BLUEMOMENT

ARC countdown #1.

Hi all. We arrived in Las palmas a week or so ago, from where we’ll do the next transat to the caribbe with the ARC in November. I’ve done quite few transats, though never yet with the ARC. Thought i’d do a bit of a blog now and again, so here’s #1 from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

After checking in and having a late-evening bar argument and then a bit of mobile-phone Google, we found out that the marina can take 850 boats. With wide fairways, that means it’s erm, pretty big. Phyisically bigger than Brighton and more like Marseilles Vieux Port or Antibes for example, the showers can be quite a hack if you are on the more distant pontoons for bigger boats. I’ve got a Go-Ped strimmer-engine-powered scooter (see goped.com) and it makes it not quite such a flaming disaster to find you’ve forgotten something important such money or credit card when you’re already halfway to the shops. I wd definitely have a bike or scooter if you’re gonna be here.
The food shops are even further away, perhaps a kilometre to a supermarket (nearest seems to be Hyperdino) , or only a couple of minutes on scooter or (more normal) fold-up bike. If you spend over 40euros they deliver your purchases right to the back of the boat – and they are sometimes so quick that they can beat the yotty buyer back to the boat! Although isn’t yet high season, boaty yottie-wise.

Cos see, there’s fairly well-known circuit around the Atlantic, and just as every motorway has its service stations for a stopover, the Atlantic has places such as Las Palmas on this side of the Atlantic and St Martin/Sint Maarten on the other . You don’t have to stop at these places, in the same way as you don’t have to stop at Watford Gap on the M1. But Las Palmas is amongst the cheapest marinas with the most plentiful boaty shops and boat services of anywhere in the Canaries. And, just like Watford Gap, it’s pretty close to the motorway, which whizzes along day and night. It’s not intrusive, you can sleep fine , but there’s always a city-style level of background noise.

I mentioned the money-based reasons. So, if we’ve done the transat a few times already, why on earth are we going with the ARC? Well, partly cos I haven’t done it, and so why not? There’s loads of people in the boaty lark advising you against doing this or going here although when you ask closely, well, erm, no, quite often (tho not always) they haven’t actually done it themselves...

But that’s not a good enough reason to shell out £900ish bleedin’ quid ARC entry fees (including £75 per crew) when there’s not even any signposts to show us the way. No. The hard fact is that if you want to stay in this marina from anytime early October to the ARC leaving date in late November then you *MUST* to be part of the ARC. Otherwise the nice marina people will shake their head and say very sorry, no room. It’s early October now and already the pontoons are being gradually emptied and a non-ARC guy over there has only been given one weeks’ mooring – after that he’s gotta push off out of here, and he's found a space in Rico on the other side of the island.

However, as part of the ARC, your place in the marina is guaranteed (but not included free, and no, there's no discount from this marina) and this means that the total costs of getting ready for westbound transat are actually (a bit) reduced if you’re in this lower-charging marina, see? We’re paying under 25 euros a night here instead of between 35 and 50euros a night elsewhere in Canaries, and the saving multiplied by about 55 nights or whatever we need to hang around till we depart means we’re saving money! Well, sort of. Ok, it’s not as cheap as in the free anchorage but then you can’t sensibly leave the boat there, not really.

Our final reason for being here is that this is quite a fun and buzzy place – instead of just one or two boats planning a transat and the rest just ordinary canaries-based boats, Las Palmas has dozens and dozens of very serious transat-planning boats , ARC and non-ARC, and in mid November when the rest of the western world is done with the holiday season (as in the med) or not quite started the season (skiing or caribbean) or still at work with rubbishy weather and no xmas parties yet (everywhere else in the western world) ... there’s a palpable buzz in sunny Las Palmas from September to ARC Departure = D-Day which this year is 22nd November. Just as an example of how busy it is – yerknow how in the med seaside resorts there are seasonal restaurants which spring up here and there? Not quite sure yet but it seemed to me that one shop space here has been hastily rigged to be a seasonal chandlery shop! After which it’ll presumably disappear for another nine months til next September.

It takes ages to check in at this marina cos the software they use is rancid Oracle-based database junk and even after waiting an hour for others in the queue you spend ages at the desk watching the poor ole checkin guy doodle up and down menus looking for a tickbox to show it’s a Uk-flagged boat and so on. Jeez.

But they are jolly nice folk at the marina office, very helpful and happy to converse in English. Most of the pontoons have good security gates which slam shut so it you should ask for a berth at the middle or far end of the pontoons away from the clang clang clang and Yoohoo ! Excuse me we’re locked out can you come and etc etc from late nights drunken yottie bums trudging back and who forgot their key to get in, ahem. There are perhaps fifteen or so pontoons and No, one key doesn’t fit all pontoons – you get the key to your pontoon and it won’t work anywhere else. Two euros for each key, fair enough I spose. Showers quite good.

So, the ARC eh? We get the ARC Early Arrivals Welcome Pack. This gives us a nice letter saying Hi, some maps of Gran Canaria and a guidebook. And we’ve already been sent a 10% discount card from perhaps the biggest chandlery shop in the marina, Rolnautic. Or is it called Rolnautique? Whatever. Ten percent discount oho, I’m straight round there within the hour. Unsurprisingly, everyone gets 10% discount, so you can chuck the card in the river. Actually, I’ll hang on to it for the moment, it might be useful later on when you have to prove you’re with the ARC to gain entry to things.

More soon, lots of things to get done on the boat so I’d better get on, I can’t sit here in the Sailor’s Bar all day. Well, not every day anyway. The owner loves my Go-Ped scooter and has already had a little wobbly go on it...

It took ages to do that first blog and now here's another almost immediately. Rolnautic had a TrueCentre AIS B rig in the window so of course i just had to buy it, and the guy sed ooer it's complicated with software and pinouts, use that guy Mike the Yank from boat Quin. I know Mike cos he does Atlantic circuits too, and hangs out in St martin, selling his software. So anyway, i bought the thing for 800euros erk and mike with bits set it up and i spent a day pulling the boat apart and another two putting it back together and ...Tar -ah! Find us in Las Palmas on http://www.marinetraffic.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or whatever Mojomo's MMSI = 235 072 745

Only slight bummer is that the AIS feature on the chartplotter uses the pre-existing different AIS (C?) unit and of course is a bit worried that the nearest target is ... the new AIS unit about four feet away. Now, we could have changed this to use the single new unit, but there are advantages in having both running. For a start the poxy Raymarine plotter used to go mental ("AIS target lost!") if the sole AIS target disappeared - but this way there's no more endless pointles alarms since there will always be a target. PLus of course we have a live permanent check that the AIS B is working. Also i suppose it ensures that I will avoid ever colliding with my own boat...

The kit even includes a guide in how to answer the VHF in as if a drunken Mexican and tell worried saily boats to "Stand by" - and then never speak to them again. Excellent stuff.

It seems to me to be customary for ARC crews to ponce about together wearing a sort of corporate shirt and short get up.
The in colour seemed to have been pink and I'm not sure that a pink Matt is going to be that great on any images we may get sent from you.

Also a trendy logo on the back or a smaller one on the front of these shirts also seems to be derigeur.

Now - you could choose the colour and the strapline or I could set up a forum competition.

Which would you prefer my ageing carrot-fly?

i already have some mojomo t-shirts. Beige I'm afraid, not pink. I think most if not all transat crew have one of these. However, they all say "crew" on them, and not (as some do) have different signs on the back for skipper, first mate and crew, ugh.

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Hi Matt,

I don't suppose you will be lost for things to do in LP but you could always have a peruse of our blog entries for the time we were there, we found a few interesting places within walking or gopeding distance of the marina.

S'pose the weather is good there . . . we circumnavigated Shuna on Sunday and it only rained once.

Enjoyed your surfing past the ship post btw.

Oh God - a "Take a tip from one who has" post
You deep ocean boys sticking together then....

Beige you say, Matthew - how lovely.

Is this a reflection of the age of those aboard or did you simply get a decent deal from Marks and Spencer?

harumph, this blog is getting blimmin claymored. Claymorised? Clagged, i think. Anyway, the tshirts were onboard when i bought the boat. I might hire a car or motorbike and rip round the island in a somewhat un-webcraftish fashion.

How do i get pix on here? I have to put them somewhere i think. Or praps webby can send me an email address and craftily put them on the web.

Separately i found yet more new people here, in the bar of course, Jackie and Tony, and got lightly hammered with them. Jackie described how she had a job in central london, but, as she told work colleagues once, she didn't commuting to London becos no chance of going home for sex at lunchtime. Haha. Her work colleagues were a bit nonplussed, and she left shortly the job after. This isn't really a boaty story at all, but what the heck. J+T each have third shares in their boat, the other being J's sister, who flew home in a huff after a row. Very handy strategey I reckon to get a cheap boat.

Two days ago the Worst Skipper of the Week arrived in las palmas from Gib, and his crew of 3 others got off the boat to go to the bar asap whilst I supplied a few beers to WSW on the pontoon (i hadn't twigged at that time he was WSW, just chatted via internet from Another Boat Forum).

And then WSW and I went to the bar as well, to meet up with crew where I thought all would be fine, but they cleared their thoats and announced their troubles with him, namely that was a rather conceited lazy penny-pinching rat during the trip from Gib eg trying to get them to split diesel costs and then motoring to get to las palmas for his own flight home, and not standing his round ever, and just "ordering" beer or tea from his cabin ("Skipper wants a beer!") and being generally horrid calling them a bunch of numpties, and being generally demotivating on the boat eg on long passage saying "I'm bored", as well as only permitting a short overnight stop at Gib enroute from Greece cos WSW wanted to get back to uk, and lots of other gripes small stuff but lots of it etc etc. Wow. They said sorry for involving me, and I said well maybe I oughta leave them to it? But WSW thought I might back him up, and the crew felt they'd like an outside to hear what they had to say. Ooer.

But who's side was I on, eh? Reasonably diplomatically, I took WSW aside and toldim that if I ever arrived at a port after only four days at sea with crew saying any of the things said here, well, I would consider it something of a flippin disaster skippering-wise. And this isn't the first time - crew has run off and left his boat mid-trip before, I think? Generally, if everyone knows mostly what they're doing, skipper just needs to make sure it's a happy boat, see? Which his definitely wasn't. The three crew all liked each other, just not him. Also, I told WSW you can't try and split all the costs for busted bit of boat (if it's all your boat) for chrissakes, or diesel, especially if you then decide to motor almost all the way from Gib. Jeez.

WSW avoided paying for any beers (the crew say he was known as FOOTLIB - first out of taxi, last in bar) and well, lessons learned all round I suppose. Except by WSW it seems, who couple of days later apologised by text to me for his "unruly" crew.

Even after he'd gone the crew cleaned the boat, and wondered about moving it themselves to another port as required by marina to make way for ARC boats - but I sed look, you ain't specifically insured and it's not as if he'll back you up is it? He'll more likely try bill you for damage. We went for a daysail on my boat to cheer them up, and I helped find a couple of them spots on other boats going onwards from LP.

I wonder what I'd have done being one of that crew? Hm. Not sure I wd have stayed on the boat very long to start with. And I think I might have the "look, stop being such a git" discussion earlier, clear the air early on rather than try tolerate someone like that. Gawd, and WSW plans to get new crew and do a transat. Thickskinned doormat crew required...

Sorry you felt that way about me, Matt .. personally I thought you were very handsome, charming and generous...............

Para, LJ,the Muzz and I wanted a word with you about the charter experience you put us through on the Chents Cruise 08......

tcm wrote:... about 55 nights or whatever we need to hang around till we depart ...

Ahem ... hope you've been keeping up to date on the liveaboard forum wherein you'll receive advance warning of oooerrr massive tropical storms, the dangers of the demon drink and the spares you'll need for an extended trip in a seagull powered tender - anything greater than a boat's length, apparently, is classed as an extended trip always assuming you can get it to start ...