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We left Gibraltar on the 28th of October. All the Blue water rally boats gathered off Europa point at 10am for the start of the rally, which was marked by a cannon firing.( See http://www.yachtrallies.co.uk for more pictures and news). The sea was very choppy and I was glad that I had taken stugeron. Once we got underway conditions became better and we had a downwind sail to Lanzarote. The wind was too light (10 to 15 knots most of the way) for us to go fast, with our great weight (fully laden with water and fuel we are close to 30 tons) and we sailed at around 4 to 5 knots, plus a couple of knots tide. We had one rough night Tuesday, when there was more wind 20 to 25 knots which was better for us but the wind was right behind us and the sea was rough, so it was uncomfortable to say the least. Again I was glad I had taken stugeron. There was one slightly difficult incident, in the middle of the night when we were surrounded by fishing vessels with red, green yellow and even blue lights everywhere. We used the engine and got out of the way as quickly as possible. We split the night into 4 watches, up to midnight, 12-3am, 3-6am and 6-9am. We varied who did which one but I only did up to midnight. It was moonlight and we saw lots of shooting stars and chemiluminescence in the water caused by plankton.
During the day the weather was fine and William put out his fishing rod. There had been a lecture on fishing in Gibraltar and many of the rally boats are keen fishermen. I said it was OK because we never catch anything and we hadn't bought the sea fishing tackle, just a few lures. Guess what, Sods law operated and we were among the few who caught a fish, 4 in fact but 2 got away as they were being landed (lucky for them). The other 2 however ended up in the pan, Alex cooked fish and chips,which was very tasty. We think the fish were either yellow finned tuna or yellowjack, see photo for identification.
We arrived Thursday afternoon in Lanzote, at Puerto Calero marina. We had to moor in the smallest space possible with fenders touching the pontoon one side and the next boat the other side. William did very well as the wind was blowing us off. There was of course a celebratory gathering of rally members (many boats had arrived on Thursday), in the local bar and on various boats.
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