Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands
It rained today! It may sound odd to mention but I’ve been in the Canary Islands for two months now, and today is the first time it has rained. It only rained a millimeter or two, and its not the kind of rain that makes you want to put on a raincoat, but it was quite unusual to hear the rain and see the deck wet with anything other than salt water. The air here mostly comes from the Sahara, and doesn’t spend long enough over the sea to pick up a lot of moisture. So it is generally hot and sunny here, and hardly ever rains. Brittany has departed for adventures ashore in Turkey and New York, and is missed greatly. George and I have been working on a lot of repairs and modifications. George does the vast majority of the work while I spend much of my time chasing down obscure parts in various ferreterias (hardware stores) with my very limited Spanish. Among other things, we’ve added a new cleat to make the mainsheet easier to handle, replaced the mainsail cover, replaced the main halyard winch with a self-tailing one, overhauled many of the winches and replaced many lights with LED lights (which take less power). One of the roller furlers died (the bearings inside broke, and replacements are no longer available), and we are waiting for a new unit to replace it with.