that it can recharge the domestic battery and a new ariel from UK arrived so we now have main GPS working too.

We returned to Porto Covo, where we spent a happy summer 33 years ago and found that the fishing village had become a tourist town mainly catering foe surfers and camper vans as well as lots of Portuguese tourists. It was very tasteful and retained a lot of its character. We found our beach unchanged and we spent a happy afternoon jumping the Atlantic breakers as we did when we were younger and slimmer.Happy memories and thoughts of a close friend who died a few weeks after we left.

Tomorrow we are off to Porto Santo - a 500 mile sail. $ other boats leave Sines at the same time headed for the same place so no doubt we will all meet again. Our Hungarian friend left today - they live on Lanzarote and have given us lots of information about their island and its anchorages.We look forward to warmer seasas they think I am crazy for swimming here/

Onward from Leixoes

So - back in Leixoes - good to get a phone call from Pete Barc, who we had met at Heather's wedding and who lives near Leixeoes. He has captained cargo ships, dredgers and a variety of other ships and owned several, and travelled to innumerable ports in Europe and beyond. We  spent a couple of days with Pete and his wife, Maria - lovely people who were planning to buy a  Fisher 30 motor sailing boat in Carentan, France and bring it back to Portugal.

But - time waits for no man or woman - and it was time to move on. We had learnt the lessons of the lobster pots and planned to day sail to Sines, from whence we would sail to Madeira. The wind as ever was very light and we were keen to be out of potland by dark so the engine got a lot of use. Others we spoke to have had the same experience. Our first stop was Figueras de Foz. We saw little of it as we arrived one evening and left the next morning but the price was astronomical for Portugal and the showers were so far away that we didn't make the long walk.

The next day we set off for Peniche, about 55 miles away. Watching for the pots all day proves extremely tiring, particularly as some are badly marked and some buoys come in pairs marking nets rather than pots. When we reached the pretty fishing port of Peniche, we decided to stay for 2 nights.

We bumped into Samir and his wife, Leslie, who we had met briefly in Leixoes. Mark asked him if his flag was Lebanese and we talked a little about Lebanon and Palestine. It turned out that Samir's family are Palestinians from Bethlehem, though he was born in Lebanon. We discovered that we share views on the travesty that is Israel and we went out for a very enjoyable late night drink with them.

Another interesting aspect of our stay in Peniche was our visit to the fort, which was used as a prison under Salhazar's dictatorship. It is now a museum dedicated to those who were detained there. I wish we could have read Portuguese as there were numerous letters to and from prisoners - with the censored parts etc.and lots of written explanations but all we could understand were the images - impressive enough in themselves.

There were boots and shoes planted with flowers, each one named for a former prisoner. There was also an amazing sculpture in their memory.

From Peniche we travelled to Cascais, where we anchored for the night and remained on the boat. 

And so on to Sines, our final port of call on mainland Europe, where we will await a favourable 4/5 day weather forecast. 

The electronic instruments had been staging a mini rebellion  since we left Leixoes, with the GPS failing to receive any signal, the AIS not transmitting and only receiving the most basic information from other vessels and sometimes receiving nothing and the alternator not charging the domestic battery. Hence Sines would also be the place to get a GPS arial sent to from the UK and to try and resolve the other problems as well as being close to the fishing village we stayed in 33 years ago and wished to revisit.

My family and other animals

So it's August and I am in Hornchurch with my family and I haven't brought a coat!!! No seriously, it's mainly sunny - though not as sunny as Portugal.

Heather is looking well and we are all eagerly awaiting the birth of baby Freya, who, we are told by doctors, will be a big baby,

Predictably, despite several attempts at induction (only the final one successful) she is also  a week late. Weighing in at 10ibs 3oz Freya Alice Barc arrived in the world in the late evening of August 15th.

Naturally , coming from such good stock, she is extremely beautiful (not to mention very long limbed) and will obviously be highly intelligent too!

Good news from the eldest granddaughter is that she has successfully completed her apprenticeship and is now a qualified, employed and well paid insurance underwriter - who still owes her grandfather and I a drink.

Grandson Jack, despite a total lack of any form of commitment has managed to obtain some GCSEs and is lucky enough to have been accepted as an apprentice in what used to be called fitting and turning in my day and is now called something completely different. He is not on any of the photos due to be elsewhere most of the time,

Anyway it's good bye to the family and  to the good friends who visited us while we were there and back to Portugal to continue the story ............

Lobster Pots and batteries in the night

SO off we set for Portugal - light winds and a pleasant journey, mainly motor sailing in light winds. We passed a few fishing boats and some gangs of swimming crabs, Dolphins joined us on and off and all was well.

At around midnight I began to notice a strange smell which I assumed at first was from the shore. However, we passed down and the smell did not abate so I informed Scruffbag when he took over the watch. He checked the engine and all  seemed well so we decided it must be exhaust fumes as the night was so still. As we reached Portugal, I had become aware of the increasing number of lobster pots in amazing depths of water (70 metres plus). They appeared randomly and were hard to spot in the night. Scruffbag noticed the same on his watch and we narrowly missed several of them. I took over again at 3a.m. and Scruffbag has barely gone below when "wham" we caught one. I switched the engine to neutral immediately and Scruffbag rushed up on deck armed with a boat hook. He was feeling increasingly unwell with what later turned out to be a severe bout of tonsilitis but still managed  to unhook the offending lobster pot from the rudder. After that we both stayed up on watch with  Scruffbag on the fordeck, manfully standing braving the swell to search for pots. I did go forward to relieve him for a short spell but have to admit that the spells were indeed short as it was very unpleasant.

Meanwhile the smell continued and towards dawn the fog descended.It was then that we found the cause. Scruffbag notice the engine starter battery voltage was 15.8. It had been slowly frying as we went along. He turned off the engine then tried to restart using the domestic battery. The operation failed. No engine, no wind and fog. Luckily we were close to our destination. We "sailed" along making very little way, but at least the dolphins returned to give us some heart.

Eventually we radioed the port of Leixoes and explained our predicament and they said we could sail in slowly after the next cargo ship had entered. Unfortunately this was not to be. The entrance involved tacking and what little wind there was dropped entirely so we were forced to head for a nearby beach and drop anchor. We were able to arrange a tow to the marina at a cost of 200 euros but this took some time a several boats ,when, asked, had refused to come out in the fog.

Still all's well that ends well - if somewhat expensively. The marina is great and the staff directed us to a local guy who repaired  both our alternators and serviced the two spares. I consulted Doctor Google and diagnosed Mark;s tonsilitis and fed him the antibiotics we carry. He was really ill and abed for 5 days but thankfully made a full recovery.






We spent a happy  few weeks in Leixoes with a couple of visits to Porto, a beautiful city 20 minutes away by metro or by bus

We also met up with  an old friend ,Paul Charlesworth, who we have  not seen for at least 10 years and who is now living in near Porto. We had an enjoyable day out and a  great meal in  Porto plus an expensive drink and snack at a very upmarket beachfront bar,

As this marina is the cheapest in Portugal, we decided to leave Erica here as we returned to the UK for the arrival of our latest grandchild. I flew out at the end of July and Scruffbag followed a week later - saying goodbye to the heat of Portugal for six weeks in good old Blighty