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La Cigale - Day 1 - 19 Novermber - Leaving Las Palmas



Departure day. Passers-by were stopping to take snap shots of our picturesque citrus nets, strung up from the solar panels at the bow thanks to Helen and Harley the evening before. The stage was set, but the start of our sailing adventure wasn't exactly as scripted... Scrubbing down the decks, hosing down the bathrooms, I remembered we had ARC tops to put on, but Xavier and Francis refused point blank to wear them as they hadn't been washed yet and would be itchy. Ridiculous, I thought, and got in a strop, while an inner voice piped up "Seriously Lucy?! You are arguing about t-shirts?! You only got them yesterday. Get a grip... get a life!!!"

Just as I was simmering, a marching brass band turned up. Am I imagining it, or did they really strike up La Cucaracha (Grasshopper) as they passed La Cigale?! I couldn't help but smile, and, with the kids, joined in celebrating the joy of the Big Day, following the band up to the end of the pontoon. Xav meanwhile took it upon himself to wash the two tops and hang them out, because as skipper he didn't have enough on his plate, quite frankly! We didn't think there would be time for the tops to dry but, as it turned out, we had more time than we wished for...

Waving goodbye to boats heading out, about to get life jackets on and ready ourselves, we were stopped in our tracks by the discovery of a fuel leak in the port engine. Emergency! Thanks to Helen and Harley having done engine courses, and Harley getting down into the engine locker, we were able to quickly identify that during the course of the Volvo servicing by Potencia Marina last week, the primary fuel filter in each engine hadn't been put back on properly, and then when coming to bleed the port engine the bleed valve had been put on so tightly that when trying to unscrew it, it snapped off. If we hadn't taken the boat out yesterday afternoon for a practice run, the problem would not have emerged til we were at sea and then we would have been properly screwed. With no engineers working on a Sunday, it was looking like we would have to wait until Monday to leave. Saying goodbye to other boats on the pontoon became even more poignant. As Isabelle said, curled up in my lap i
n tears after waving off Hayley and Megan on Australian boat RAFTKIN, "Mum, I'm so happy for them that they are leaving, but I'm really missing them already." While Catherine cuddled up with her new best friend, and teddy, "ARC Bear"!

Help came in the nick of time *THANKS* to Lars' mechanic friend opposite on boat KAPALEI who managed to bypass the secondary filter and the bleed valve. We owe him big time! Jumped for joy telling INTO THE BLUE we were fixed, just as they were setting off. Life-jackets (and ARC tops!) on again, we powered on to catch everyone up, an hour later than planned to the pre-start, and fifteen minutes late passing our start line, with bunting still to take down (oops!) and the genniker still to put up! Funny to think just the day before in the Skipper's briefing I had made a mental note to keep Xav's enthusiasm to race ahead in check, so as not to incur the three hour early start penalty! As it was, we were there just in time to see the racing division move away swiftly, and what a feeling to be on the move after all!

Lunch was a simple baguette sandwich washed down with a glass of water from the 2Euro dispensing pump (we've bought three!) picked up in an Oriental supermarket. Two top tips from the ARC provisioning lecture!

Plenty of wind, up to 30 knots, and huge rollers. We were all caught by rogue waves at one point or other on our respective watches. I was too seasick to write a blogpost but tried to submit photos of each of the crew while we still had wifi reception from shore. A couple may have even got through!

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