At the begining of November, we were ready to cross over to Gran Canaria and join the ARC (Atlantic Rally Cruising) fleet in their preparatory weeks. Kristen and her friend, Helena, joined us for the day long sail. As is often the case in Atlantic islands, the water between the islands is choppy, but we had a favorable wind to get us there.

Along the way, a pod of very playful dolphin joined us, swimming in the bow wave and cavorting about on either side of the boat. The ease with which they wove in and out, up and down is always a fascination for us all. A delight. Even though we made many attempts to touch one with a hand, they did not make the same effort to touch us, and contact happened.

As we approached the Las Palmas harbor in the late afternoon, we turned on the engine to make the manuvering and entrance easier. It was then that we discovered that the leak that filled the bilge on our approach Tenerife was still with us. It was in the sea-water pipes between the engine's pump and its oil cooler. The engine was actually pumping water into the boat at three our four gallons a minute. This was easy for the bilge pumps to keep up with, but if they had been off, as they accidently had on the previous passage, the bilge would fill. Once we were tied up in the Las Palmas harbor, Kristen and Helena left us to catch a flight back to Tenerife. The next morning, Hans analyzed exactly the location and cause of the leak.

A hard copper pipe carries the water between the engine's sea water pump and its oil cooler. One of the engineers in Riga that mounted the engine had brazed a piece of galvanized pipe with a globe valve into this copper pipe. No one in Riga would take credit for this work, nor could anyone explain the purpose of this connection. A brass joint to iron in seawater is bound to deteriorate, as it had. Thank goodness for Hans. Despite the fact that he had retired from plumbing, he took on this task of replacing the pipe with high pressure hose. It has leaked since.

While in Las Palmas, tied up with the multi-million dollar yachts along the breakwater, we stayed busy with repair and rig improvement projects. We bought a used expandable boom for the spinnaker, repaired the boom vang, worked on wiring and plumbing, bought more snatch blocks and rope for sheets and halyards. We went to the ARC seminars and parties, as well as several boat parties on the large race boats.

A few days for the ARC departure day, Gretchen, Kristen, and Thomas came to Las Palmas and stayed at Helena's mothers apartment. The last day was spent shopping for food and saying goodbye.

ARC is more than a fleet of boats crossing the Atlantic. It is actually a race, of sorts. And as such, the boats have a prespecified departure time. The 40-odd boats in the racing class leave about a half hour before the rest of the 250 boat fleet. Mother of Perl made her way out of the sport harbor to the starting area in the large outer harbor. Gretchen, Kristen, and Thomas were watching and waving from the end of the quay as we motored away from the congested starting line, to raise our sails. Everyone was excited, on the boats and on shore. We turned downwind just as the starting gun went off. By allowing the other, more nimble boats to cross ahead of us, we could be relaxed about our manuevering. Being five minutes late across the starting line was not going to make any difference over the three week "race." But it wasn't a clear an area as we had expected. Besides the 250 ARC boats headed southwest, there were nearly 100 spectator boats, some very large powerboats, that followed the racers, then turned and sailed at us as they returned to harbor.

There were no incidents, however. Within an hour, we had settled down to our watches and living at sea. We followed the Gran Canaria coast and then cut over toward Tenerife in order to take advantage of the accelerated winds that come of these islands. We made good speed from this, but we had overlooked the possibility of a wind shadow on the lee of the accelerated streams. We motorsailed that first night.