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Transatlantic trip 2024 Part 1

Although the UK has been blessed with a very mild November we are off on our travels again - heading for even warmer/sunnier climes.
 
Two years ago I made my 6th Atlantic crossing on a Lagoon 380 from Lanzarote to Barbados. Jetti met me there and we then had 6 weeks or so in an AirBnB before flying home.
 
This year will follow a similar pattern. Except I will be crossing the Atlantic on an 11m Dutch catamaran (not my design) leaving from Tenerife and sailing to Grenada, again via the Cape Verdes.
 
So a quick update on my transatlantic crossing:
 
 
We are still in the Canaries, on La Gomera. This is a small circular island just south of Tenerife and one with no natural harbours. So there is a persistent swell, nearly always from abeam. A couple of days ago we day sailed from the south end to the north, starting by heading east and ended up sailing west. But always on a broad reach, never altering the sail trim.
 
 
We knew one engine needed a new gearbox. Unfortunately when the service engineer came to fit it he broke another part. The replacement part was in a storeroom in Valencia which, not surprisingly, was flooded 2 weeks ago. So we've been waiting and waiting but have been told it should be on today's ferry, so we are hoping to have the engine repaired by this evening. That will make Fredjan very happy as, if nothing else, he gets his bunk back!
 
Having said all that we wouldn't have left anyway, as the winds, what they are of them, are not the normal NE trade winds but light SW winds - 5 knots or less. And we want to go 800 miles SSW. Fortunately it looks like there's a weather window for Wednesday and Thursday, so we plan to leave on Wednesday whether with a new gearbox or not. After all, most boats only have one engine! Next stop will be the Cape Verdes, somewhere I sailed to 2 years ago on my last transatlantic.
 
 
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We are now anchored in Mindelo, Cape Verdes. We arrived in the dark, of course! So a good thing I'd been here before, especially as the charts are off-set from the real position (the marina appears to be on dry land!).
 
There are far more boats here than I was expecting, but hopefully there will be room in the marina for us for a couple of days
 
 
Obviously we had a very slow trip, with just enough wind to sail, but too much to motor. Average wind was about 6knots so we were just drifting along most of the time at 4 knots or less. We only had one day of good wind when we averaged 7 for several hours.
 
Even so we were very glad to leave La Gomera when we did. We knew there was bad weather coming. But it hit La Gomera harder than expected. At least one big cruising boat ended up on rocks and was destroyed.
 
 
I was going to post photos and videos, but sadly yesterday Carla dropped my phone overboard while tidying up. So I've lost all the photos, not just for the trip, but also for much of last year and of course the phone itself plus the SIM card, banking apps etc. So these photos are the few I had stored on my tablet.
 
Some of the boats here are pretty big! (well maybe not "pretty".....) The monohull on the left is a Halberg Rassy 64, on the right a Sunreef 60
 
 
 
We plan to only be here a few days, then off the Grenada, wind permitting on Sunday.