Heading East

So, this is our last night in marina Lanzarote. Tomorrow we'll sail towards Gibraltar, or rather La Linea on Spanish side just North of Gibraltar. While cruising is still not allowed in Spain, we checked with marina La Linea and they welcome boats in transit and we won't need to be quarantined when we arrive. On Wednesday the low is approaching Madeira, that will shift the wind to SW, which is a great weather to get towards NE. There will not be very much wind, but we have the enough fuel and a bow sprit (kosnik) to fly gennacker if we need it.

Captain just finished work on bow sprit this past week. It involved making some custom parts...

...and this is how it looks finished.

Attachment in the middle...

...and in the back. Bow sprit can partially retract backwards into the anchor locker, if we would need the left anchor roller for second anchor.

Since we noticed that the weather might be right for our departure, we are preparing the boat for the passage and I was also doing some provisioning. I might have gotten carried away a bit, especially with chocolate and peanuts...

...but I guess we have enough of everything for at least a month.

Which might not be such a bad thing, since it is so uncertain where and when we'll be able to go on land, except in La Linea.

Yesterday we treated ourselves to lunch in a restaurant. Especially the starters were to die for - this is Caponatina (roasted eggplants) with shrimps and honey...

...and this Tuna ceviche with apples and mango.

And while I was in spending mood, I bought some clothes on our way back to the boat. This was my first shopping for clothes in more than three months.

Last two days we had very little wind from different directions and the approaching low is already evident. Yesterday evening it brought some very dramatic clouds.

So tomorrow morning we're going to buy some fresh bread, have a coffee and breakfast and then leave the marina, that was our home for last three months. We're going to anchor not far from marina for couple of hours first to check on the under water part of the boat and on propeller. And then we're off. We'll be off the grid for almost a week, until we get to la Linea. Hopefully in my next post I'll be able to include lots of photos of dolphins, whales and turtles from our passage.