Mike Perham has finally left Gran Canaria in his attempt to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and singlehanded. Mike, 16, from Potters Bar, Herts, has been plagued by technical problems since he left Portsmouth last month, stopping once in Portugal and once in Gran Canaria, to work on his Open 50,Totallymoney.com. However, the problems, particularly those concerning his auto pilot, appear to be fixed once and for all. His website reports that he is currently tacking away from the African coastline in search of wind.

‘Finally! Today I checked out of the nice cheap hotel I’ve been staying in, wandered down toTotallymoney.comin the blistering sunshine and sailed out of Las Palmas!

As I left the marina, people shouted good luck and waved – some even tooted their fog-horns. This proved to be the easiest goodbye so far! It’s so good to be on the water again. After I made it out of the port, I hoisted the sails close to where around thirty small sailboats were racing. Next, I passed several tankers all at anchor and slowly made my way down the southeast side of the island.

Just after this, I found myself trapped in a wind-hole. There was nothing I could do but take down the fore sail as it was just flapping about and wait patiently until I finally managed to drift out of it. A breeze of twelve knots eventually rescued me. It’s not from a great direction so I will be tacking for the next few days until I find some reaching or downwind conditions.

At the moment I’m tacking out to the African coast in search of the wind. There’s a ridge of high pressure coming, which means I’ll have another calm period in the next day or so.

It’s so wonderful to be sailing again and I just can’t wait to get into the swing of things – particularly to sort out my napping sleep pattern. The first few days at sea are always the worst – the lack of sleep leaves me feeling drained all the time but I know I just need to keep pushing on, knowing that I’ll soon acclimatise and that things are going to get better and better.

I’m smiling, it’s warm and Totallymoney.com is sailing well. After all the technical troubles I’ve had, this is a thumbs up moment if I ever there was one!’