A long one to Gran Can...

Carloforte to Gran Canaria - Via Menorca.

24th Oct- We got up early and did a fuel run to the petrol station across from the marina and were eaten alive by mosquitos, batting away huge swarms of them whilst trying to fill up our jerrycans. We left once our tanks were full and headed out towards Menorca. Originally we were planning to sail from Carloforte straight to Gibraltar, however the weather wasn’t looking to nice so we planned to sit it out in Menorca.

Bleh what a long, gruesome 12 hours. Most of us felt seasick at one point or another, we were going head into the wind with a large swell. Unfortunately we ran out of ginger biscuits, a necessity for helping with seasickness! Due to the large swell we decided to hand steer to save our autopilot. Moonflower coped really well, we had up to 27 knots of wind, big big waves breaking right into the cockpit. We finally made it to Menorca at 6pm, rather wet and soggy. Everyone was absolutely shattered, we had a blue cheese gnocchi for dinner which went down well, seeing as no-one had eaten on the crossing. 

Oh boats! You go to fix one problem and find 2 more. We had a bit of water coming in through one of our bow cabin windows during our bouncy crossing, so had to get an engineer to take it out and then re-bed the perspex back into the hull. We had to scrape all of the old mastic off the window and then set it back in place. 

We had a lovely few days in the marina, exploring the town, doing some shopping and spending our evenings walking around the old town, sharing bottle or 2 of Spanish red wine and eating local food. 

On exiting the marina, heading to Gibraltar, we discovered that the autopilot had broken and our aft bilge pump wasn’t working. So we turned around and went straight back into the marina. Having been excited for our next leg and feeling ready to leave, this was rather frustrating.

Chloe purchased a new bilge pump and installed it with Emma’s help. After numerous calls to the dad’s, we now had a brand new autopilot waiting for us in Las Palmas! 

We set sail for Gibraltar, happy to be out at sea again, although we changed our watch system a little due to us now having to hand steer 24/7.

Due to the enforced stop in Menorca we knew we were up against it to get down to the Canaries in time to get everything sorted with ARC in Las Palmas.

Early one morning with Emma and Chloe on watch, Chloe heard the call 'Moonflower' over the radio. It was the Spanish Coastguard contacting us, they asked us to alter course to investigate a possible migrant vessel. A call of "All hands on deck' and suddenly everyone was either on deck on look out or monitoring the VHF. We got relatively near the vessel and confirmed that it was migrants crossing over from Algeria. The VHF had Pan Pan calls all day asking all ships to keep a look out for any small, unidentified vessels. This brought up lots of feeling and emotions within the crew.

We knew this situation could occur - of course it was something we thought about when creating a passage plan, however we never expected to actually come across it for ourselves.

It’s one thing to read it online or see it on tv, but to witness it in person is very hard hitting. We knew that it was happening, but had no idea to what extent that it is happening. Right now. All the time. People fleeing from their homes, risking everything, crossing a very large, potentially deadly stretch of water just to try and have a better life.

On the way along the southern Spanish coastline there was no wind for days. After pulling into a tiny marina which it turned out wasn't deep enough for us, we had to drop the anchor and refuel using the jerry cans from the locker. At this point it was dark, we hadn't eaten and we were tired and a little bit stressed. We couldn't open the jerry cans. At this point Chloe says: 'well, we're just a bunch of girls on a boat aren't we'd nothing summed us up more at that moment. After filing up we headed off again, checking Navionics for another marina with fuel dock somewhere further along the coast. Again, pulling up in the dark, very foggy, creepy birds flying around everywhere, we had multiple eyes on watch making sure we didn't hit any fishing vessels or rocks. After we pulled into Adra marina at 3am tying onto a dock covered in bird poop, we went to sleep. In the morning we walked up to the 'Yacht Club' of this very run down looking marina, asked for fuel and were told to her over to the fuel dock and somebody would come down and meet us. We finally refuelled and set sail again, mid afternoon. This next trip down to Gibraltar brought us so wildlife, we were surrounded by dolphins and birds. Coming into Gibraltar, again in the dark, we headed over to the fuel dock, tied up and waited a couple of hours for opening. We filled up and left, heading over to La Linea to the marina to provision and get water. After showering and shopping we again left here mid-afternoon, finally heading out into the Atlantic early evening. Our first Atlantic meal was 'Broccoli Gnoccoli' newly christened by Chloe. The swell was slowly increasing and little did we know what was to come...

Cate had a little cry the morning of 8th November. What a few days. It started off a big rollers on our beam but it moved round to our bow and we spent 2 days bashing straight into the wind. Not what the weather forecast had predicted!

Cate was seasick for the second time in her life. It really is the worst feeling in the world. Emma could barely pull on a jib sheet with her seasickness, Carrie was a speed devil on the helm getting us going to 10 knots however, we just couldn’t go in the direction we wanted to go. And our fuel gauge started to get rather low. Chloe made the decision to pop into Morocco to refuel. We turned east and immediately everyone felt better. With the wind on our quarter, we had a lovely downwind sail. Cate and Chloe inhaled some pasta, having not eaten much the last two days. Several crew members were in bed with very bad seasickness. On coming into the bay in Morocco, our windlass decided not to work, after an hour of scheming and trying all sorts of crazy ideas Carrie and Chloe successfully got the anchor down. 

We slept for 3 hours. 

We tried to enter the port which was full of fishing boats however were shouted at, it was obvious we weren’t going to be able to get fuel here. So we decided to head down the coast to Agadir, a well established yachting marina. We headed down south under motor then when the wind kicked in we had a cracking sail down the coast into the sunset. However the wind soon died leaving us doing 3 knots. With only 10% fuel we decided not to risk running out of fuel and keep sailing. We could see Agadir’s lights along the coast but due to the wind direction we had to keep tacking, making sometimes only 1 knot of speed - mostly thanks to the tide! It was incredibly frustrating.

There were lots of unlit fishing boats, we nearly hit one at one point as we just couldn’t see it in the dark. We had to get everyone up on lookout, even though some crew had had very little if any sleep after being up most of the night before. 

At 5:30am we made it. We docked in the marina and went to sleep, only to have port authority wake us up 1 hour later explaining we weren’t allowed to dock and had to go out at anchor. We explained we were in serious need of fuel. They said we would be able to come in in the morning and get fuel. We anchored out and at 9am tried to radio the port. They didn’t reply. 

Eventually a small motor boat came out and an immigrations officer looked at our passports and said we were okay, the boat driver said he could get us fuel for 380€, seeing we had little option we agreed and said we would pay half up front and then the other half once we had all the fuel. Apparently this was very insulting. He threw his hands into the air and sped off back into the marina. What now? 

With no signs of him returning we decided we had enter the marina to try and get fuel. We raised the anchor by hand as it wasn’t working properly ever since it broke the night previously.

On entering the marina, we were seriously shouted at, saying we weren’t allowed to dock. We tried to explain we just needed fuel. It was very stressful. 

A lady on another boat said she would get the guy to come back out to us, at anchor, again, he did return and for the pricey sum of 380€ he filled up some jerrycans and we had fuel!!!

With full fuel tanks and full jerrycans we left Morocco and once more headed to Gran Canaria. 

We had a lovely sail, a beautiful end to the day with a stunning sunset. With nobody feeling seasick, we were able to catch up on much needed sleep and rest. 

Bluebird! We had 90nm left to Gran Canaria and some fantastic downwind sailing and we finally caught a fish, a beautiful dorado!

WE MADE IT!!!!! Around 17:30 on November 10th we docked in Las Palmas. After a quick shower we grabbed a taxi into town for a well deserved drink and some food. It was the best meal ever - Burgers and chips for everyone.

We were very happy to be on land again. It had been a stressful leg, seasickness, lack of sleep and a stressful situation trying to get fuel. At the end, we made it. Safe and sound. 5 girls on a boat, 2343nm sailed.