Happy Halloween from Apsara
Hope that Halloween has treated you well, with lots of treats!
Our treat here on Apsara is that we arrived safe and sound to Lanzarote, in
the Canary Islands. The sail from Madeira was about 270 miles, which is an
awkward distance for us; if we sail really fast we can leave at dawn, spend
one night at sea and get in before dark, about 34 hours at 8 knots average.
But if we are even a little slower we end up at the entrance of a strange
harbor just after dark with nothing to do but heave-to and wait for dawn.
We took the alternative and left at 4:00 PM which meant two nights at sea
with just the two of us on board. Turns out we could have made it 33 hours
since the winds were strong (20-30 knots) and we were flying along at 10
knots from time to time. But we had to slow the boat way down to avoid
getting here too early in the morning.
The strong winds combined with a 8 -12 foot swell right on our beam for
almost the entire voyage. This made for a fast sail, but quite an
uncomfortable (aka nauseating) ride as the boat rolled from side to side in
the swell. And the knucklehead crew neglected to take any sea-sickness
medication! Suffice it to say that we suffered and we learned a lesson the
hard way as it took Scott 30 hours to feel civil and Nancy had to rely on
the traditional remedy for seasickness: sitting under a shady tree. We
were forced to take a deep reef in the mainsail at around midnight and all
did not go as planned with real SNAFU due an error by the captain. We are
lucky the mainsail did not rip and we now have a 12 foot batten (a stick)
sitting on the deck rather than in the sail where it belongs.
But today is November 1st, it is 8:30 AM in New York and Julie is doing the
suffering now in her Marathon. We hope to get to an Internet cafe to see
how she is doing.
Cheers from Apsara!
Nancy & Scott
Next message from this location: Atlantic Crossing!
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