Hi All,
Over the past couple of weeks I have been hassled by a number of people to update the blog – leave me alone will you – I am an old retiree with a full agenda – would you hassle your Nonna if she hadn’t written in a couple of weeks??

Anyway enough bitchin’ – Karen and I are back on Lanzarote in the Canaries staying at the Marina Rubicon – which I would have to say without a doubt is the nicest marina we have stayed at and despite what people have continued to tell us it is a reasonable rate for a catamaran so long as it is off season or you can get one of the few alongside berths which we were lucky enough to get and you stay for a month and get the discount. We have now been here for over a month and will be here at least 1 more month.



The trip into Lanzarote was interesting, we got a good weather window downloaded from UGRIB that said we would be sailing with the wind on a good beam reach, but alas God (and I do know he exists because he gave us ipods) does not subscribe to GRIB.US and was not aware that that was what he was supposed to provide. We got easterlies - so straight on the nose and we were chasing the wind most of the way. Then during the first night, the traveller sheet (or whatever the technical term is) seemed to break when I was tacking and there was no way I was going up on the bimini in the dark - Karen could swing the boat , knock me over and get the life insurance (if she could park the boat by herself and get off). So we tied off the boom and motored for the night. (Yep that's right no real sailors on this here boat!) In the morning I made my way onto the bimini (about 3+ meters from the water) and found that there was nothing rwrong - the rope was just loose so we set sailing again. As we were getting closer to Lanzarote the wind was still in our face so we decided to motor, but the raw water filter didn't seem to be filling as fast as it should, so we thought that the generator impellor might be failing so we switched off the motors and forced ourselves to sail! The best thing we ever did - we had never been forced to think about sailing until this point  but now we were going at about 40 -50degrees to the wind and I tacked my way up Fuertaventura and into Playa Blanca Lanzarote. The wind was strong and the boat loved it. We had two reefs in (as there is a strong acceleration zone to the south west of Lanzarote so we were prepared) but the boat would not slow to our usual 5-6 knots and I had fun. We radioed the marina and motored in to the dock like seasoned sailors!

The reason we have not written more is that we have had a number of issues to resolve, which I hope will be resolved in the near future, before we can move on and even contemplate an Atlantic crossing. These issues, I never imagined having to face when buying a new catamaran, nor trying to resolve them on a small island in the Atlantic so far from home – but if life was meant to be easy all you bastards would be filling up the marinas and it would be even more difficult to park this thing! (That's us - second cat in from the road - looks a bit squeezy don't it)



Just in case anyone is concerned, the issues are not related to the fact that Karen and I are spending just about every waking hour in each other’s company. Nor has it to do with Karen’s disgust as I attacked the Californian ribs with great carnivorous gusto from the restaurant at the end of the muelle here at Rubicon.





(Note - no sauce on the Mambo!)

Since we have been on Lanzarote before we are not doing a lot of sight-seeing, just working on the boat – servicing winches, changing the generator impellor, which we sensed may be started to fail on our way in – and it did and adding a few sailing niceties and necessities. Oh and working on our tans around the marina pool. Yes I said our tans – I have one!

On the impellor replacement - Scott (Cat Co) if you are reading this – there is an easier method than you showed me on Nick’s boat – take the whole pump off and push the impellor off the shaft from the back (minding you do not lose the key). Also I learned how to find all the little bits of the impellor blades from inside the heat exchanger and make up the jigsaw that was my impellor.

I had my 44th birthday here a couple of weeks ago (in the middle of one of my worst ever gout attacks – but that didn’t stop me staying out until 2 in the morning). Karen took me to a Mexican restaurant in Playa Blanca with views over the beach and harbour. The margaritas were great and the food enjoyable. We then crawled via a couple of bars – played pool and listened to Irish music (as you do in Spain or Greece from what I can remember of that trip) and then made it back onto the boat.

We have also started buying our scuba gear while we have been here. We are now proficient on Ebay Spain and have got our regulators and a BCD for Karen as well as inks for the printer from EBAY UK, and hopefully they will all turn up. Someone rang the other morning speaking in Spanish (go figure) and I am thinking it could have been the post office telling me I had a parcel for collection – but I will never know. Last time Mum sent a parcel here – we got it 3 months later on Tenerife!

For those of you with a 420 there are a couple of recommendations to make:

Rubicon Marina – nice resort style marina with pool and restaurants
Waterline Services – great service for general boat repairs and just about all you need – see previous blog entry
Navalectric – Jan Hayward has done some good work on my Raymarine equipment – yes I am suffering from the flashing E120 as I have heard a lot of people are. He is also becoming familiar with the 420 electrical system. His contact details are:

Jan Hayward
Navalectric Lanzarote
Raymarine, Simrad & Watermakers.
Full marine electrical & electronic service.
Tel. +34 659 822118
yottitek@yahoo.com

Filters: I struggled to get spare filters before leaving France – another boat seemed to buy out all Eric’s filters and impellors so I tried here and eventually found a Fleetguard (Cummings’ aftermarket filter manufacturer) dealer on Gran Canaria and he was able to get all fuel and oil filters for me and delivered them to Lanzarote for me for prices that were comparable or better than in France. The details of the dealer are:

Miguel Betancor
miguel@cobesa.com
COBESA
Tlf.: 902 361 319
Fax: 928 700 731

Impellors: Now here is a challenge. The raw water pump is a Sherwood pump, and after getting prices up to 95Euros for an impellor that I paid 45 Euros (A Seirra 18-3061 which is the same impellor) for in France I asked the Suzuki marine dealer in Arreciffe if he could get me a Sherwood impellor model 10615 in my best sign language when I was buying a fuel connector for the outboard. No problemo for a Sierra kit at a few more Euros (Euros 54) than France and available in only 3-4 days – unheard of in the Canaries! He is located in Puerto Naos up a street opposite Duques at:

Nauticas Alegranza SL
Hipolito Frias No 15
Puerto de Naos, Arreciffe 35500
Ph 928 824 084
Mov: 609 771 332

By the way the impellor is the same as: Chrysler 10615, Crusader 20300, Pleasurecraft RP061017, Jabsco 18948-0001 (very expensive) Volvo- Penta 835874-9 by what is on the front of the Sierra packaging
Chandelry: Fernando at the Chandelry at Rubicon Marina is very helpful with good English, and if you have enough time, he will order stock in from England as part of his normal order which is normally at a pretty good price. 

Anyway havin' fun and looking forward to your visits!