Madeira and Grand Canaria

Hello all, it's been a long while since the the last update, so here's a quick rundown with photos along the way. Our stay in the Madeira Islands was really enjoyable; we spent some quality time doing very little. In Madeira we did a day of tourist activies - we took the cable car up to the top, got some culture walking round the orchid garden, spent an approriate amount of time standing and looking at the views, and found a serve-yourself Madeiran Wine stall. The trip down was on a sled, which is pushed and pulled along by a couple of guys through the winding streets. We got a little close to a Cleo at a crossroads by we got off unscathed. The rest of the time was split between drinking coffee in the local cafe for 75 cents (which after the first day they brought us without asking so John was happy as he felt like a regular), drinking beer in various establishments, eating well, etc etc. Usually holiday stuff. John "fixed" the outboard (turns out that the 'O' on the fuel line stands for "Open", not "Off"), I spent much too long putting a turks head knot on the steering wheel. On the last day we decided to add our logo to the harbour wall. We started off quite well, but we left it to dry and spent the time at the local Sports Bar and by midnight I think we both were lacking in the sign writing department, leaving the finished product not quite of the standard we had hoped. We got chatting to a few of the other sailors around, and spent a great evening aboard another boat with Norweigans drinking their homemade moonshine. The sail to the canaries was rather lacking in the sailing department unfortunately, with little to no wind, but John dug out the auto-helm so we weren't stuck behind the wheel, and we had an enjoyable 2-and-a-bit day motor to Grand Canaria. We brought in John's 27th year with our first at-sea party, with whisky, cake (many thanks Carol, it was fantastic), and music from the wind-up radio. That evening we sailed past the Savagem Islands (small uninhabited islets north of the Canaries), and I got a few pictures of a sunset coming behind Savegem Grande. Our stay here Las Palmas, Grand Canaria, has been more productive. John's been up and down the mast a few times: we've sorted out twins (two head sails at once, not Swedish unfortunately), and fixed up an anti-chafe device, consisting of pipe-lagging we were given from a new Bavaria that's on a delivery. Other top finds includude 2 new spinnaker poles and a spare pair of oars. We've also done some major provisioning here, stocking up on the essentials in prep for the atlantic crossing. Although we were a little thrown initially by failing to find any meat-in-gravy tins, or Fray Bentos pies, we've come round to the idea of a mostly pasta-based diet for the foreseable future. And not only is it very cheap in the supermarkets here, for food, drink, and tabacco, but they also deliver direct to your boat free of charge. It took us a while to explain this to the cashier (I had to actually draw a picture of a boat on the receipt to get the ball rolling) but it arrived same-day without hitch. We've met lots of Atlantic crossers here, with the nearby Match Race Bar where we all meet up in the evenings, so it's nice little community. We'll be off there tonight for our leaving drinks. We've spent more time than we expected here so we're skipping out Tenerife, and from here we're dropping two S's amd going to La Palma. From there we'll check out La Gomera (mainly for this whistling language they have). From then on the adventure really begins: We want to leave the Canaries by the end of the month to head off to Senegal (a week's sailing), and then to Cape Verde Islands (another 4 days). By the end of September we should be leaving for the cross to Brazil. That's all for now, should be another update from La Palma in a few days.