The adventure begins....

Today Gavin, Luke and the rest of the crew (as per this image) set off to sail the boat to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria in readiness for the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers Race in November. The boat is going now as certain things need to happen before the race, like  being inspected by the race officials in Las Palmas, and also, after September no insurance company will insure a boat crossing the Bay of Biscay as the waters are so treacherous then due to storms and winds. Now is a good time due to the favourable Trade Winds.

They will be sailing non-stop for about 10 days to reach their destination, with the four male crew members each being on 4 hourly shifts. Karen is the cook and caterer and so she is excused from shift duty. Poor Luke was very apprehensive today, as he has never sailed continuously so far before, but thankfully for the first few days he will not do shifts by himself until he gets more confident. Poor Karen had quite a job organising meals and finding space for everything in to the boat (any excess packaging had to be removed from food products to save space), but she has done this many times before so is very experienced at it.

We dropped them off and Adam and Thomas felt quite sad to say goodbye to Luke. I am a bit nervous as crossing the Channel is very busy (and can be dangerous) and the Bay of Biscay is usually very rough and also dangerous. When I got home at about 5.30pm it was calm and 23C, and Gavin phoned me before he lost signal to say it was raining, very cold and very rough already! I am so pleased not to be on that boat, as were Adam and Thomas (see extra). I have added another extra of the marina which I quite liked.

Tomorrow morning Adam leaves very early to go to Prague on holiday with his school friends - one of those student holidays where about 8 of them are sharing a 3 bedroom flat and cheap beer will be involved! So it will be a very quiet week for Thomas and I.