I have had a super productive time out here in Gran Canaria. It was so great to get back into my boat after a long phase of land based training. Although I was a little rusty at first it was quite refreshing to see how quickly I got back into it all. Early in the first week we had a few days of light breeze to break me back in gently. I’ve been pushing on with the fitness training, too. We’re headed straight to Lanzarote for a week’s fitness camp next to get some long hours on the bike in before Christmas, which means that I have my bike here! Very handy for some long morning aerobic sessions. The hills are crazy here, though. You don’t have anything like that in the New Forest!! There’s a pretty large and steep hill that you have to get up to get out of Las Palmas (the city). I did have a look but there doesn’t seem to be any way around it!!

There was a well attended regatta out here at the end of our first week: Canary Islands Olympic Sailing Week. Despite the rustiness it was brilliant to get racing again. We had a couple of light wind days and then a breezy fourth day to finish the event off. I ended up in 7th position overall.

Since the regatta finished we’ve had a little more breeze… one day we were the only boats to launch. No messing with the British Radial girls!! Turns out nobody was actually meant to leave the shore that day. Oops!! We only found that out when we came back in to a stern looking harbour master! The waves here are incredible. Today was our last day of training before heading to Lanzarote and the waves were the biggest I have ever seen. 5 metres high! The downwind surfs were such awesome fun. We were lucky to have photographer Alberto Sanchez out in the RIB with Hugh for the day. He took some amazing pictures. Check out the gallery (Media>Photos) for a taster of some of the snaps!