Chapter 55: Uneventful Crossing

Tuesday morning dawned clear and bright as we sailed towards the Canary Islands. I relieved the two Captains around six a.m. because I knew they had had a long night. They wasted no time going downstairs. If they were hoping for Archara to fulfill her part of the bargain, they might be in for some disappointment. I made a mental note to check and see if she needed any healing for last night.

I had thought that I might need healing myself after making love so many times yesterday, but if I did, it had already happened. I didn’t feel bad, but I was tired and more than a little hungry. I suspected that healing myself had taken a lot of energy.

Fleur rescued me around eight o’clock with a selection of breakfast rolls, croissants, and my favorite, cinnamon rolls. She also brought a fruit and cheese plate, juice and coffee. It was a five-star breakfast and I told her so.

She beamed at the praise.

“Thank you for what you did for momma last night,” she told me. “She told us how perceptive she thought you were and how lucky we were that you were our firsts. Do you think that you might have time to allow me to thank you later?” she asked.

“I’m not sure when I will be relieved, but I would be glad to spend some time with you later,” I told her. She hung around for a while before she carried the dirty dishes back to the galley.

Some of the best days at sea are days where nothing major happens and nothing goes wrong. Tuesday was one of those days. I did help Archara with a little healing, but mostly she wanted to rest. And I did get together with Fleur later. I also got a good eight hours of sleep and I didn’t miss but one meal (which they saved for me) and even the weather cooperated, by becoming warmer.

My watch began at midnight, just like usual. Tomorrow, or later today I should say, we will arrive in Las Palmas, technically Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital city of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands.

The capital was also home to the Puerto de Las Palmas (Port of Las Palmas), the fifth largest port in all of Spain. For over five hundred years, this port has served as the jumping off point for ships crossing the Atlantic to the west and the first place to make land after crossing from the west.

Today, the large port is divided into four sectors, one for commercial fishing boats, one for commercial traffic, one for passengers (large cruise ships), and one for yachts and other sport sailing boats. I was going to have a good time navigating this busy place.

Captain Tony had us reservations for two nights at the Silken Saaj Las Palmas, just to break up the three week trip a little. A four star hotel, the Silken Saaj, was located within walking distance of the marina and right on Playa de las Alcaravaneras (Las Alcaravaneras Beach). The beach view rooms were going to be about a hundred Euros per night, so I opted to stay on the Windsong. Of course, that meant Sarah or Samantha would be staying with me. But that also meant that Captain Tony only had to pay for five rooms.

Why would I worry about €100 Euros a night when I make over €1,300 per day just in salary and Captain Tony is rich? Well, first, I wasn’t used to having money. I was raised in a middle-class family in a middle class community. So spending money on a hotel room that I didn’t have to just went against my upbringing.

Second, I have found that really wealthy people don’t like to waste money. They will invest it, or spend it to make their lives and the lives of the ones around them happier, healthier, or safer. They don’t like to throw it away needlessly.

Third, and probably the most important reason, I wanted some time away from everyone else. Oh, I know one or both of the twins had to stay with me for security purposes, but they would leave me in peace if I asked it.

I furled the sails and entered the vast marina on engine power and made my way to the yacht fueling station. After topping off the fuel tanks and dumping the black water tanks, I found the berth we had been assigned. In European marinas, space is at a premium and catamarans that are forty feet wide takes up twice the space of a monohull sailboat, so docking is very expensive. But again, Captain Tony thought it worth the expense.

While the Fourreau’s and the Lavigne’s went to check in at the hotel, I stayed behind and began cleaning the yacht. Starting at the bow, I scrubbed and rinsed the entire yacht, and then packed the sails. By supper time, I was exhausted. I ate the meal Samantha prepared, told them both goodnight and went to the owner’s cabin and promptly fell asleep.

Thursday morning, after a cup of coffee and a sweet roll, I set to work under the yacht, scrapping the barnacles off the hulls. I had the advantage of not having to wear underwater gear, but it was still hard work. And it was exactly what I needed. The last three months had been full of discovery and travels and much that I did not understand. So losing myself, under the yacht, to the monotonous work of scraping and cleaning the hull was therapy of a sort.

Once more, I was exhausted by suppertime and once more, I ate a simple meal with the twins and went to bed by myself.

The two families began returning to the ship Friday morning, carrying their spoils of two days of shopping along with all the provisions Archara and Monique deemed necessary. Shortly after noon, I was taking us out of the port of Las Palmas and south around Gran Canaria before switching to sails and heading southwest toward Martinique, some 3,100 nautical miles away. If we could average twelve knots, we should be there in eleven or twelve days.

The weather forecast called for cooperative winds for the next three days but there were two low pressure areas to the northwest that I’d have to keep an eye on. The good thing about our route is that the weather was much warmer than it had been in the Mediterranean. That meant that I got to enjoy watching the girls sunning themselves out on the bow nets every day.

About the bow nets. On a catamaran, there are two holes cut into the deck in the very front of the boat, between the twin hulls. The reason for these holes is to keep air from becoming trapped under the bow in rough seas. If the holes in the bow were not there, then as the bow of the catamaran rose and fell in the deep troughs that occurred during bad weather, the rising air would push against the bottom of the bow and possibly flip the catamaran over.