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Free Spirit - 17/11/2013 -23/11/2013



Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 17/11/2013 -23/11/2013 (Richie’s log)

It’s so great to be here! The feeling of excitement is building daily! One of the first things you notice when you arrive at the marina in Las Palmas, apart from the huge number of boats (including a few very impressive, serious-looking, massive racing yachts!) is the quayside wall! It is covered in wall art (graffiti) left by boats’ crews over the years as they prepared to cross the Atlantic ocean! We just had to add our own contribution to the mass of fantastic tags left by sailing folk from all corners of the world, we ‘democratically’ decided to leave the Liver bird as our symbol.

Our relatively small boat is berthed next to a boat called Albatross which is skippered by a German fella called Manfred who is taking 9 fee-paying crew + a couple of mates with him! Our neighbour seems to be pretty famous around here, this being his 19th ARC! There are often television and media crews coming down the pontoons, (they’re all over the marina) to try and capture the scenes. They all stop to interview Manfred, we have been trying to listen in to try and gain any tips, as you do, but anyway we shall chart his progress as we go.

They do the best gin and tonics around here! With shreds of cucumber and juniper berries in them – delicious!! We’'ve had a couple of good nights out in the old town, once to a very interesting restaurant in a big open  courtyard accessed by a big, heavy wooden door in the wall of a narrow cobbled side street. The food and wine was excellent! I had duck. Thursday was Tapas night which I thought was cool – just experiencing the Spanish / Canarian culture, tables and chairs outside all the bars and people just enjoying life at such a leisurely pace. That night ended in a night club at 4:30am, see – not too old to party through the night!

Other events worthy of note were the fancy dress party and the send-off party. The biggest surprise at the costume party, as they called it, was Alex who turned up in one of mum’s dresses! Our crew mate Alex has a similar sized chest to Arnie Schwarzenegger so you can imagine how that looked! Anyway Alexandria and Crocodile Dundee (that’s me) had a great night out!

I just wanted to also mention the official send-off party. The fireworks display across the port was huge and spine-tinglingly good and served to remind me of the magnitude of the voyage I and all the others around me were going to undertake. This was followed by an exotic, carnival style dance and drum spectacle with some beautiful girls at the pool side. All in all this week has been a tremendous send off to an epic journey which we have been looking forward to for over a year now!    


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