Voyage to the Canaries

So here begins the next chapter..! Almost one year to the day on from our arrival in Brighton, the DB is off again, this time heading south to the Canary Islands. The Queens country certainly served her purpose as a great place to revamp and fix the boat, while also providing some fun sailing and plenty of mishaps as well ;-)

Sailing means different things for different people

Although i don't plan to set off cruising again until the end of the year, I was keen to get the boat out of the UK before the winter set in. Also, as the idea for next year is to explore Brazil and South America, i wanted to break up the 7000 odd mile passage a bit hence the run to the Canaries.
Now we're in Plymouth and hopefully will set off Wednesday night. I had a great sail here with Pete and William, although as the wind was on the nose the whole time we had to tack our way up the English channel.

It was cool though as we were able to try a few of the new systems on the boat and also iron out a few of the crinkles. I've replaced my auto-pilot 'Meggie' (sorry Mike and Kylie!) with a stronger more reliable version now named 'Capt Dan'. There's two reasons why the AP got called Dan - Firstly, I love sailing with Dan and he's a good man to have on the helm at any time, but more importantly if she ever goes off course i'll cherish mocking him for not paying attention ;-) Also big thanks to Steve for very kindly building me a new set of kitchen drawers (these have plagued us on the DB since Florida).

For crew to the Canaries i'm very lucky to have Eskimo Jess on board (With far more sailing tales than myself its a bit like the kids in Scooby Doo where she's really just making me look good all the time) Its a 1500mile passage and i'd like to think we'll do it in less than 14 days. If we're making good time it would be cool to stop in at Mederia along the way, even if only for a few pints and a good meal.

We even had time to try our hand in the Fastnet Race before we left

Following in the footsteps of great sailors Mick and Debbie Baker, and my mate Robin Knox Johnston, our first obstacle will be the Bay of Biscay. Hopefully we don't see to many sea monsters. Once clear of the coast of Northern Spain it should be plain sailing heading south, hopefully with the wind behind us.

Right on. I've got the sat phone working again so hopefully can get some weather updates from the oldman. Nae and Smarty have very kindly offered to update this blog with my progress on the map, a top effort as the poor girl is about to have her baby and i can imagine little Jonny will be occupying most of her time!

If anyones keen to send us a txt (unfortunately i can't reply) you can click on the below link to do so. My sat phone no. is +8816 31641780. http://messaging.iridium.com/

Take care, big thanks to all those who helped get me and DB outa here.