From Morro Jable it is approximately 60 nautical miles to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria. It is a day trip with around 10 hours of sailing in the wind predicted by the weather forecast. In order to arrive before dark, we leave Morro Jable at dawn.

On longer trips, we usually pick up the dinghy and lay it upside down on the cabin roof in front of the mast. We put the outboard on the stern pulpit.

We had all this fixed the night before, so this morning it’s just a matter of starting up the navigation system, checking the route and the weather one last time before starting the engine and pulling up the anchor. The breakfast has to wait until the sun is up.

Towards Las Palmas

As we head towards Punta de Jandia, the southwestern tip of Fuerteventura, the sun rises and we begin to feel the swell of the Atlantic. Today, 2-3 m swell is promised from the northwest with 12-13 seconds between the waves. It will be a gentle swell with waves that are around 100 m long.

As we pass Punta de Jandia, we see the swells towering over the shallows off the headland, breaking in several meter high cascades of foam. Powerful!

Unfortunately, the wind, blowing from the north, will be too light for us to arrive before dark tonight. So we have to use the engine and motor sail some distance.

We have about 8 to 12 knots of northerly wind all the way and are using the mainsail and genoa. As long as we make over 6 knots we sail, if it goes slower we use the engine.

We are not the only boat going to Las Palmas today. We are joined by the catamaran Pop Corn which is also motor sailing, but only with the mainsail and we seem to be slowly catching up with them.

Arrived in Las Palmas

In the afternoon we arrive at Las Palmas with its typical silhouette dominated by all the large ships anchored outside and moored in the port. The large drilling vessels along the outer harbor pier have remained there since we were here last time (2019). They are probably here waiting for work or just doing maintenance.

Anchorage

The anchorage area outside the marina is overcrowded, but after a bit of searching we find a place just outside the guest harbor’s north pier. Perfect, from there it is close to going in with the dinghy when we go ashore.

Welcomed

Mirja and Håkan have promised us a sundowner on board Space when we get to Las Palmas. We sailed with them in the Caribbean for two seasons during the pandemic. Then they had another sailboat, the Flying Penguin, a nice Najad 44. We split up in the Caribbean when we sailed to Portugal and they shipped their boat back to Europe to sell it . They thought they would be done with their crusing life, but no. It didn’t take long before they missed it and purchased a slightly smaller sailboat here in Las Palmas. Now they’ve had that boat for almost a year. It will be fun to meet them again!

It was a lovely reunion and we have a lot to talk about. Since we have been up since dawn we got tired after the first glass of wine. So when the sun goes down we take an invigorating evening walk in the guest harbor before going back to Sally to sleep.

The Falcon and other sailboats

All docks are locked here in Las Palmas and the only boats that can be viewed from land are the large boats that line the south pier in the marina. At the far end of the pier is the Swedish sailing ship Falken. I remember the ship since I was a child and it came to visit Västervik, always together with the sister ship Gladan. Both ships are still in operation and are used as training ships for Swedish naval officers.

The ship Falken is approximately 33 m long (100 feet) and weighs 225 tons. The largest sailing yacht in the harbor right now is 45 m long and weighs 324 tons!

Up next

In the next story, we wave off all the hopeful sailors who are going to the Caribbean with ARC 2022, including S/Y Sandvita who we also got to know when we sailed to the Caribbean with ARC 2019.