As usual, I want to do too much, and the days are too short. Which means blogs get stranded at the end of my list. There is some catching up to do.

Madeira brought sunshine and warmer weather, which we all soaked in. We spend our time there going to the beach, exploring the local area and we did a beautiful hike up in the mountains, where we found it was rainy and much colder but still absolutely stunning!

It felt very good to move and walk in nature after a long time on board, watching the weather and keeping everything and everyone going. Sailing usually charges me up, but as the weather has been challenging since leaving the Netherlands and I had so many things still to do, organise and fix, this felt like a little break from the boat. From Calheta we sailed to the east of Madeira, anchoring in a big bay surrounded by dramatic cliffs. Even though we found ourselves peacefully anchored, the incoming swell made landing on the pebble beach impossible. Not a first beach landing experience I had in mind for everyone anyway 😉 So we stayed onboard, did our Sunday cleaning, and some brave souls jumped in the water and swam around Guppy. After our Sunday cleaning, chill day, and home made pizza night, we set sail again.

I had gotten permission to anchor and land at the Selvagens Islands so we keep our fingers crossed for calm weather. It’s not looking bad as we leave. But the weather has been strange with exceptionally high waves and swell swirling around in all directions. We have a lovely sail, and this time no one gets seasick, which makes enjoying the sailing a lot easier! Guppy wants to go too fast, but arriving at night at these poorly charted islands is not an option, so we try to slow her down and even spend the last few hours floating around until daylight. As we slowly approach Selvagem Grande the sun is casting a magic golden glow on this raw island. Many rocks are strewn around, and a good lookout is necessary. As we approach the bay, I see big waves crashing ashore, creating mesmerising waves on the shallow around us. As beautiful as it is to watch, it’s not a very good sign for us to be able to anchor, let alone land on the island. This was confirmed as we closed in on the anchorage. The swell, which had been so gentle at sea, crashed into the island at full force, making it impossible for us to anchor. We had short contact by VHF with the wardens on duty, who also didn’t think it safe for us to anchor or land. So we wished everyone a Merry Christmas, hoisted the main sail and set course for the Canary Islands. At first daylight, we entered the big and busy harbour of Las Palmas. A stark contrast to the wild nature of the Selvagen Islands and, of course the ocean.

During our time in Las Palmas, we explored the city, visiting the big Santa Ana cathedral, climbing on a climbing rock in the park.And of course we celebrated Christmas together, we shared stories of how everyone would usually spend their Christmas, funny things that happened and we had set up a secret Santa so there was a little gift for everyone to open up. In the afternoon, we shared a lot of very yummy food together. During our time in Las Palmas we also rented vans to explore outside the city. Gran Canaria is very diverse in landscape, we found everything from dry rocky volcanic landscapes to cool pine forest. Somewhere deep in the mountains we visited a little village where we could look inside some man made cave houses. It was very impressive to see these. Some small and others huge houses that the indigenous people had lived in. By the time we came back on Guppy the sun had set and we were all very tired. But that good kind of tired, after a long but amazing day.

Laura