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Weather is clearly a bit of a biggy when sailing, and thankfully we have the luxury of waiting out bad weather nice and safely. If you get caught out unexpectedly, that’s a different matter, but to voluntarily go out in bad weather seems a little foolish in our opinion, not to mention the potential risk to others who may have to come and help you out.

To help us with our weather planning we use a few different sources; a link to an Iridium Go! allowing us to receive updates via satellite when on passage, Predictwind Offshore (which uses the Iridium Go!), MeteoConsult ( a very good French app), Windy and any other apps we may have found on the way. These allow us to make informed decisions on when to make passages. So after watching these closely we picked a day and left.

I think in my mind I had half expected something to mark this occasion, but as with most things in our lives it was just done in a matter of fact way and without fanfare or fizz to mark the auspicious occasion that thousands of other boats before us have done . We took the dog for a good walk, gave him a squeeze to make sure there was nothing left inside of him and just left.

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And that was that. And it was lovely! See the first picture! See how lovely it is! Yeah…for about an hour. And then we met the Atlantic. Bleugh. Thankfully after Ushant we now routinely took seasickness tablets for longer passages so that wasn’t an issue. It was just so damn rolly from every direction! And it didn’t stop for 3 days which was actually a little tedious. The sails were set wing in wing with a poled out headsail and we were off. Portugal vanished quickly behind us as did the fishing boats and lobster pots and then it was just us and a whole lot of empty ocean.

We had 1 paper chart on the saloon table that we updated every 6 hours. On the chart table we also had an Ipad that allowed us to control all the functions of the Raymarine chart plotter at the steering pedestal and the radar. Can I just say plotting your position every 6 hours on a 5 day passage on a large, blue chart is a little demoralising! I think I have a shock coming my way when we do long passages!!

We didn’t keep watches during the day but carried on with what we did when crossing Biscay, as that worked well for us. We would spend the day in the cockpit chatting, playing with Franco, tweaking the sails, reading, listening to audiobooks or watching things on tablets and playing games. We would download the weather every 8 hours and generally just keep an eye on things. If one of us were tired we would either snooze in the cockpit or down below. Before leaving we had had lee cloths made up for the bunks but actually our normal bed was perfect as it lies athwartships so we could always sleep comfortably. We quickly settled into a quiet routine and at the end of the day I would make dinner which we would eat together. I know it was only a 5 days crossing but I had made meal plans so I didn’t have to think too much what we would be eating, and also because for some reason Lee always likes to know at breakfast what he will be eating later that day.

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Around 2200hrs Lee would go down below to have a sleep. He can fall asleep within minutes whereas I take forever. Having spent years working night shifts I also didn’t struggle too much with staying up later than him. We would normally sleep for 2 – 3 hours and naturally wake without an alarm, but if the person on watch was happy and awake, and the person snoozing was fast asleep, then that was fine too. Likewise if someone was tired and wanted to sleep they would just wake the other one up. I have always HATED 0300hrs when working nights so Lee would always take that watch. It all works itself out in the end. I know some people take watches very seriously, and when we do longer passages I think I can get why, but for us with a 5 day passage it worked out just fine.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it before but someone told us their top tip was a door bell, which we used to great effect and which I would recommend to everyone! The buzzy bit is in a waterproof bag next to the wheel, and the ding dong bit is in the cabin where you sleep. Because it is such a different noise it is very easy to hear, even above an engine. We would press this once if you wanted something, and 3 times if it was urgent. I guess we could have just called down into the cabin from the cockpit as we sailed the whole way, but it was just something we had got into the habit of using.

Day 2 of the passage Franco decided that hot dogs were the food of the Devil and he point blank refused to touch them. Despite being bribed with cheese slices as well it was a big, fat hairy no from the dog. Little git. I mean fair enough, they aren’t a great food source but he wanted them, I bought them and half our fridge was now full of the bloody things. So Lee had the hot dogs while Franco had chicken, steak and occasionally some dry dog food if this was covered in cheese and hand fed to him.

Day 3 of the passage Lee had also now decided hot dogs were the food of the Devil, and was refusing point blank to touch them. We had reached an impasse and I had a decision to make. For the first time in his little, four legged furry life Franco came second to the husband. My reasoning was Franco didn’t bring in any money and Lee did. And I really wanted a Louis Vuitton Neverfull bag I strongly suspected Franco would be unable to buy me. It was that cutthroat. For the rest of the passage Franco and Lee gave each other The Stink Eye from opposite ends of the cockpit. Meanwhile I ate the chocolate I had hidden away and dreamed of my overpriced handbag I secretly knew I would never own.

Day 4 and the end, although not literally, was in sight. The view was pretty much the same but the crummy, rolly, relentless waves had finally stopped. We only saw a couple of other vessels during the whole passage on AIS and we had a few dolphins keep us company, but other than that it was a very quiet and thankfully a non eventful trip. There was a little excitement as after 4 days of being at sea Franco FINALLY did his business! He started his panting and pacing and we unclipped his safety harness and passed it around the cockpit between us, as he climbed onto the cockpit seats from his usual basket sanctuary and looked like he was going to make a break for it. After he did the deed he was given lots of love shortly followed by him, us, the cockpit, the cockpit cushions, the table, his basket and basically anything within a 5 metre radius being hosed down. We carried on the night watch with assurances that whoever was on watch and saw the first lights would wake the other one.

On the morning of Day 5 after we had both excitedly watch Lanzarote come into view, Lee went for a snooze down below taking Franco with him. We were steaming along doing on average 8.5 – 9 knots. The sun was coming up, it was already hot, some dolphins were with us and it was AWESOME!!!! As always, whenever just one of us was in the cockpit we had a lifejacket and safety harness on. Good job really. Better safe than sorry. We knew all about the WAZ or Wind Acceleration Zones of the Canary Islands and knew when we would meet them, and I was to wake Lee in plenty of time so we could reef in the sails. These are known areas where the wind races around the islands in specific places causing the wind speed to accelerate by over 10 knots in seconds.

Unfortunately, I was enjoying the ride too much to think that going a lot faster than we had expected meant we would be arriving at our destination a lot earlier than expected which also meant we would be reaching the acceleration zone a lot earlier than expected. Hitting over 30 knots of wind with full sails up meant that I was unable to hold the wheel. We heeled right over and the sides were awash with water. The edge of the boom was dripping and as suddenly as it happened we were facing into wind with the sails flapping, the boat neatly upright and I was behind the wheel slightly stunned. Lee came up with the dog and bleary eyed asked why he had gone from sleeping horizontally to standing on the bulkhead. I removed my life jacket and safety harness, declared the sail now over and had a gin and tonic at 0800 hrs. Lee wisely asked if I wanted ice.

After 5 days, 620 nautical miles and no arguments we entered Marina Lanzarote. And very proud of ourselves we were too. After tying up, Franco peed on Lanzarote and declared it his own.