Day 5: Our passage from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands

Sailing Uno: Our Passage from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands

Day 5

Today was another low wind day, so to avoid coming in too late to an unfamiliar anchorage we decided to run one engine from 11am.

At 1142am Jacques yelled "Land ho!" from the helm station. It was still a good 15 nm away, but there it was, our very first glimpse of the Canary Islands.

As we neared land we started to see more wildlife, and in the last few hours of our passage we spotted two turtles, whales, and our first flying fish. We watched the very distant pod of whales off our Starboard excitedly, only just being able to see the spray coming up from their blow holes. Then we saw big dark coloured fins as they dove and we had a small freak out about the possibility of them being orcas, and that the next thing we might feel would be a jolt under our boat as they go for our rudders! I had just emptied our sand bags over the side thinking they were no longer needed too! But thankfully, we didn't see them again.

Lunch was the last of our fresh vegetables wrapped in rice rolls, and we were all pretty excited about the prospect of being able to go for a swim and walk on land again.

By 2pm we were navigating our way through some smaller islands, on our way to Graciosa Island, our first anchorage in the Canaries. The volcanic landscape here is wild, it makes you feel like you've landed on Mars or some other planet.

We found our buddy boat Parallel and dropped our anchor next-door, then we jumped in the water for a long-awaited swim. Our friends had gone exploring on their dinghy but soon came back, and then on over to Uno for a few drinks, a big "Cheers!" to all of us completing our biggest passage yet, and a catch up on what went right and wrong. After that, all we wanted to do was sleep and recover.

We did it! We sailed 683 nautical miles as a family, out from Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean, no sight of land for 4 days until this hazy dry landscape appeared. We still didn't manage to catch a fish, but we will keep on trying.