We crossed over the short hop from Tenerife to La Gomera. It was quite an interesting day. To the south of Tenerife there was no wind at all, which would have been boring save from the fact that there was plenty to look at. Plenty of whales in particular.
These are Pilot Whales. They seem to life a good life. Gently and lazily floating around at the surface. We saw maybe 20 of them. And heard them, their breathing is very audible on a still day.
As we got closer to Gomera the wind picked up to 30 knots and we had a nice speedy sail.
We have had trouble with our bow thruster, however. So getting into the small crowded marina in La Gomera was difficult in the strong wind. With Journeyman’s single propeller and dual rudders there is no way to generate turning moment when the boat is still. So to be able to manoeuvre I need to keep the boat moving. We got very close to smashing the boat against a concrete wall, missed it by about 3 cm at high speed. Then, with the help of some other cruisers, we got the boat pulled into place properly.
I really hope that the Max-Power people (the manufacturers of the bow thruster) will be able to ship us a new one. The current one has had a gearbox failure after only a little over a years use. We are very handicapped without it.