Canary Crossing

From: Essaouira, Morocco
To: Caleta de Sebo, La Graciosa, Canary Islands

The best crossings are those where nothing happens. Nice and quiet but not too quiet, that’s how we like our crossings. We never had a ‘nice and quiet but not too quiet’ crossing before. This was the first.

When we left Essaouira, the wind didn’t look very promising. 0 to 2 knots, with ‘gusts’ up to 4 knots. Not enough to fill the gennaker(a large light sail that is used when the wind comes _from the side_ of your boat) by itself. When we turned the engine on, we could generate just enough wind to keep the sails filled. So we did that for a while.

The big ships on the Spain-Agadir route were rolling mightily in the huge Atlantic swell. Vite & Rêves is so small compared to the swell wave length that we didn’t notice.

We passed a few more fishing boats in the coastal waters. The water gradually became a deeper and deeper shade of blue, until the closest land was 2 km below the boat.

In the afternoon the wind picked up. We turned off the engine and Vite & Rêves proceeded at an easy 5 knots. A pod of curious dolphins came over and accompanied us for half an hour. Then we heard them talk to each other and they took off in the opposite direction.

Barbara cleaned the conger eel that we got from the fishermen the day before and prepared it like they recommended. Olives, lemon, parsley. It was delicious!

We sailed into the sunset. I took the night watch as usual. The wind increased a bit at night to 12 knots. I left up the gennaker and checked every half hour. Vite & Rêves maintained 6 to 7 knots throughout. Heavenly sailing under a sky full of stars.

In the morning the wind was coming almost from behind us. We switched the gennaker for the spinnaker(a large light sail that is used when the wind comes _from behind_ your boat) and took down the mainsail. We encountered a few big ships on the Spain-Senegal route. We also saw an American military ship doing air exercises in the distance. They asked everybody to give them some space because they couldn’t manoeuvre well while the helicopter was trying to land.

But other than that, nothing much happened. The wind shifted to southeast, so we gibed(turned so the wind comes from the other direction) the spi to the other side. That was the sailing action of the day. Vite & Rêves continued happily.

On the third day around 10:00 we saw the Canary Islands in the distance. A small pod of dolphins briefly came to say hello.

We took down the spinnaker as the wind turned more to the south. A good call, because the wind also increased, as expected, in the funnel between Lanzarote and La Graciosa.

We arrived safely in Caleta del Sebo on La Graciosa.

La Graciosa is said to have been the inspiration for the novel “Treasure Island”. In the 18th century, a British galleon, laden with spoils from a recent battle at sea, passed through the strait between Lanzarote and La Graciosa. Realizing that they were being tailed by pirates, the captain decided to drop anchor and hide their gold on the island before the buccaneers could catch up with them.

The pirates soon reached them, captured the British sailors and tried to force them to reveal where they had buried the treasure. The sailors bravely refused, and the secret of the hidden gold followed them to their graves.

We took a walk around town, looked for treasure or an open restaurant, but no luck. Only one restaurant was open and it only served € 60, 7 courses New Year’s Eve menus. As we hadn’t found the treasure either, we went back to the boat and feasted on olives, potato chips, anchovies, sausage and instant chicken soup. And a lot of cava.

At midnight somebody lighted a truck full of fireworks at the end of the pier, about 20 meters from Vite & Rêves. We enjoyed the first row seats. The kids slept through it all.