After finishing our crossing from Morocco in smooth motoring conditions without further incident, we’re now in Gran Canaria in our final hours before setting off for the Atlantic crossing. We aren’t the only ones doing this by any means – in our marina at Las Palmas are around 250 other boats all participating in the ARC race, which is the famous annual trans-atlantic competition. It’s more of a fun social event than a real race, but the participants are serious sailors, and this is a much different vibe than the charter waters we came from in the summer. We aren’t competing in the ARC because the entry fees are too high for our budget, but we’ve managed to finagle our way onto the middle of the main ARC dock where all the race activity is happening, so we’re faking it pretty well and making friends with the other yachties.

Upon arrival in Gran Canaria we picked up our new friend Rupert (“Rupe”) who we met a few weeks ago in Ibiza. He’ll be showing us how to do things for the next few weeks because he’s done the Atlantic crossing before – already his experience has been invaluable during prep before even leaving the dock. Uncle Chris left us yesterday after two weeks of some serious adventure, and already we’re missing his great humor and delicious beef stew.

The past two days have been chaotic as we scramble around doing final preparation for the 2.5 week crossing. This involves a lot of food shopping and boat work, including most importantly the main sail repair, which we expect to get back later today. Once we re-install the sail, hopefully tonight, we’ll immediately set out to sea and try to chase down some of the slower boats on the ARC, which is about to officially start in a few minutes.

All eyes are on the weather forecast now, which influences the course we’ll take across the ocean. Obviously we are looking to dodge the bigger weather systems while capturing the best trade winds for the quickest possible passage. We benefit from the expert advice from the ARC forecasters and we’ll be monitoring their radio broadcasts on the way across, so it’s to our benefit to stay as close to the group as possible. We also don’t want to fall too far behind our friends on Chili Cat and Sirius, otherwise they’ll never let us live it down. Wish us luck!

This is day three of our passage from Rabat, Morocco to the Canary Islands, which will take five days by the time we arrive in Gran Canaria. This is our longest passage yet aboard Tamarisk and even though this is still a relatively short crossing compared to what’s ahead, it’s still proving to be an exercise in patience and mental toughness. The challenges began when we were still in Rabat and planning our exit. We had hoped to leave Rabat on Sunday morning, but when we awoke we were told the port was closed due to big swells left over from the storm offshore. The closure was for good reason. The harbor in Rabat is pathetically shallow (10 feet in parts), so when a swell rolls in, the waves break inside the harbor making passage impossible. Monday morning brought similar conditions, so it was Tuesday before we were finally able to begin our journey to the Canaries, putting us two days behind schedule.

Because the wind forecast showed very light winds near the coast, we headed out about 75 miles offshore where there was a steady 20 knot northerly breeze (a wind is “northerly” when it blows FROM the north), which is just what we need to get down to the Canaries. As we cracked along at a comfortable 8-9 knots yesterday afternoon eating bowl after bowl of Uncle Chris’s delicious beef stew, we looked up at the mainsail and noticed a large rip forming near the very top. We debated the risks and rewards of leaving it up and in about two minutes we were on the deck bringing the sail down as quickly as possible – if we completely destroy the mainsail beyond repair today, our departure across the Atlantic could easily be delayed by a month or more.

Cruising along at 5-6 knots under jib alone with the wind directly aft (behind) was an unpleasant change of pace, or to use a sailing term, “it sucks”. Without the mainsail to stabilize the boat, the swells rock us back and forth relentlessly – if you’ve ever played around on a see-saw for 48 hours straight, you already know that this is the stuff that motion-sickness is made of. As tempting as a second course of Uncle Chris’s stew may sound, we’re still trying to keep it inside our stomachs for now and hope for calmer seas and good motoring conditions tomorrow, which is what the forecast calls for. Our sail repair will probably delay us another couple days in the Canaries, but we’ll be happy to be on solid ground for the last time in this part of the world.

All that stuff I said a few days ago about Spain and California being similar – I take it back, forget I ever said anything. The experience we’ve had since then definitely doesn’t resemble any we’ve had in CA. I’m talking about the weather now. The storms began a couple hours after we sent off the last blog update as we were in the Straight of Gibraltar. At about 4am we found ourselves in a 35 knot squall with our big light-wind sail (the “screecher”) flying, which is designed for no more than 20 knot winds. Getting the screecher rolled back up and put away in winds like that is like trying to un-scramble an egg, which is to say it’s just not going to happen. After 30 minutes of fighting it, we eventually dropped it into the water and were able to retrieve it just before we were about to give up and cut it away. We’ll ask our more experienced sailing friends how they deal with these situations.

Despite that incident, we made it up to Cadiz in the Andalucia region of Spain and tried to forget about it. But that’s been difficult because every day we’ve been getting pummeled with wind and rain and the forecast shows no end to it for the next week. So if you’re living in California and thinking about relocating here after our last blog post, hold off another week or two for us to finish this little research mission.

We’ve spent the past couple days doing work on the boat in preparation for the Atlantic crossing and we feel the boat is finally getting close to being ready. We got a chance to explore part of the Andalucian coast today, which is as spectacular as any coastline we’ve seen – our only regret was the foul weather which kept the camera gear in the trunk of the rental car most of the day. Tomorrow we head inland to Sevilla for a night, then we’ll go by car to Portugal (our original plan to sail there has been foiled by the forecast).

Piers and I are British by birth but have spent most of our lives in Southern California. Our friend Eric, who’s been with us for the past week, is a Southern California native. As we’ve explored the Costa del Sol region of Spain, mainly by rental car, we’ve all noticed the same thing about this place: it feels like California. The architecture is different (Spain was built up many years before California was appeared on Western maps), the streets are smaller, and there are far less rules for people to worry about (beach bars everywhere, no meter maids, food served on the sidewalk, etc.), but the similarities far outweigh the differences. Like California, the coastline is beautiful, the beaches are wide, the climate is similar, the mountains look the same (even with ski resorts), the culture has that laid back and friendly feel (we have some common roots after all), and most Spanish people seem to speak at least some English. For a Californian, relocation here would be easy, and when we said goodbye to Eric this afternoon and cast away from the dock in Malaga, where we spent four nights, it almost felt like we were leaving home.

But that feeling was short lived… sailing around the world would be miserable if we got too emotional each time we left a place we liked. Our attention quickly turned to the 20-hour passage ahead, which goes around the southern tip of Spain and through tbe Straight of Gibraltar. This is the narrow entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, where the southernmost part of Europe sits just 8 miles away from northern Africa, and as we enter the Straight now, we see twinkling lights from both continents on the horizon. This is also the point where our time in the Med officially comes to an end, which is another small milestone for us. We’re timing this passage to coincide with a light wind forecast because we hear the waters here can get rough, and the large volume of commercial traffic creates an additional challenge.

One notable thing about the twinkling lights on the horizon is that they’re much brighter and denser on our starboard side (Europe) versus our port (Africa), where resource consumption is minimal. The lights subtly remind us that we’re lucky to have been born on the bright side of this gap – we’ve enjoyed lives of comfort and comparative luxury and avoided countless hardships that our counterparts in the developing world have to face. We should mention again the close relationship we have with Focusing Philanthropy, a non-profit philanthropic organization that seeks out charities where donation money can have a big impact on eliminating some form of human suffering. Focusing Philanthropy accepts donations for those recipients, often small charities in hard to reach places, and directs funds to them. Because Focusing Philanthropy itself is entirely funded by its founding family, 100% of the donation money it receives is passed on to the donation recipients (no deductions for overhead, processing, etc.). We will be doing research and diligence for Focusing Philanthropy when we visit some developing countries later on this journey, but for now we’re committed to raising awareness for this organization and the causes it supports. We encourage you to read about what it has accomplished in the past six months since the organization was founded, and if your family does any charitable giving, we hope you’ll consider learning more about Focusing Philanthropy and the relationships it has developed.

After Gibraltar we’ll turn north and head back up the Spanish coast towards Cadiz, our first stop on the Atlantic Ocean. We’ve been looking forward to this one for the photo opportunities because the coastline here looks incredible.

The fishing jokes officially came to an end yesterday. That’s because we caught a huge fish off the Spanish mainland coast. One of the nice things about the type of cruising we’re doing is that you can become almost totally self sufficient if you do things right, meaning you have almost no need to rely on support from modern society to sustain yourself. Yesterday was a good example of how this works – we sailed from Alicante to Almeria mostly using the power of the wind to push us there (almost no motoring), we caught our own meal on the way, and we slept on the anchor near the beach in Almeria. When you total the bill for all this transport, food, and lodging, you get an awesome $0.00. We couldn’t keep this up forever though, because we still need diesel fuel to make power and to motor when the winds aren’t good, fresh water, groceries, and (we expect) boat services, but you can easily see how you can achieve a very sustainable lifestyle and have freedom from modern society for months at a time this way.

On Monday we sailed from Ibiza to Alicante where we met up with our friend Eric – another accomplished world traveler with over 60 countries under his belt. Almost everybody who has made it out onto Tamaraisk so far has shared this characteristic for a love for travel and adventure. Eric joined us for an exciting week because we’re now hugging the southern Spanish coastline, which are known for being beach paradises and major destinations for travelers coming from more northern parts of Europe. Of course we’ve missed the summer season here, so the beaches have far fewer bikinis that we like to see, but still this part of mainland Spain has tons more to offer. We’ve just dropped the anchor in Malaga near Spain’s southernmost tip after a couple of big days sailing with just one stop in Almeria. We have a storm system rolling in for the next couple of days, so we wanted to make it to this part of the coast where there’s plenty to do and see, and where it’s easy to hunker down and batten down the hatches for a couple days. We’re now sitting on the boat waiting for rain to clear before heading into Malaga for the first time, so Malaga pics will come in the next update.

So far on this journey we’ve spent the majority of our time bouncing around islands in various countries, but also a fair amount of time on the mainland. Going back and forth has forced us to pay attention to the differences between the two types of lifestyles. Whereas the islands have been more fun to visit initially, whenever we spend more than a couple of days on the same island, we begin to lose interest and get bored. The reason is because the islands aren’t “real” places – they exist only for the tourism, and there’s a noticeable superficiality in all that. Because tourists have only a short attention span and require only a few days worth of entertainment, the islands tend to deliver that and not much else. The other problem with the islands is that they effectively close when the tourists stop coming for the season, so you have to time your visit right – it’s just not as fun when the restaurants and bars are boarded up and the beaches are lifeless. As beautiful as they still are, a visit to the Balearic Islands at this time of year is a bit like going to Disneyland after the park has closed for the day.

The mainland cities are different – these are “real” cities that don’t exist solely to extract money from travelers. These cities may not be as attractive on the first day – they may seem ugly and commercial, but often when we leave these places, we feel like we didn’t have enough time. There are more things to do, more places to see, the true culture is evident, you mingle with real local people who aren’t just there to sell you something, and you can imagine actually living in some of these places year-round, rather than just visiting.

In our short time on Ibiza, we did manage to see the whole island, and we definitely hope to return here sometime. But we leave it now bruised and battered thanks to a motorscooter crash on a wet road. And the beach party we went looking for on Saturday night (supposedly the last one of the summer) was cancelled because of the rain. Although we’re not expecting any sympathy cards for all this, we can say, as we sail away from our last Mediterranean island this year, that our motion towards the mainland feels very right. We’ve seen enough of the islands for now and are looking forward to a few solid weeks exploring a more “real” part of Europe.

The Balearic Islands are best known for being summer spots where manyvEuros come to party and get sunburned (for some unknown reason most people from norhern Europe are either pasty white or totally sunburned… somehow never experiencing the step of being tanned). Like many of the Med locations, the busy season here has an unofficial but clearly defined beginning and end – August 1 through September 30. We’re here in mid-October, so the nightclubs and beach bars are mostly closed, the restaurants are empty, and the mooring bouys are being pulled out of the water for the winter.

Being here post-season is perfect for us right now because our own personal mood is also shifting away from summer mode and into the two months ahead. We are getting dangerously close to the Atlantic Ocean, a three week crossing that requires serious planning and preparation. When we get to the Caribbean in mid December, though, we will have sailed far enough south to be back in summer and our mood will switch back accordingly. We expect this may become a real annoyance for our northern hemisphere friends.

Yesterday we met Rupert Maddox, a friend of a friend who will be joining Tamarisk for the Atlantic crossing. Rupe is very experiencedvon sailboats and will be the only person aboard who has ever crossed an ocean – his last Atlantic crossing was done on a 36 footer. We’re lucky to have a guy like Rupe, and can’t wait to hear his adventuring stories (which include exploring by kayak for 30 days at a time in the most remote islands in French Polynesia).

We’ve been moving quickly for the past few days since leaving Barcelona which included two nighttime passages. We only had one day to explore Mallorca, which we did by local bus, before coming south to Formentera, where we now sit in a very quiet bay. As we sailed passed the northern tip of Ibiza yesterday morning, we had a sunrise so perfect it was nearly a religious experience. Tomorrow we’ll sail back up to Ibiza just 10 miles to our north. We’ll have some minor repairs done on the boat there and explore the island somehow. We’ll also follow up on a lead we got from Rupe for a beach party on Saturday night… apparently some people are refusing to let this summer die, and we definitely need to see that happening.

Piers has put together a new highlights video for our time in Italy, hope you enjoy:

Our first attempt at crossing from France to Spain ended abruptly when our autopilot malfunctioned in heavy weather about two hours after leaving mainland France. We immediately made a U-turn back to the mainland for repair work in La Lamondeu, partially because we’re too lazy to stand at the steering wheel for the two day trip, but also because the winds were so far beyond the forecast that we were nervous about possibly getting blown into outer space. Luckily we aren’t on too much of a fixed schedule, and when these things happen we just accept it as part of the journey. We used the time to explore some more of the French Riviera on motor scooter, taking the coastal road all the way from La Lamondeu to Cannes (about 4 hours each way). If you ever decide to do something this stupid, remember to take a warm jacket, otherwise you’ll end up nearly a popsicle by the time you get back at around 2am…. if you’ve seen the movie Dumb and Dumber you can imagine the jokes we were cracking.

By the time the repair nonsense was finished, the weather forecast was showing 35 knots. We’ve had enough trouble with 25 knot forecasts, so we decided not to risk almost certain death on a 35-er (which probably would have been 40-50 in reality). So we sailed a little further west on the French coast to Port Miou, a remarkable natural canale which provides excellent shelter thanks to its very high cliffs. We moored up there for a couple nights to let the weather blow through, and walked to the nearby Cassis about 20 minutes away. It was just another example of the kinds of amazing places you stumble across when you go roaming around a place aimlessly.

With yet another storm system on the way, we had only a small weather window to attempt another crossing for Spain. We woke at 5am yesterday morning and took a beeline for Barcelona. That’s not as far as the Balearic Islands where we had originally hoped to go, but the passage to the Balearics looked too risky to attempt given the incoming weather system. Our passage was incredibly quick with 20-30 knot winds the whole way, which we’re moderately comfortable with now, and our 180-mile trip to Barcelona took less than 24 hours. So here we are sitting on La Rambla in Barcelona sipping gigantic Sangrias, asking ourselves is there really anywhere in the world we’d rather be? Given that we both think Barcelona might be the best city in the world, and la Rambla the best street in Barcelona, the answer, so far, is no.

The weather forecast for tomorrow looks good (for whatever that’s worth) so we’re planning to head to Mallorca in the Balearic Islands tomorrow morning. If we don’t update the blog in the next few days, please call the Spanish Coast Guard because the forecast must have been wrong again.