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Well if the day before was a people watching day, then yesterday was a boat watching day. We are moored on the visitor’s pontoon here in Corralejo, the other side of which is used for the day tripper boats going to Isla de Lobos. There were two 75ft catamarans and a local ferry boat taking passengers across which arrived by the coach load. The “Catalanza” catamaran is moored at Puerto Calero and we had seen the two brand new airbrushed coaches which service it there, apparently it does the Isla Lobos route 2 times a week, we saw it do two 4 hours runs, with 50 then 40 passengers at 50 Euros a head, not bad business – Kevin was calculating this away each time they disembarked!
Corralejo
It was a fairly leisurely day; Kevin was busy on boat jobs, readying the kedge (secondary anchor) and a large rope for mooring buoys. I spent the day trying to perfect the long awaited dolphin video, which with any luck should have been posted with this update. Finally it was a quiet evening reading books with a glass of wine. I love reading and it is great to finally get to pick a book up for more than a couple of pages. Kevin has finally had time to start his Patrick O’Brien series (made into the “Master & Commander” film with Russell Crowe) which he is really enjoying, having already made it through the first in the series – “Master & Commander” and started on “Post Captain”. They are full of battles on the high seas and derring do, very popular with sailors – Bill moored beside us had the complete set on his bookshelf too.
We have decided to stay a couple more days at Corralejo until Monday when we will head to Porto Naos near Arrecife to pick up some boat bits Kevin wants to rig a better solution for our Spifurl as there appear to be few chandlers elsewhere. My parents are coming out to their villa at Playa Blanca on Friday next week, so we are staying in the area of Lanzarote to see them.
We picked up anchor about 12:00 after a leisurely start to recuperate from night watches. The wind was up to 20 knots by then, though that seems to be a local average despite the 10 – 15 knot forecasts at present. We had only 10 miles to go to the north of Fuerteventura, the buildings of Corralejo being visible from where we were anchored by day and by lights at night.
We decided again to set off just under genoa (smaller head/front sail), with the strength of wind we were still getting 4-5 knots so saw no point in complicating matters further for such a short sail with all day to get there. We were also anticipating the wind acceleration zone between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, a kind of wind tunnelling effect cause by the high land masses, which increases the wind strength in those areas. As soon as we were about 2-3 miles off Lanzarote the wind did start to build to about 25 knots at maximum, so we just furled the genoa a little and pressed on. The seas are also a little confused in the area as the seas funnelled either side of Lanzarote meet and then try to squeeze down the narrower Rio between Fuerteventura and Isla Los Lobos. However, though a little bumpy it was still a fun sail and at that speed we were soon beginning to pick out the landmarks of Corralejo more clearly to make our approaches. We opted to leave Los Lobos for another day rather than rush to do both in one day, the swell in the Rio was fairly high which was comfortable downwind but from the looks of the other catamaran to our port was pretty uncomfortable to take beam (side of boat) on! Obviously as soon as we were making the approaches to Corralejo having not passed another boat all the way across, we had no one but two ferries approaching us from astern (behind). Although strictly speaking they would have to avoid us according to maritime law, we decided to do a small turn to wind to let them over take us, this way we could follow their lead into this new harbour as there are rocks surrounding the entrance.
Isla de Lobos
As soon as we neared the new visitors pontoon Kevin learned about from Mick & Patti (a nice Irish couple living on La Gomera who visited Graciosa), the port official shouted over to check how long we were staying and advise us where to moor and tell us to check straight in. It is slightly complex to have such conversations in broken English (my Spanish studying has not progressed that far yet), whilst preparing the mooring lines and fenders and trying to avoid other shipping traffic, still we went to the berth indicated and Kevin did a great job of bringing us in with the strong wind blowing us off the pontoon. Another British sailor, Bill moored behind us, helped to take our lines and invited us for a cold beer when we were settled so we went to check in, paid our 12 Euros per night and went to join him. He gave us some pointers of where to find things around the town and told us a little about his travels before we headed off to do some provisioning ourselves.
We went for a wander around the town that evening to the Rogues Gallery bar advised by Bill, then to a couple of other bars. The old harbour area of the town nearest to the marina is full of narrow streets and restaurants, where many British tourists were wandering round with varying states of white/red skin to mark them out. Each of the restaurants had hosts on the streets to draw people in to their establishments, having only ever been on one package holiday in my life before this was all rather alien to me, but as we had bought some lovely fresh prawns from the supermarket we declined their offers. It was interesting to be back in such a crowed area and we enjoyed a bit of people watching. The two sights that really caught my eye was a funeral wake occurring in a night club with music at full volume blasting into the street at 7pm and the flowers laid on the pool table out front, from what we could understand it was for someone living locally, probably the only wake I have seen which breaks convention so that the character of the departed can be guessed at. The second was passing a children’s playground in a square in the middle of the town where there must have been 100 people there with their children, with ladies in full Arabic costume, local Spanish/Canarian fathers and British tourists with their children playing alongside each other, probably the only place I have seen that degree of mixing anywhere.
I know you may not believe me but our time in Puerto Calero was extremely busy as we had free Wifi to do some organising jobs (I built a whole website for our wedding planning) and a number of jobs to do on the boat, it was 23:30 before I finally shutdown the laptop on Tuesday evening. Therefore, we were really looking forward to a night at anchor without communications to relax and read a book.
View at Puerto Calero
We were up relatively early and swapped around the remaining items to be charged before toping off the water tanks, re-fuelling and paying up. We had to wait for the yellow submarine based at the marina to pass before we left at about midday, which I admit is a new navigational hazard for me, it descended immediately after leaving the breakwater displaying just the traditional but small A / Diving flag which is familiar but just not that close to the water with no cover boat, it would certainly be easy to miss in a swell, but then I guess they probably choose their conditions carefully.
We had only 10 miles to sail yesterday and no timetable to do so, which was great we decided to sail just under genoa for the passage making only a leisurely 3-4 knots. It was very relaxing sail and being closer to land than usual, it was great to just watch the world go by. We’d planned to anchor in the bay to the west of Marina Rubicon, however, it was blowing 20 knots plus off the beach, so didn’t seem very inviting. We decided to double back on ourselves to the much more sheltered Papagayo beach area. On closer inspection there were 2-3 days boats and 2-3 cruisers already anchored, we picked a spot a reasonable distance from those already present which happened to be in front of the edge of the nudist beach. However, we decided as there appeared to be plenty of people on the beach fully clothed and we kept a respectful distance off, it was fair game and frankly we were not prepared to try an untested anchor in front of rocks rather than a nice sandy beach for the sake of modesty, besides which at least Kevin’s naked wandering round the boat in the morning would be more welcomed than in marinas!
We deployed the anchor successfully and Kevin put on the snorkel gear to check it, it hadn’t quite set, so I engaged a small amount of astern and Kevin watched it dig in nicely. The water is quite refreshing at 19-20 degrees, so there was a bit of deep breathing when he got in, but he got his chance to try our new solar shower when he got out (black bag with a hose which is surprising hot after hanging in the sun). However, he got his revenge when he accidentally dropped one of our big fenders over board when clearing the cockpit for us to sit out that evening when he was now changed and I was still in my bikini, so it was my turn to get in, guess I should have been more sympathetic earlier!
I’m not sure a couple of the nudists were desperately pleased with our choice of mooring spot, but the protestation appeared to consist of gathering on the shoreline naked, which surely increased their exposure, so we just settled down to cook our evening meal and have a cool beer to display we weren’t there to gawp (after confiscating the binoculars!). I guess we need not have worried though because within 30 minutes of anchoring a 50 ft Spanish yacht decided to anchor within 2 boat lengths astern of us on a 2-3 mile stretch of coast for no discernable reason other than perhaps to gawp. Luckily they moved off later that evening, it was something I had read about in other blogs people anchoring practically on top of you even in deserted bay, perhaps it is something about safety in numbers.
We decided as this was our first night at anchor we’d rather keep a watch and get good sleep in turns than neither of us sleep well. So we passed a very pleasant night reading by lamp light listening to the waves on the beach in the moonlight. We have had a leisurely start this morning, but plan to do a bit more sailing today, to pass the 10 miles to Fuerteventura to look at either Corralejo or Isla de Lobos for tonight.
View of Papagayo beach
Yesterday morning we finally left Graciosa after nearly four weeks, we visited the harbour master to pay our dues who performed the now familiar random number generation to create our bill. This time the slot machine paid in our favour with a bill of only 100 Euro for 26 days working out at 3.84 Euros a night. Bargain!
Ropes were cast off just after 10am for a sail of 36 miles to Puerto Calero marina, on south west Lanzarote. It was a little overcast as we left Graciosa as it has a tendency to be there every morning; forecast was for 15 knots from NW, the usual trade winds in the area. So we head out round the northern tip of Lanzarote following the ferry route we have both taken a couple of times now to Orzola. As we expected it was rather choppy passing the headland as we were motoring into wind and current, but as soon as we passed Orzola we were literally flying along the coast! I finally saw some wildlife - two flying fish and a large turtle basking on the surface.
It was really invigorating sail, as soon as we were running down the coast and downwind Invincible really got into her stride. The wind was pretty gusty at times as you head out of the shadow of one of the volcanic peaks and into the valley before the next peak where it blow across the land and we were getting up to 23 knots at times, however, we were reefed ready and just enjoyed the ride. Kevin even managed to perfectly time a complete lull in the wind for lunch being served (mushroom spaghetti) which was eaten sat round the saloon table as in fact we always do on passage. As soon as we had eaten we came out from the shadow of the mountain and flew off again. We sailed down the east coast past the airport with the planes coming in overhead. The wind blew consistently all the way to literally the entrance to Puerto Calero marina, which was a little disconcerting having 20 knots of wind coming into an unknown harbour to moor, but luckily the shelter started as soon as we turned into the breakwater from the mountains behind.
We checked in at the control tower, extremely helpful staff speaking very good English provided a full glossy brochure of the marina facilities and surround area and by the time you reach the berth, indicated to you on the map, they have radioed a man on a moped to meet you to take your lines! Without so much as sitting down, Kevin and I were straight to the water and electricity supplies (though this involved Kevin hiring and adaptor for a 40 Euro deposit) and got straight on with recharging appliances and washing the boat, which after a month at Graciosa was covered everywhere in red dust and salt. After an hour of frantic scrubbing and plugging in electronic devices to every possible socket, we were done and decided to go and investigate the facilities on the other side of the harbour. This is where we truly realised we had come to the diametric opposite of Graciosa, there is a full designer shopping arcade, about 8 restaurants and a dolphin & whale museum all in a beautifully architected walkway on the harbour side with sculptures and tree shaded seating. Our first mission was to use the laundrette, though this is actually a washing service, which cost us 20 Euro for 2 large carrier bags full which we would ordinarily have done with hand washing but for the lack of water in Graciosa and the rule about not hanging out washing here. However, the whole place is absolutely spotless, though after a day’s sailing we felt a little underdressed and settled for a celebratory beer in a cafe on the edge of the development.
After a brief rest following my return from working my notice, I am now back on my blog updates job. This update being happily from the saloon table on Invincible at last after a very long three weeks back in the UK. After 2 days back on Graciosa it feels like I have never been away, I have quickly adopted the local customs under Kevin’s tuition of an early start and walk to the toilet/shower block on the other side of the harbour followed by a coffee at one of the cafes to reflect on plans for the day. After lunch, this involves a siesta, which according to the local timetable can be anytime between 12pm and 5pm. Following siesta and any other required tasks, the cruisers generally gather in one of the pavement cafés to plan the evening ahead.
Yesterday, my chosen daytime activity was sometime at the beach, on account of my extremely white legs which are noted immediately on introduction by all of the other cruisers which Kevin has made acquaintance with in the last three weeks. There is a long sandy beach within a 10 minute walk of where the boat is moored which I now realise is where all the day trippers head when they arrive at the island. There was perhaps 10 other families on the 2 mile stretch though which could therefore, by no means by regarded as over crowed and I gather there are further beaches if more seclusion is preferred. It was great to finally lay back and read a book which is something I don’t seem to have had time for in months. The sun was very warm and the constant tradewinds helped to keep things cool, which is just as well as I am not a seasoned sunbather. I was also itching to go for a swim, Kevin declined, but the water is so clear and blue here it is very inviting. The entrance to the water is over lava smoothed by years of wave motion, the result is very smooth plateau and very gradual slope into the water, then below the waterline there is fan-type weed covering the surface creating a sensation of walking on a deep pile carpet. The water is fairly refreshing at 22 degrees well but worth the effort.
Today’s activities has been completing some accounts and other jobs remaining after my time working and also finally sitting down to edit the dolphin video which I should finish off as soon as we get on mains power. Kevin is now itching to get out sailing, so after our agreed weekend off for me on my return, we are heading off again tomorrow, we are planning 1-2 days at either Puerto Calero or Marina Rubicon (depending on who responds later by email to say they have space for us) to make use of shore power, Wifi, a hose, laundrette and other such luxuries in a full marina. Our next aim will be to spend sometime at anchor, once the boat is clean and our tanks are refilled. Playa Quemada sounds good from the pilot guides “a small fishing village situated on a beach...a few bars and restaurants serving fresh fish dishes”, sounds just our sort of place to anchor up and tender in.
The other main task on access to Wifi, will be to rearrange our wedding after a third and final change of plan (thanks to all our family and friends for their patience!). We have decided now that as the house has sold rather sooner than planned and we will not be departing from Portsmouth, but flying back for the occasion that it seems a bit of a retrospective step for our trip. That plus I now admit it was rather ambitious for me to try and organise the wedding in three weeks, whilst working my notice and trying to visit friends and family up and down the country to say my goodbyes. After a near breakdown under the pressure I suggested to Kevin a beach wedding in the Caribbean after Christmas instead, as a number of my family were already planning to visit then anyway. So after a final and unequivocal vote for the plan from Alex, we are now planning February half term in Grenada, I will be sending out links to a wedding website to invitees (as soon as I have built it next week!) with details of travel and accommodation etc.
Finally, I just wanted to say a final farewell to my ITRF team and all the others I have worked with in Leeds and Newcastle a big thank you for their kind words and cards and generous gifts on sending me off. I have worked with some great people in the last three years and I hope you will all keep in touch and let me know how you are getting on and if you find yourself in an area we are visiting then please get in touch as we’d love to meet up.
Jo has now arrived back at the boat, after meeting up and spending a night in Costa Teguise, which was an interesting contrast for me after spending nearly three weeks in La Graciosa.
Costa Teguise was a typical holiday resort with full English breakfast, chips and egg, fish and chips and a pint of John Smiths available every 10 paces, alright if you like that thing. The really odd thing for me was hearing people speaking English, like it was the native language.
Anyway it made for a refreshing change to the pace of life I have currently been experiencing on the island, but I was glad to get back, if you know what I mean.
Alan has just been round with some pictures of our day sail round the island. Alan is a professional photographer and has provided us with some really good shots, one he has given to us is a full island shot, which he is intending to present to the local island community. The picture when printed out is 4 meters long.
A sample of Alan’s work (all pictures are copyright to Alan Rault)
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.
