Nov 1-7^th

Well we’ve been a little negligent over the last few days but we've had quite a lot to do and sort (my excuse) so I’ll try and summarise the last week.

 We had a quiet last few days in Lanzarote – we had a few nice meals with Jill and Tony from Nychea, I did another supermarket run, which also included the purchase of a rather large dog crate to send Molly back in.  The weather didn’t really improve and we were right up to the limits with getting the work completed on the boat. We had repeatedly told Henning that we needed to leave midweek – in all honesty the winds were so strong we knew we weren’t really going anywhere but we wanted to make sure the work got finished. In the end the latest time we could go was 4pm Sunday night – It was a 16+hour sail and Dave had a plane to catch and I needed to be settled into the marina before he left. The work was completed at 4.10 and we sailed out of Puerto Calero at 4.15 on Sunday afternoon.

 The trip down was not great, as we left the marina we had 25knts with us so we had a fast sail down to the bottom of island – touching 9 knts at one point, I helmed to overcome my usual "oh shit we are going to fast" nerves – it makes me feel more in control! However when we hit the bottom of the island and the small gap between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura where it is only 25m deep the seas were awful – so bad in fact that we turned round and decided to go round Fuerteventura which would keep us in the lee of the island for most of the night. We had debated doing this when we set off – but I didn’t like the idea of adding an additional 25 miles (c4hrs) to the journey, bit daft because now we had added 30 miles to the journey! (Of course Dave had suggested we go that way to start with so it was not a gracious discussion!)  On rounding the corner the sea was indeed much more settled but we had very little wind so we ended up with the motor on all night. The problems started when we got to the bottom of Fuerteventura and had to turn 90 degrees to head across to Gran Canaria – we had up to 27 knts on the nose on and off all night and the seas were as bad as before – it was bloody awful, I felt really sick so wasn’t much help but stayed with Dave in the cockpit all night – the morning didn’t bring much welcome relief the skies were grey and we watched one squall after another pass in front or behind us, I guess we should be grateful we didn’t get wet!

 Anyway we ended up arriving in Las Palmas marina about 1pm on Monday 3rd, instead of our scheduled 9am. I have to confess I didn’t get the welcome I expected – it is THE ARC marina – so over the next 2 weeks 250 boats will arrive here ready to cross together. I thought they would be smiley and welcoming but instead they were offhand to the point of being rude and completely disorganised – we stayed on the reception pontoon for over an hour whilst we queued to check in and then waited to be allocated a berth – we made a couple of requests, which were immediately declined. God knows what it is going to be like next Monday when the ARC officially opens and more boats start arriving!

The marina is large and sprawling, and is suffering from a very high degree of theft – one boat we have talked to woke up to find a man on board with their cameras round his neck.. we have all been told to lock everything up. On a positive note – the chandleries here are huge and the town is a great place to provision for a long crossing. On Tuesday I discovered El Corte Ingles – Tesco’s on steroids! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven... a huge department store with an equally huge supermarket – acres of wonderful shopping.

Anyway we quickly settled in and were immediately greeted by the kids from Windancer who had been waiting for us since 9am that morning. Dave went straight to the Chandlery to get his name down on the various lists for repair... top priority was the Lewmar man for the winch that he had failed to make good!  I dug his suit out of the bilges and ironed all his clothes ready for his Cyprus trip. We went across to Windancer for Swedish meatballs on Monday night (they had spent a day at IKEA and were good enough to share!) – It was great to have someone cook for us and the food was fab! We are moored on pontoon 10 – close to the bars, the showers and the laundry (what more can a girl want!) Windancer are on the “family pontoon” at first I thought that would be good and we had initially requested that we be berthed there, however every time I have been across there Windancer has been swarming with children, and there are an amazing number of kids under 3! With hindsight – our quieter pontoon is definitely the place to be!

The next day (Tues 4th) Ziggy took John to the airport at 5am and then came back in time to take Dave to the airport at 9am – she then went back to bed! I started on the jobs and the to do list and got the kids back into their books. Later that day Ziggy and I took the Kids for a great Italian, not a bad first night alone.

Wednesday & Thursday were pretty similar we schooled the kids in the morning, they played in the afternoon with several other ARC kids.  I worked on the todo list that Dave had kindly emailed through to me. On Wednesday I picked up a hire car and Ziggy showed me the market and El Corte Ingles. I spent the rest of the time trying to organise Molly’s flight back home – I had spent most of the Friday before we left Lanzarote, and every spare moment since on the internet trying to get all the ducks lined up – flights/customs/vet checks/collection the other end/purchase of appropriate crate – it is a ridiculously complicated process but by Thursday morning  I thought I had it all nailed down.  We were all fairly down about the prospect of saying goodbye to her – even temporarily but we knew it was the best thing for her. Thursday lunchtime I got the bombshell, I received an email telling me I couldn’t return Molly to the UK because she had been to Morocco! I didn’t believe it at first – I didn’t want to – but sure enough I went back to the DEFRA website and it clearly states that if you take the animal to a country not covered by the PETS scheme, it basically invalidates her passport and she can not return to the UK for 6months or she has to go straight into quarantine. I was utterly devastated – the idea of putting Molly in quarantine for 6 months was unthinkable. I spent the rest of the day on the phone, with Dave not here – it was even more difficult trying to decide what to do. By Thursday night I was worn out with talking to people and worrying about what was going to happen to her, for her either option was not good. After wrestling with it all night we made the decision this morning to take her with us. The problems we now face are how she will be during the crossing and what we do with her when we fly home for Christmas – I am still hopeful we will meet a lovely family who would love to have her with them for a week or two...!

On Thursday afternoon – Debbie (Vagabond heart) popped over for a coffee, the kids had met up on the beach, they are staying in the anchorage just outside the marina. If you are a non ARC Boat it is very difficult to get in the marina here. It was good to see her again, Alice came with them, so India now had 4 friends over – they were good though and spent most of the afternoon playing Monopoly – it was not the normal edition though – it was the Birmingham addition, this was a little lost on the Canadian, Australian and Norwegian girls she was playing with!

 On Thursday evening Jonny & Kate came over to sat goodbye – they had also been in the anchorage here for a few days and were fed up of the cloudy weather. The weather at the bottom of the island is very different to the weather here in Las Palmas – it is remarkable really given how close the locations are – I guess it is the mountain ranges close by that keep the black clouds rolling over here. Anyway they were heading off first thing on Friday. We have agreed to stay in radio contact, they are crossing the Atlantic but heading down to cape Verdes first- they will probably set off about 5 days after us so we should be able to keep in touch with them – I don’t like the idea of them doing this all alone.

Well after several stressful days I decided to have a relaxed day today, the kids worked in the morning then Ziggy and I drove down to the bottom of the island and took the Kids to  Puerto Rico beach. They had a great afternoon and spent at least 3 hours on an inflatable water park in the middle of the bay. Ziggy and I sat with Molly in the bar (on diet coke I might add! ) and just chilled.

October 31st

Today & yesterday (30th) were pretty much the same lots of school work and boat stuff. The weather has been pretty awful with 20-25 knts of wind constantly now for nearly a week but the last two days have also had alot of rain so difficult to get outside jobs done and the kids are defintiley becoming cabin bound! Ange & Richard flew back to the UK on thursday night and were were in bed by 8.30 exhausted!

We kept the car for one more day and the kids & I went shopping again! More tins to catalogue and space to be found. We also managed to find a pet shop and bought a huge crate to transport Molly home in - it cost E245 and I didn't think we would be able to get it in the car. Now we have made the decidion that she can't do the crossing, I have spent the last week trying to sort out the logisitics of getting her home - no easy task! Her crate is so big it can only be flown back on a 757, so we are limited to what flights are available. The other problem is getting someone to collect her the other end. My parents & Marg & Dave are going to be with us in Gran Canaria so we have had to ask Ollie & Lisa who as usual have been great and offered to collect her and look after her until we get back.. the big question will then be do we fly her back with us after christmas or not? The family are completely split on this matter - I think she is not enjoying her life on the waves as much as we hoped she would, she is fine in marina's but she really does not like the crossings, also her tum has never recovered from our time in Morocco and the sight of Molly having her bum hosed down on the pontoon has become a fairly regular occurance. She can also be a tie if you want to go exploring. The kids won't even contemplate not having her with us - but then I guess I would have expected that, Dave is unsure, but most days I think he thinks she should stay with us and I am worrying about her too much. Its very hard, many people said to us that boats and dogs don't go well together ( and with the amount of hair I vacuum up each day - I can understand that point!) but we were determined to make it work, maybe we should just keep trying but at the end of the day you have to think of the dog. Our friends & family have been good enough to rehome/look after our other two but Molly is kind of special, she is very much our dog and pines when we are not there so I am unsure how she would settle with someone else. In addition she is exceptionally well behaved when we are there, we normally take her with us to restaurants etc, but she does get a little upset when left, she also does not like closed doors and can escape through the smallest gap if given the opportunity, so I worry that she might end up becoming destructive or simply too much for someone to handle. I guess th truth is at the moment we just don't know and can't think about the alternatives so we are just taking it one step at a time and at the moment that means focussing on getting her back to the UK.