Marina Rubicon, Lanzarote

I have just had to read back the last blog entry to see where we were up to because it seems to have been a busy few days. We are now moored in Marina Rubicon in Playa Blanca where we have been since Wednesday evening. The wind decided to turn fully 180 degrees on Wednesday daytime, making our anchorage a lee shore (e.g. if the anchor slips the wind blows you onto it). Luckily the winds were still very light but it meant we weren’t comfortable leaving the boat to go ashore as we had been planning. Due to the impending arrival of my parents and their friends Angelo & Michelle the next day we just decided to go in a day earlier and therefore give ourselves all day on Thursday to get the boat cleaned up before our visitors arrived.
Therefore after a short tussle with the kedge (secondary) anchor we had laid which hadn’t appreciated the wind change we pulled up the main anchor and headed the short distance across the bay to Marina Rubicon. Marina Rubicon has a really good reputation and facilities and we had both been looking forward to stopping here ourselves, just because in many of our plans previously involved coming in here due to the closeness to my parent’s villa. It certainly lives up to its reputation, it’s a huge complex with the apparently obligatory designer shops and many restaurants and even a swimming pool and tennis court to use. We moored at the reception pontoon, where we were helped with our lines before checking in at the office (106 Euros for 3 nights initially). There seemed to be a bit of an issue of where to put us as we have a 5m+ beam (width), often catamarans are put on the hammerhead (end) of the pontoon, which suits us as it’s much easier to get on and off. After much debate, they decided on a berth because our neighbour had a small boat we would be able to get in. So we head off as I rapidly move the fenders (inflated buoys to protect the boat sides) to the other side of the boat ready to get into our mooring as per the plan provided. As appears to be the case in posh marinas a marina employed was despatched to out berth to take our lines and assist mooring up. Kevin easily tucked us in beside the small power boat beside us and we were soon secured. We then looked round and see that a least a third of the berths nearby were completely empty , so we don’t quite understand their berthing issue unless, unlike pretty much every marina we have been in the berth holders are actually away sailing in the boats.
It was now about 8pm, so we decided to splash out on a meal out in Playa Blanca as we had been looking at it for 2 days. It’s about a 15 minute walk along a beautifully kept walkway into the centre of Playa Blanca. There were many people milling around of all nationalities, there are a selection of first large hotels then restaurants approaching Playa Blanca, the gardens are beautifully kept and they have been very tastefully architected, overall we were really impressed, definitely the nicest resort we have been to in the Canaries and not a single English Breakfast on offer on the front. We headed for the Old Mill bar on the first floor with an open terrace overlooking the bay. We looked at the catamaran we had been moored alongside and reflected on how many people must have sat where we were looking out at us moored below them in the last couple of days and wondered about us just as we were now.
We headed off the seafront to see if we could find slightly cheaper local restaurant rather than the more tourist offering on the front. Unfortunately hunger got the better of us and we ended up in a slightly cheaper tourist restaurant on the next road back. The service was good but the food fairly average, still we were enjoying exploring a little and a bit of people watching.