La Graciosa II

Jo is now counting down the hours before returning back to the boat.

Meanwhile, we have had a couple of guest staying on the boat from Canada, Mik and Agi, they are over on holiday to see the sights that the Canaries have to offer.

One of our activities was to climb one of the volcanoes, as you do, which there are three on Graciosa, the views of the island from the top are spectacular, plus the lizards are very friendly and have no problem climbing onto your hand and taking a sneaky bite to see what you taste like.





We also decided to have a beach BBQ in the evening, we invited Fabrise and his brother to join us for the party. Fabrise is a man of many talents, during the day he makes and sells gifts for the tourists who visit the island, and then early evening he will go fishing to supplement his dinner. Fabrise has set himself a daily budget limit of 5 euros, which includes his mooring fees!

I have learned a lot from watching his very impressive way of living, he is probably the most chilled out guy on the planet and does not understand the meaning of stressed out. Yesterday he slipped his lines and was going onto his next destination, you could make a very interesting film about his journey. I really hope we meet him again on our travels.





One thing which is very clear to me about the cruising scene is that you will meet a lot of new and interesting characters, last night having a quieter moment in the only bar which was open last night, I had George and Gemma a Spanish couple who were visiting for the day, both of whom spoke excellent English, being English teachers I guess they will do, come and sit down at my table and strike up a conversation as though we had known each other for years, one beer was the limit as I wanted a quite night, so said my goodbyes and left, only to get to the next table, when a friendly voice with a mild northern Irish accent asked me if I knew were to find the harbour master, should have asked me 5 minutes ago, he was sat behind you, sort of getting to know the place now!

Within a short space of time I was invited to join them in a beer, rude not to, we exchanged information, only to find out, that they now own an apartment on La Gomera and they have relocated their boat to the Canaries and are spending time going round the islands.

Sticking to my promise of an early night, one beer and bid them a fond far well, with an invite for the following day to the boat to update my cruising guide, with the very latest developments they have discovered.

On turning round to leave, Alan and Christine had sneaked in and invited me to join them, well you know the script.

Needles to say, I did make it home at a very respectable time, to make a fabulous meal, Canary potatoes cut into small cubes, onion, sweetcorn, garlic, chorizo and some left over sausage from the provisioning we did in La Rochelle, olive oil into the wok, and heat through, the potatoes were left over’s from the beach party, which had been cooked canarian style, boiled in sea water. It was that good, it will be a repeated again tonight, oh yes, it was accompanied by a very good bottle of red – Vina Albali Reserva 2003 highly recommended.

Cleaning duties today, I want the boat ship shape for Jo’s arrival.