Cleaned, fed, slept

We arrived in Arecife, Lanzarote yesterday. Quite the docking with 25 knots blowing us into a tight hard space from side and behind, but all went well. Just quite an ending to a longer passage. Since my last post, I think the highlight was hearing first, and then seeing, a small whale swim (North Atlantic dolphin whale) next to us and then under us. We also had a huge pod of extra playful dolphins with us for a couple of minutes. We sailed the parasail quite a bit, and it’s a GREAT sail. It has the same awe inspiring feeling that a spinnaker does, with only 30% of the stress and work (yes I made up that number. Purely gut based). Key benefits on Arkyla with her weight and hull shape isn’t record breaking speed but rather the stability it brings to the boat in seas, and the range-it can take fairly low to fairly high winds, from all sorts of angles. More sailing, less stress - what’s not to love? I did learn a lesson yesterday though when taking it down the last time (I just realized: it’s like when you’re skiing: You get hurt on the last run down!). There were such forces at that point (forces increase exponentially as winds increase) that a rope I expected to hold and slowly release whipped through my hand. I had sailing gloves on, but they were finger-tip-less so I now have big blisters on each fingertip on my right hand. Hurt like … but I think I’ll live. Once ashore there were lots of worldly stuff to take care of: on phone (emails etc - how much stuff can happen in a week?!), shower (think wool base layer not leaving your body for five days…) and eat and drink. More stories from the dinner in next post. Today I woke up early, body ready for my next shift!