Monday, October 26, 2015

Racing to Lanzarote

25 October

82 miles to go to Lanzarote and we need to slow down, so we don’t arrive in the dark.
But in truth, there are three other sailboats within sight, as we all converge on the Canaries, and Annie is on the helm. Annie: Olympian; champion; America’s Cup contender. So it’s a race. We put up the big white Code Zero – “Beluga” and pull a mile ahead of Hakuna Matata II to our stern; and start to reel in the Mystery Boat on the bow (they have no AIS beacon), ignoring Archipelago to starboard, as they are motoring.
The wind shifts: Beluga down, Stella up. Wind too far forward. Stella down, Beluga up.
Annie is timing us on the sail changes. TIMING US. Even though our current VMG will get us to the anchorage near midnight. All the while they are comparing notes on sail performance and polars, best wind angles and speeds for each sail, getting to know them.
The wind lightens up. Reluctantly – after hand steering the boat about four hours – she surrenders the helm to Otto (autohelm) and we douse the headsails, and crank on the iron genny. Game over, Annie heads off to the shower and a nap.
It is some of our only ‘excitement’ for the day, but that’s just fine. All systems are running smoothly, everyone is feeling good, and we’re in great spirits. Eric has been busy replacing the lifelines with hand-spliced “dynema” lines. While Annie raced the unsuspecting competitors, I cooked the remainder of the dorado - making fish tacos with the mish mash of stows onboard. It’s my creative outlet: making meals that get ‘oohs and ahhs’  - particularly as we try to eat first the foods that are about to ‘go off.’ It’s sort of like my own version of Iron Chef ;-/

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