We had arranged to contact Roger on the same channel we had always used when we arrive somewhere; VHF 69. He wasn’t responding. Okay, so we were two weeks late but really! From the top of our cockpit we looked across the pier that separated our anchorage from the marina. It was massive. There were hundreds of boats in there so the chances of finding La Palapa were slim. Or so we thought. I focused on the trees, not the forest, and the first tree I noticed had a burgundy sail cover. We were thirty meters from a big sea wall and one of the several dozen piers in the marina (each with 20-30 boats on them) butted up to that seawall. Directly across from us, on the deck of that maroon sail cover-boat, on that very pier closest to us? Yep. Since La Palapa was sitting there only a couple hundred feet away from us we could actually see Roger walking around on deck. We immediately abandoned the VHF and used the loud hailer which involves going outside and yelling, “ROGER!”
We brought breakfast over and as suspected Aimee didn’t really exist. I deduced this using typical male sensibility, locking onto the obvious (she wasn’t there) then skipping a few steps to get on with loudly harassing Roger. What are friends for? If you answered harassing, you are correct. Get yourself a beer.
Jaime on the other hand quietly tapped into some crazy female superpower thing that all men suspect may exist but are scared to talk about. She immediately pointed out several changes and improvements on the boat completely invisible to me (and I suspect Roger as well) that were well beyond a single guys investigative skills. With a Sherlock Holmes flourish she confidently concluded (my dear Watson) that not only did Aimee exist, but that she really liked this girl. Of course, she was right. Aimee made an appearance later that day; she was every bit as cute, Canadian, and cool as Roger had claimed and Jaime had deduced.
La Palapa was in a fully hectic, high stress flurry that day. We had caught them preparing for an Atlantic departure date only three days away. It’s widely understood that the best passages from the Canary Islands to the Lesser Antilles sprawl lazily between mid November to May. With such a large window one might reasonably wonder why anyone would do this to themselves. So we posed the question to this man. The one in the dress.
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The ARC
It’s only fair to state that we harbour some anti-establishment type ideas so you can take the following biased opinions with a grain of salt.
ARC = Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. Or as we’ve commonly heard it called by non-participants; the Atlantic Rally for Cripples. I guess it just depends on which side of the fence you’re on but imagine putting something as big, as adventurous, and as thrilling as sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in a little boat. Then take all of that and put it in a giant corporately sponsored blender. Add fees, flags, bureaucracy, clipboards and schedules. Before you’re finished add an arbitrary deadline, a couple hundred other boats, and hit puree.
Two hundred and seventeen boats were in this marina preparing their boats to begin an Atlantic crossing from the same place, at the same time, and on the same day. We haven’t seen anything like it before. Maybe that’s why it left such an impression. For the privilege of sharing completely overwhelmed local services, limited space and labour, and eventually a very crowded horizon, participants were paying hundreds (thousands?) of dollars.
I made a dinghy trip from the anchorage to the marina to drop off a friend of ours at 11:00PM in the pouring rain the night before the official ARC departure and there were boats on the fuel dock, people up their masts, and sails unfurled. Even at this literal 11th hour the marina was still a beehive of activity which really left us wondering how participants can justify the added stress imposed by an arbitrary deadline.
At the skippers briefing ARC participants were provided with critical nuggets of sailing wisdom such as, and I quote:
- Chew your food slowly
- Wear sun block and lip slave (not a type-o, the handout actually said “slave”)
- Don’t forget to take prescribed medication
… and so on.
With such weighty subject matter to cover it’s no wonder a few trivial matters were glossed over, such as how 217 boats are meant to leave the same marina at the same time on the same day. We were at the start line (on an anonymous boat) to observe the folly first hand. We lost track of the close calls, bitter yet creative expletives, and near collisions. I’ll admit to a certain level of excitement, and it was neat to see all the sails headed for the same horizon, only because it wasn’t our boat in harm’s way but Rog…I mean, an anonymous boat.
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After seeing it all firsthand we still have no idea why anyone would pay to subject themselves to this chaos but I will admit that there is a positive slant that I have to mention here. The event gets a massive amount of people to cross the Atlantic in small boats every year that may not have otherwise. We think that’s pretty cool… Flag waving ceremonies, arbitrary deadlines, fees and uniforms? Not so much.
Other news
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In between marathon bouts of getting Palapa ready for the ARC, we managed to sneak in a few epic parties, most notably a belated wedding reception. Secretive preparations had been underway all day and we eventually hosted the event on Slapdash. We were at anchor and when Roger and Aimee showed up in their dinghy they were greeted to The Wedding March blaring full blast over the cockpit speakers, and Jaime in full hot-hostess regalia handing out glasses of bubbly from a tray. There were wedding decorations, tacky presents, a bridal bouquet, and even a cake with little plastic bride and groom figurines. Congratulations Mr and Mrs Palapa.
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Also of note while in Las Palmas; I’ve been filling the Slapdash LPG bottles myself since August. Decanting highly explosive pressurized gas is not one of the things I ever expected to find myself doing, so this is not something I would recommend, endorse or do myself if there were any other option. The only good thing about filling your own LPG bottles is that it’s probably illegal.
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This butt puckering exercise involves a few homemade connections, a free flowing regulator, suspending the full bottle upside down in your cockpit, an ice bath for the empty bottle, and hoping for the best. Leave the full bottle in the sun to heat it up thereby increasing its internal pressure. Chill the empty bottle in an ice bath to decrease its internal pressure. I’ve also found the ice bath to work exceptionally well to chill a six pack, which in turn will steady your nerves. Secure your connections and open both valves. There are a few things to take into account: butane is stored at a lower pressure than propane so if you have any propane left in your bottle and are trying to top it off with butane, it won’t work very well. Butane in an LPG bottle is okay (since the LPG bottles are built to withstand higher pressure) so by that logic filling a butane bottle with LPG might be a bad idea. As your bottle is being filled, the pressure will increase. Our bottles have a vent screw and releasing some of the pressure using this screw sped up the process. Other than that, just light up a cigarette and barbecue some steaks while you wait. Okay skip the last part but if you need to be told that you are probably an ARC participant hard at work chewing your food slowly, and have already boycotted this website.
Our friend’s boat had been in Las Palmas back in June on their way up from Africa this year and he had told us about a “wizened” old man who lives in a blue van that makes his money from bootlegging LPG. He drew us a map of where we could find the guy on a napkin. We stuffed it in our log book and were pretty excited to try it out when we got here; it was like a treasure hunt. It didn’t take long before we found him, and everything (the van, the location, his description) was exactly as Kerry had outlined on the napkin for us. Everything except that “wizened” looked like wizard so we were a little disappointed to find out that he didn’t have a wand or pointy hat. At least he had a white beard, he was old too, and did in fact live in a van. Anyone fitting that description making their living outside of the law gets our business every time.
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Since Palapa took their leave we have moved into the marina and various groups of friends have been cycling through. There hasn’t been a shortage of company and we’ve never had to go far to find a party. We reunited with Heartsong, and were thrilled to find out that they had been in contact with our friend Kerry (from Ibiza post) and would be taking him along as crew to the Caribbean. This was great news because the last we heard from Kerry he was considering hanging up his sea hat (hat?) and getting a j-o-b. Close call.
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We snagged a great spot in the marina and are the closest to the pier. Unfortunately this also means being doormen for every single person that forgets their keys or doesn’t have them to begin with. Usually not a big deal, but exceptionally annoying when you are working on the boat and have 15 interruptions. More often than not the people without keys don’t have boats either and are looking to crew their way across the Atlantic. This is an unusual phenomenon. We’ve been approached by random people asking to crew on our boat a total of two times in our entire trip before Las Palmas. Since we’ve arrived here we get asked 5 or 6 times a day. I don’t know why everyone comes here to do that, but if you are looking for crew on your Atlantic crossing, Las Palmas is definitely a buyer’s market. All the cute chicks were the first to go of course. After that the clean cut guys with a little sailing experience started to disappear. Now we’re down to the hippies. There is a huge hippy contingent passing through here; The full-on dread-locked, Aladdin-pant wearing, beach bongo, patchouli-oiled, cave dwelling variety. I’ve never really understood the whole scene and still think its 95% bullshit. Sorry hippy. But it turns out that any hippy folk we’ve gotten to know on a personal level have been pretty cool and we even semi-adopted one that did an especially great job of passing me beer and making us laugh while getting Slapdash ready for her next passage. So to all the hippies stranded Las Palmas: So long you crazy bunch of freaks. Thanks for the laughs. It’s been fun getting to know you and we wish you all the best. Get a haircut.
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I hope you have a Samoan lawyer!
Posted by Bob | 07. Jan, 2012, 7:10 amWhat the hell?! No mention of a spark at all. No battery cross terminal sparking? No wires shorting? No stranger walking on the dock and flicking a cigarette into the water beside the boat?
Was there as many drugs and hallucinations involved in Las Palmas as Las Vegas?
Good luck with the weather window guys.
P.S. Did you get my emails?
Posted by Lorry Reynish | 29. Dec, 2011, 1:29 am