What an amazing day we had. The razamataz send of was had us feeling a bit like Ellen MacArthur must have done. Having survived the preceding party events we had a very quiet last night in Las Palmas. The morning was filled with last minute packing away of crockery and provisions. Half empty bottles of malt were dispatched to our neighbours as we had no room to carry them (John didn’t weep to hard). Kathy and Steve had told us they would be out on the water to wave us of and told us that the vent was big thing for the locals as well. We found this out when at 11 o’clock Don Pedro’s Texaco station began blaring out loud music and shouting over the sound system lots of farewells as boats began to leave in anticipation of the start of racing. Our neighbours dropped their liines, having bade us farewell to go and watch from outside the breakwater. There were hunbdreds and hundreds of people lining the breakwater walls to wave good bye. The brass bands were blasting out their discordant tunes. The ARC boats were queing up to leave and for a while it all got a bit manic and we were worry about bumps. However as usual John had it under control. Liz M did a little jig on the bow and I attempted to video some of it. All in all it was incredibly emotional.and very memorable.
Once outside the breakwater we had a small issue with the electronics. The auto helm compass did not compute with chartplotter readings. So much for the helpful Raymarine guys. Well I guess they did resolve one problem – we just have to do some arithmetic to get the correct course. As a result of the reroute to fix the compass we were late for the start and missed the racong division leaving. The spectacle for the rear however was wonderful. 225 yachts with sails, spinnakers etc was a sight to behold. There were lots of Canarians boats out. Kathy anbd Steve came over in a large catamarran (Peter Pan) to take some photos of us and cheer us with a few kind words. The sight of g stringed men and women on speed boats was also a sight to be beheld!.
It was astonishing how quickly the fleet dispersed. We held a few yachts in our sights as we went into the acceleration zone just beyond the airport. The wind quickly reached 25knots and we were well in to hard sailing. The swells are steep and we were bounced around for the next two days. The watches were working o.k. but due to boat and sea noise and all the movement we really didn’t get much sleep for the first 48 hours. The food was basic as cooking down below was not only hazardous but also nauseous.
