Christmas, New Year & Caribbean Preperations in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

Sorry It has been a while but we're still here so here's a little bit of what we have been up to. When we arrived we happily went to the anchorage which was nice but not so picturesque with concrete flats and a harbour with all the cranes etc. However we made friends with our neighbours David and Kathrine, a lovely couple from New Zealand who we will probably meet up with again later in the year. We soon met up with our great Norwegian friends from S/V Cassie, Asprin (Asbjorn) & Ann Louis. We decided to go and have a celebratory meal together in a very nice restaurant. I (Sarah) had truffels for the very first time 😋 I say this but actually there was just a small scattering over my meat lol. We had a lovely afternoon's catching up, comparing our sail stories from Gibraltar to Lanzarote, and then we went to meet their new crew member," Frida "the kitten who I thought was such a sweetie until she took a swipe at my nose 😲 much to Nigel's amusement saying 'that he hadn't seen anything as funny in along time! It's OK I believe in karma 😈 The next day the wind changed and was coming in from the North making the anchorage extremely rolly. After a couple of days of being stuck on the boat, we relented and went into the marina, well actually no. We attempted to go to the marina but it was a total waiting game as they where full!! But after a couple of days we were given a berth and were able to start exploring the city. We were both quite surprised by the size of the city 'It's huge' but we have only managed a few days of sight seeing as Steely was our usual slave driver and attention seeker! What with her fresh water leak and various unfinished jobs that need finishing including the cork flooring that was a complete nightmare with several epoxies and other glues not working. Being here in Las Palmas has pretty much been home from home on the social front as we have met so many people we have known and met from Portugal/Spain 😀 Eniika & Reins from the boat yard in Faro, Marcel from Alcoutim, Adrian and family also from Alcoutim and the list goes on lol (such a small world) Christmas was quite nice we were invited to a pontoon party on Christmas eve where much merriment & good company was found. On Christmas Day I was a little disappointed that the weather was overcast as I had planned to spend a couple of hours on the beach, but hey, it was not the end of the world as I had plenty to do preparing the Christmas dinner as Asprin and Ann Louis were coming around. We had a lovely evening with plenty of laughter and great food. New Years eve we stayed in and watched the fire works from the cockpit as we didn't really want thick heads the next day disturbing our work on the boat preparing her for the forthcoming big trip! (Such is our dedication!) 😃 We had originally planned on leaving for the Caribbean around Christmas but hey, plans change quicker than the wind in this game. The weather has been very unsettled for the time of year possibly due to the El Nino effect and we still had quite a few things we needed to mend, repair or mod. It was not a problem and it also gave opportunity for my youngest daughter Cassie to visit for a week which was great as it had been some time since I had seen her. We got to do some exploring of the island which was great fun. Especially the cliff hanger roads up to the highest point on the island. Here you can see 360 degrees around the island including over to neighbouring Tenerife when the visibility is good which it was. We stood on the "Spot Height " and marvelled at the view. 😀 So now we are at the stage were we are pretty much ready for our new departure date which will be on Wednesday 20th January (fingers crossed) we can't tell you which island we will make land fall as we are unsure 😎 but you will be able to find out on our Steel Appeal face book page or follow the tracker via this link http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=TJ3i_ So now we just have around 3000 nautical miles to sail which should take around 4 weeks give or take a few days. So will see you in the Caribbean for rum Baba's on the beach 😉🍹 Finally just before I sign off we have made a bit of a decision! We have decided we are pretty crap at this blog malarkey. I'm not the world's greatest of writers and was always rubbish at keeping a diary and back in Nigel's flying days he even used to get someone else to do his log 😂 So with this in mind we are just going to use Facebook as we now have a Spot tracker which will automatically update our position to FB wherever we are, plus (in theory) we can update FB status from the Sat phone too. We can put as many piccies on as we want so it is starting to make sense to keep everything in one place rather than try to update blogs as well. Most people use FB and when we meet people it's easy just to say follow us on our FB account. I/we will be able to post snippets of our travels instead of boring everyone rigid with a load of waffle 😆 but we will however make an effort for the crossing for our benefit as much as yours. For those (Dinosaurs) who don't want to use FaceBook, you can still follow where we are using our tracker link above 😃

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