Xenial - Day 8 - In harbor

Life on land (well, moored to land), is quite different from what we have become accustomed to.

Major Gustaf has moved his quarters from the saloon sofa to the AirBnB we have booked on land. He reports significantly improved sleep, and was not kept awake all night from loud music in the marina. Did you know that water conducts sound better than air?

Upon waking up in harbor, we thought we would start orienting ourselves around this African country. But our neighborhood wasn’t as exotic as we would have hoped - a Swedish boat on one side, a German on the other, a Finnish and a Danish across. It’s like waking up in the Baltic Sea, just a bit warmer.

We were happy to see that our fellow friends on Hermia II had safely made it to harbor and were enjoying some breakfast at the marina floating restaurant. We instead were treated by Major Gustaf who showed up on board with fresh rolls from the bakery below our AirBnB. It was a welcome change from the sliced bread we had at sea, but most of the crew thought Janne’s boat-made bread was better.

After cleaning the boat yesterday, today was laundry day. Captain Ulrik temporarily allowed the boat to look gipsy and we had towels, sheets, underwear, socks and much else drying on deck. Everyone else dressed their ship with signal flags…we tried to replicate the same with the help of the crew’s colorful shorts and t-shirts. I can guarantee we have on board a sample of every shade of Lacoste and Polo ever made!

We went on an exploratory trip to the local beach: After seeing so much sea we wanted to finally get into it. The sand was white and the water was a wonderful shade of blue. However it was quite windy, with some pretty strong gusts, and we realized that the beach was facing the finish line, where we broached twice two nights ago. It all made sense now!

To close out the day we had a joint Xenial and Hermia II dinner on land. We were warned that the time zone had changed from Las Palmas, but here we are truly on what is known as “Island Time”. It took over 1 hour to get our order in, and then over 1 hour to get our food, and then much of it was mixed up. The online reviews had warned us about the slow service, but then they said the same about every restaurant, so now we don’t have much hope for the coming nights. Luckily there is a separate language for ordering beer anywhere around the world, so without any need for translation they got us started with a 3 liter cerveja tower on the table and Major Gustaf self elected himself head of the drinking committee. He kept the beer flowing and the crews’ spirits were high throughout the night!

Over and out,
Mavi