Catch-up

I love fireworks.  Tonight (Fri Nov 13^th), as I left the restaurant where I had the same dinner (smoked salmon, prawn & avocado salad) I had last night, I heard a boom.  It was from a fireworks display a couple of miles away.  I stood still on the sidewalk and watched the sky light up for the next 10-15 minutes.  I just smiled and thought how much I like fireworks – not so much the pretty displays, it's the loud blowee that I really like

 

I arrived in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria last night.  Phyllis and I sailed Wassail here this summer, starting in La Coruňa, Spain on August 12^th and arriving here on September 8^th.  Along the way we were joined by our old friend Ted Livingston in Baiona, Spain.  The three of us sailed to Leixoes, Portugal where we took a day off to visit the Port wineries in Porto.  Thence to Cascais from which we took the train into Lisbon to meet Hendrik and Tone Fasmer and Frank Connard.  Ted, Hendrik, Frank and I were classmates at the Tuck School at Dartmouth.  We had a grand time at the end of which Ted headed back to Boston and Phyllis, Hendrik, Frank and I set sail for Madeira, which lies about 500 nautical miles southwest of Cascais.

 

We headed out at 6:40 AM with a forecast of 15 knot winds building to 20+ in the afternoon.  By mid morning the wind was already 30 knots and the seas were 10'.  Phyllis, who doesn't get seasick, had retired to the aft cabin, which she calls the "isle of denial, and I was wondering how much worse things might get if the winds continued to build.  About 11 AM I decided to head back east and follow the coast of Portugal down to Cabo San Vicente and then head offshore.  Shortly after we changed course, I was at the wheel when I thought I saw something off to the starboard side.  A moment later I thought I saw something again.  I looked off in that direction and saw a submarine bearing down on us at full tilt.  I watched for a few seconds and decided that, regardless of the rights of sail over power, this wasn't a point I wanted to press.  We changed course and they sped on.

 

A few days later we arrived in Porto Santo, a small island about 40 miles NE of Madeira.  Porto Santo has one attraction; beautiful beaches.  Madeira, which is a much larger island, has not natural beaches so Madeirans come by the 100's every day to enjoy the sand and surf.  We spent a day on a fairly unspectacular tour of the island and then headed to Madeira the next morning.  We wanted to stay at the marina in Funchal, the main port on Madeira, but it was full of boats from an ocean race that had finished several days before and couldn't leave due to lack of wind.  Our back-up was Quinta do Lorde, which was a little bit off the beaten path, but proved a delightful place.  We spent three days touring the island, sampling the Madeira wine, and in general having a good time.

 

Then we headed off on our last leg from Madeira to Gran Canaria.  There was one possible stopover along the way at the Ilhas Selvagens (Salvage Islands).  The name says it all and we sailed on past, arriving in Las Palmas at 6:30 AM on September 8^th.  Hendrik headed home the next day and Frank a day later.  Phyllis and I spent a week organizing, doing maintenance, and removing clothing, books and pillows that wouldn't be necessary for the ocean crossing.  We came home on September 15th and Wassail has been happily bobbing at the marina ever since.

 

Pillows!  Phyllis has a great sense of style.  She has never used a decorator and, while she sometimes asks my opinion, it only counts when it coincides with hers.  But on Wassail, her brain got stuck in a loop.  It kept coming back to pillows.  Pillows with stripes, pillows with signal flags, pillows with piping around the edge.  Even some pillows for sleeping.  Last summer (2008) I brought home two large bags full of pillows.  This summer, two more.  As I write this I'm gazing at the remnants: 9 cushions for the cockpit, 3 decorative pillows for the forward cabin, 2 sleeping pillows for the forward cabin, 4 sleeping pillows for the aft cabin and of course, 3 decorative pillows to prop in front of the 4 sleeping pillows.  We need fewer pillows or a bigger boat.