Cooling down

The weather is cooling down, we're cooling down. Or slowing down. Since it is clear now that we will be here til thursday next week (hopefully our parts arrive on wednesday) we slowed down a bit with our work. We sleep longer and even take a lunch break (which at the same time is our breakfast and dinner break ;-) ). Marcus happily filled up the newly installed bags and made me a net for vegetables while I finished my sewing by sewing a cover for my sewing  machine and repairing the cover of the Dingi motor. Marcus desperately wanted to store my toy away. Pah. He will have to take it out tomorrow so I can finish the mosquito nets. I cut them today and made a construction with a rubber band. Then I wen to the city to get those heavy bands for the curtain (lead) to have the cuirtain lying down havily on the boat. I will need to sew the lead band to the nets. So I got something to do tomorrow. But at least today for a while the boat was clean and empty - well, visually empty. Don't look behind and under the seats, bed, bilge.....everything is piled up there. Sapreparts, rubber bands, tools, sewing machine, cloth, in short: anything we might need for any repair. All that stuff definitely takes up more space than the food. It's more important, can be life saving ;-)
While I did the sewing Marcus cleaned the whole boat. Vacuumed it and then swiped the floor.
After I returned from my shopping tour around 8.30pm we went to the Sailor's bar to the see second half of the soccer game Spain - France. Spain won 2:0. The corwd was happy. Fiesta en Espana. Maybe that's the reason I am seeing an enormeous firework near the harbour right now?
It's 1 a.m. sunday already now, we're sitting in the restaurant "Pier 19" (which our boat neighbour across the pier owns), cause the internet is better here and I can use it.
Years ago if you were to go on a trip like ours you would have organized everything at home and then have left. You would have maybe been able to phone home once in a while, that was it. Inbetween you were gone, Nowadays you just sit down at any restaurant, connect your computer and it's like being at home. You talk to your friends and family via  Skype with Video more live than at home, you send E-Mails, you manage your bank accounts, listen to your answering machine from home etc. Isn't that weired. It's very comfortable. Your home is in a computer. Yet it takes a bit of the adventure away. I can still remember when I went to Australia, some 20yrs ago, with my good friend Cornelia. We talked on the phone, set a date and met in Sydney at the airport. I said "good bye" to my mom, "see you in a couple of weeks" and off I was. She did not want me to go, just the two girls. She was afraid something would happen. But we were never in danger. My dad also worried about my well being, so he gave me a calling-card number and I had to call him and my stepmom once a week. And that was great communication already! Many years later, when I went on business travels, I Skyped with him. Gratis. For free. Amazing.
I love the adventure. And I love communication. So I do love these new possibilities. They give kind of security, don't they. Or worries??  If I don't get to post for a while on the trip I hope you don't get worried immeditately. Wait a bit ;-) We might have to get the water out of the boat after those waves broke over us ;-)
Wow, the firework just stopped after a 15 min. eruption. It was beautiful to see.

Well, enough story for today. We're leaving now, going back to the boat.
Have a great saturday/ sunday, wherever in this world you are.

Michaela

Photo album

I just uploaded some more pictures of tuesday into a web album. Enjoy.

http://sailing.smichah.de/#6.0

Michaela

Germany is winning

and we enjoy our food...

BBQ is mounted and has a raincoat

For days now I have waited for the grill to be mounted. Well, at the same time I was to finish the cover. I used the old Persenning cloth to sew it. I changed the constrcution a bit today since it was easier to measure when it mounted. I am quite pleased with the new cover. We don't want the new BBQ to get stained from the ocean, do we?
Now I have to also rework the cover for the motor of our little Dingi. Marcus dismounted it and gave it to me for repair. Since I took the sewing machine apart today, changed something in the construction and put it back together it sews quite well. Now is is fun again. Got some more stuff to sew. Still some of the good UV/rain protection fabric left over. ....

Marcus jumping into the water

Diving

Marcus went diving under the boat to check if everything is fine and to clean the hole where we have to put the "Logge" ( speedmeter) in. At the same time he was able to make the neighbours happy by finding her diving belt which she had lost at least a year ago. Wow, she is so happy. It's so nice to help each other. Everytime we work outside they come to see if they can help with work, tools or material. And their cute little grandson of 2 3/4yrs is happy to see something new.

Another day goes by

We slept a bit longer today. Were very tired. So the day started later - around 10.30. At 11 I left without breakfast to the city to get some final things done: get money, find a ready to use solution for the contact lenses, get ginger, some medicine etc. In the meantime Marcus continued working on the boat. It was extremely hot outside today. 1 hour outside and you melted away. So the work went slowly til it finally got a bit cooler in the late afternoon. Then I started to drill the 24 holes of 6mm diameter into the aluminium holders of the solar panel to hang our sewn bags there. I have to finsh the bags tomorrow and put the rest up. 2 are already hanging. Marcus constructed holders for the diving bottles and put grease on all the rols where the ropes run through. And helped me with the bags. I stopped when it got dark. Then did the woman thing: cook :-). I made a very good soup of carrot, pumpkin, orange and ginger. Yummy. After dinner, which was about 10.15p.m we went to our neighbours Leticia and Javier across from us. He owns the restaurant here in the harbour called Pier 19. Very nice. Too bad we only started talking yesterday. They thought we only speak german so we never started talking until yesterday when I talked to her due to their most cute dog, a cute 2yr old Golden Retriever boy called Charlie. We chatted for a while yesterday and also this afternoon when she invited us over for a glass of wine. So we went over and had a nice chat. Too bad we met so late. But better late than never.
We went for dinner at his restaurant last night, it was very good. Food prepated with love, table setting with style. I especially loved the "Croquetas", a typical spanish tapas. Like potator croquettes but filled with a special paste of cheese and ham or fish. Sooo good.
So, now I am ready to go to bed. Good night.

Michaela

Gran Canaria

Tuesday, 19.6.2012
Due to a missing internet connection I was not able to write something into the blog yesterday other than the two photos sent over the phone. 
Our time here in Las Palmas is slowly coming to an end. As I had not seen anything from this island so far, we decided yesterday to take the car while we still have it (we returned it today) and drive around the island. Since Marcus has travelled here before it was my wish to go up the highest point in the mountains, down the other side and then back to Las Palmas. I had no idea what expected us. All I knew is I wanted to go up there and on the way there pass by the old cathedral, which I always saw from the freeway passing by on my numerous trips to LIDL, Carrefour and Leroy Merlin (the home depot store). Always wanted to stop there, nevere had the time. Looked so beautiful from the distance. So we passed by there. It's a cathedral from the year 1858. The church which belonged to it has broken down. I don't know why. You'll find pictures of the cathedral in the following. Also we took the chance to go up the cathedral and enjoy the view over Las Palmas and the old town. The old town looks like the housings of the poor people in Caracas. Built into the mountains, small, one on top of the other, different colours. The difference is that in Caracas all these houses are painted in many colours (reminding me of La Boca in Buenos Aires), here the majority are white (marokkan style). 

From there we took the street up to the top of the volcano mountains. They have three peaks here: Pico de las Nieves, Roque Nublo and El Chorillo. The highest peak is 1949m (about 5900ft.). I don’t know which is which, you’ll see one peak in the picture with a big rock on top. I thinks this must be Roque Nublo. The view going up there was amazing. What seemed most interesting to me is that the vegetation changed a lot from the very dry desert that you have down here to a nice pine tree forest with some palm trees and lakes onces you’re up there. Looks a bit strange however when you see all of that in the red/ black lava stone. 

We took the way down via Ayacata, Presa Las Ninas (lake with at dam) to Mogán and from there St. Nicolas (westernmost point of the trip), Agaete, Gòldar (north-west corner) and then back home (Alita=home!).  What followed us that day were millions of curves. Already at the top of the mountains Marcus said he’s sick of the curves. Since we were both tired (Marcus more than me cause he had gone to bed at 4 a.m. after having prepared the computer with all the maps) we both got a bit “curve sick”, which made us stop for lunch (and dinner, cause it was already 6p.m. by the time we had food) in Agaete, at the Cactus Garden. After that lunch we got to see an incredible view from “the balcony” (I think close to San Felipe) when we came to the ocean which itself was worth the whole trip. Since the lava stone is balck it heats up a lot. The wind carries very humid air to the coastline and clouds build up so fast out of nothing like I’ve never seen. The effect is that at this point you can see it very extreme the clouds build and quickly rise up over the rock. I tried to catch that in a picture. I was stunned. 

From there on we got to drive on the coastline high up with a road winding in the mountains high up, but this time instead of inland it was finally doing that on the seaside. On the highest point I think the drop from the road to the water straight down was about 1000m (3000ft.).  Amazing, beautiful and frightening.

From up there we saw boats coming and going and I thought “well, now I’m ready to go out there”. Lots of stress the last days, you could sense our nerves were a bit blank. Today we were better. I was very tense yesterday. Still things to do.
Now I know everything will be fine. Now that I finally got another mattress (see post from today) I will sleep fine. That helps ;-) I am happy I got some creative things done as well today. The last days (except for yesterday) I had only been running around, doing all the necessary shopping, running to the home depot fifteen times just cause every day we find something else we need for the constructions of that day. So whil Marcus was building and constructing I was running to organize the things he needed – and do the shopping and cooking for the next weeks. Very important, but tiring and missing success. So today felt good.
So today we decided to leave on Friday night after the soccer game Germany against Greece. Marcus wants to see it, I don’t mind. And it’s fun to leave at night. Have to turn on our typical leaving music though (Conquest of paradise). Slowly I get nervous. So far life has been like at home. Working, repairing, constructing. Can’t wait to be sailing and then SWIMMING in beautiful turquoise water. Let’s go.
So this was a long story now. I sent all the other posts from my mobile phone, that’s why they were shorter. Have a good night everyone.
Michaela

Here some pix that Marcus took of me: 

 

Done

The mattress is done and fits perfectly well!!! I am so happy. This is the first time I do something like this. Now I have to put the sewn cover over Marcus' new mattress, that I cut as well and hope it fits as well.

Sewing day

Since I am very spoiled when it comes to matresses I have to make additional once. The one I had made in Germany are tho thick enough to let me slerp relaxed. So we bought foam mats today and a matress cover cloth which I am now turning into an additional matress to put underneath my good one. Then I should be fine:-).
Also I aleeady sewed a rain cover for our reling BBQ. Hope that works.

We will leave friday night after the soccer game Germany-Greece.
I still owe you the report and pictures from our tour yesterday. Unfortunately my computer decided to not like the internet at the cafe anymore so I was not able to upload the photos and text. I hope to succeed tonight.

Hunger!

Lunch in the middle auf nowhere

Today we took off work so far to drive around the island. We went up the mountains and now on the backside back to LasPalmas with a little lunch stop after about 3 million curves...,

An evening of cooking...

and that's all that came out. 3 big glasses of Tomtato/onion/bell pepper Salsa, 2 glasses of eggplant with mint/onions/lemon and one glass of bell pepper with olive oil/vinegar/feta cheese. Tomorrow I'll prepare Zucchini soup and a carrot/orange/ginger soup. Then I'm done. Enough food for the next two months. I am tired of shopping and preparing. I might take my rental car for a ride tomorrow to see a little bit of the island. I won't come back here so fast and it's a bit sad that in 3 weeks (including feb) I did not see more than 2 harbours...

Hot chocolate

This is the thickest I have ever had a hot chocolate...the spoon really stood in it. Photographed yesterday.