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The first order of priority on Monday was to find all the chandleries in Las Palmas, as I think I mentioned previously, they are especially well equipped here because of the number of boats which leave from here to go across the Atlantic. Kev had a few bits to get (blocks etc) to improve the running of our preventer (to stop the boom flying across unplanned when sailing downwind). We also bought some specialist boat cleaning solutions to help keep the boat well maintained. Finally, we need to get pilot books, charts (may need some additional) and courtesy flags (you have to fly the host countries flag when you arrive) ready for when we cross the Atlantic.
We are debating at the moment whether we are going to go via the Cape Verdes Islands and straight to the Caribbean from there; or via the Cape Verdes to Brazil or just directly to the Caribbean from the Canaries. There are pros and cons with each choice but we will need to make a decision to finish our shopping list. We are both quite keen to visit Brazil, but want to do some more research into the route and the potential places to visit when we arrive. After Brazil we’d go via Venezuela to get to Grenada. I think ultimately it all rests on how long we decide to stay in the Canaries and therefore how long we have before we need to be in Grenada in February to see other places on the way. We plan to head off from Gran Canaria after we have visited the other Canary Islands, so if we don’t decide now then we can pick up the last items just before we leave the Canaries.
We headed into the harbour via the dingy, leaving Invincible for the first time at anchor on her own. We managed to find one of the larger chandleries Rolnautic which was very well stocked and we got a good few of the spares and other things we needed. I also went to find the nearest supermarket, which turned out to be another Hiper Dino, you know you have been somewhere for a while when you start to have brand preferences. It felt very strange being in such a big city again, I just can’t get used to the traffic noise and smell.
We had a look round the marina, it seems very good, very large with boats from all over the world, lots of bars and restaurants and shops, which is not what you normally find in a local authority marina such as this, but I think the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) has definitely added to the fortunes of the place. It’s certainly the smartest marina office I have ever seen, normally they are a single windowless room, this is a beautiful little building all curves, wood and local clay. A few beers overlooking the harbour then a trip back in the dingy – who needs a car!
An evening at anchor with our new neighbours
We woke up early on Sunday morning to a black overcast sky, the winds were still pretty light in the harbour though so after a light breakfast, we cast our lines and set off. There was another yacht just ahead of us, otherwise all was quiet. There is a wind acceleration zone surrounding Morro Jable and we were getting gusts up to 28 knots, we decided not to try hoisting the main in those conditions as we needed to charge the batteries, we motor sailed out of the worst of it before hoisting the main and setting a course for Gran Canaria. It has seemed like a very drawn out journey, so we were pleased to finally be on the last leg and sailing properly along at 6-7 knots, even with a conservative 2 reefs due to the beam swell. We kept marking off the miles on the log and the chart and once clear of land the clouds cleared and the sun came out. I was on the helm with the iPod on and it was fantastic sailing. We had to pass across another TSS (Traffic Separation) scheme directing traffic round the north coast of Gran Canaria, we saw just one large ship, travelling extremely slowly for some reason, that even his smoke stack was overtaking him, this meant a rather arduously slowing down and tightening up on the wind for us to go round the back of him, but that clear, we continued into Las Palmas. Las Palmas really is the big smoke for us as we have really been living in such small towns for so long, it was odd to see it emerging gradually out of the clouds over the two hours of the approach. The harbour is enormous and it is tricky on the approach to distinguish the features and work out where the entrance is. There were large ships anchored all round the bay outside the harbour, which can be disconcerting when you are approaching until you can workout that they are stationary! Even more confusing was a very large oil dereck (not on charts) which we were planning to pass infront of, until we got closer and saw it was apparently under tow by a tug boat. We found the large yacht marina and the anchorage just north of it, where we were planning to stay. It appears that several others had the same idea though and when we arrived we found 10-12 other boats anchored. We found a spot fairly close into the town beach and anchored ourselves. It was 6pm by now and in order to make sure the boat was holding we haven’t both yet gone ashore, though Kevin did a quick sortie into the yacht harbour by dingy.
It’s an extremely busy harbour and tug boats motor back and forth through the night creating quite a bit of wake. However, the anchorage seems very sheltered from the wind judging by the very overcrowed marina is definitely the better option of the two.
The mobile oil derreck
I guess, this is quite an amusing title considering the protestations about Morro Jable in previous posts. However I think I may have jinxed us with the use of the p word in relation to the weather on Friday morning, such that on Friday afternoon the wind picked up, as usual in the afternoon only stronger. The white tops out to sea looked like Christmas and all in all, it did not look like the leisurely sail we had in mind. So by 8pm, we decided not to go Friday night but to set off first thing on Saturday, knocking a few miles off the route, then perhaps breaking the journey with anchoring off a beach for the afternoon and heading off overnight.
We headed off at a very leisurely pace, as we weren’t expecting to be able to do the full trip in daylight, therefore, we didn’t want to arrive in the middle of the night. We raised just the genoa and sailed gently along at 3 knots, looking at the coastline, trailing the fishing rods and generally enjoying the ride. The development of the various towns and villages along the way seemed to have progressed somewhat since our pilot books were written and the sleepy fishing villages seem to be a thing of the past. We were waiting for the vast expanses of white sand dunes and beaches, but the bigger ones were, perhaps predictably, surrounded by large hotel complexes. We hadn’t found anywhere that we wanted to anchor up by the time we were drawing close to Morro Jable, which surprised us by being rather cleaner and nicer looking that we had expected. The old town could be clearly seen on the south end, the modern part of the town extending a long way along a very pristine beach where the inevitable hotel complexes were sited. The town did look better architected than a lot we have seen and we decided we may as well pull in for the evening as with an early start in the morning we would now be able to make Gran Canaria in the day. There were also a number of catamarans buzzing around plus the apparently inevitable pirate boat, which suggested signs of life.
We dropped the sails and motored into Morro Jable in preparation for the potential 50 knot gusts! We didn’t get anything like that more in the 20 – 25 knot range. The reason for these potentially strong winds appears to be the fact the port sits at the bottom of a valley under a large hill and the string winds blow down it, as the mistral wind in the mediterrean is generated by wind blowing down from the Alps but on a small scale. Apparently this wind is more likely when there is cloud on top of the hills, which there was as we approached, but we did not receive the full force of the blast.
Morro Jable
We moored on one of the visitor pontoons to the west of the harbour, which seemed to have a lot of local boats also moored plus a few cruiser boats with little signs of life. We grabbed some food and freshened up when we arrived and were a little surprised to see people swimming in the harbour, which although cleaner than your average British harbour, was nonetheless still a harbour. We had also spotted a small natural beach on the other side of the breakwater from the visitor pontoons as we were approaching and there were a number of cars pulled up, we later realised after a walk into town this was where all the locals were escaping the predominantly German invasion!
Morro Jable beach from the Old Town
There is no water or electricity to the visitor pontoons in Morro Jable and only one has walk-on access to shore (albeit this is a lashed on affair). We wondered round to the harbour office a good 5mins walk round the circumference of the harbour on the off chance we might find someone to pay at the weekend. The Gran Canaria ferry that we had seen in Gran Tarajal was also moored here ready to embark and they have a full passenger boarding building complete with bar/restaurant and toilets, where the port office was also located (closed). A little further round is a petrol station with a pump on the jetty side for boats, though it is on an L-shaped wall so I think you’d need to motor in and reverse out. The third visitor pontoon which is described in the pilot books is actually used by dayboats and there was no space there when we arrived.
We hiked into the old town area up some winding stone steps at the back of the ferry office, then through a small estate of houses and up another hill into the old town. The old town area was quite nice, lots of narrow streets and tree-shaded seating areas sprawling down right to the water’s edge to a narrow path that bordered the beach and a number of pavement cafes/restaurants. The beach was a beautiful white sand creating that fabulous turquoise appearance of the water. Infact that end of town was lovely quite idyllic if you ignored the hundreds and hundreds of tourists disrupting the tranquillity! We walked along the water’s edge up yet another hill in the full heat of the sun. The beach stretches about 2- 3miles along the front of several enormous modern hotels, with the accompanying identikit sunloungers and shades on the front. The end of the beach is marked by a large new light house which doesn’t appear to represent any navigational benefit lying part way along a flat coastline which is presumably lit up like a Christmas tree with all those hotels, so perhaps it is there for the tourists? The town continued on some way, with more hotels, we had seen enough though and moved a street back from the front to find a bar.
We’d been trying to listen in to conversations to work out where everyone was from and judging by the bar selling currywurst and bratwurst and the conversations passing us the resort seemed to be predominantly German. The bar owners were German and then it became a challenge to know what language to speak to them in, we plumped for Spanish as I can’t remember much German for school. We had a couple of beers and did some people watching. The row back from the beach was basically row on row of shops and shopping arcades, an aspect of package holidays which was new to me, but seems to be becoming a theme. I went to pay for the beers and the bar owner seemed amused I couldn’t understand her heavily accented Spanish (I’ve had no problem when talking to the Spanish), after some discussion as they thought I was Italian – the tan is obviously improving - she said the price in English. We walked back to the old town and had another beer at the Cofradia (cooperative) Social, which seemed to be a bar run by the locals, it had off duty post ladies and other various locals all chatting animatedly round the bar, it was not as plush as the other bars, so there was just Kevin & I enjoying the tables outside over looking the beach. More people watching then, back to the boat for a tomato salad and an early night.
A resident Fueteventuran Chipmunk (there is apparently a colony on the island)
We are all set for a 4pm departure today to go to Gran Canaria, a distance of just over 70 nM from here. The wind has dropped off, as forecast and it is a beautiful day, perfect. There is still some swell outside the harbour, but nothing too concerning and overnight last night the wind dropped away almost completely so we may end up having to motor part of the way. We should have a lovely afternoon of sailing though, we plan to stay fairly close to the coast of Fuerteventura initially and will be passing along the famous white sand beaches along the south coast in daylight. We may even get another chance with the spifurl later so Kevin can check his latest additions.
Ironically last night we met the first British cruisers, Colin & Carol, we have come across so far on our neighbouring boat, "Marra". They arrived yesterday evening after a long journey in via Lanzarote, so we didn´t get to chat to them much last night. However, they came accross for a coffee this morning so we exchanged cruising routes and tales for a while and I am sure we will bump into the again somewhere in the Canaries.
So, all being well, the next blog update will be from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Attached are some of the photos taken by my parents as we left Marina Rubicon in Lanzarote. Our only shots of Invincible underway- so thanks very much to them for those.
As you can tell from the title, we have not headed to Morro Jable today, it is still rather blustery and the forecast is due to improve each day, so we decided to stay another night. Today is 18 kts NNE with 2.5m swell, dropping through the next few days, it has also been a particularly high tide and a slight veer in the wind which seems to have increased the swell. It was really crashing on the beach in town at lunchtime and would have been great for some body boarding. We also made another decision when going back over the pilot guides that actually neither of us really wanted to go to Morro Jable, it is really just to shortening the jump to Gran Canaria. Morro Jable is described in the pilot as having “one of the largest concentration of timeshare and hotel accommodation” with regular 50 knot winds down the hills on approach, which didn’t sound too inviting. We decided we are not averse to a longer passage so have opted to go straight from Gran Tarajal to Gran Canaria tomorrow, we will set off in the evening and travel through the night, aiming to arrive mid-morning. The wind tends to be a little lighter at night and we enjoy a night passage.
I am really excited about moving onto a new island and Gran Canaria sounds like it has a lot of interesting aspects too with banana plantations, pine forests and golden sand dunes which will be a real contrast to the volcanic islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. We have some more kitting out that we want to do to the boat before our Atlantic crossing too, as Gran Canaria is apparently the best stocked in the Canaries. Kevin can’t wait to get to all those chandleries!
So, we just had a few beers on the seafront last night and it was actually much livelier than on Tuesday, so perhaps it’s just Monday and Tuesday nights that are quiet. Today, we walked over to have a look out to sea from the hill to see what the conditions looked like. I went to the internet café to get the latest forecast and we decided to delay. Consequently, Kevin has taken the opportunity to start the next Patrick O’Brien book– The Fortune of War, which has kept him quiet ever since, though I’m assured he will drag himself away for a beer later.
I have just been doing my Spanish lessons and a then a blissful half hour on the trampoline in the sun with the iPod this afternoon. I may have slightly overdone it today though I think, Kevin recommended the one album timeframe, but I think I may have only have ¾ or even ½ album complexion.
Last night we set out around 7.30pm for an internet café session then a meal out. We have in the past tended for lunch out rather than dinner as we like to have large meals earlier in the day. However, after missing the excitement of the Spanish football victory we decided to head into the town a little later to see what the atmosphere was like in the evenings in Gran Tarajal.
We did our blog updates, checked our mail etc then headed to the front to find a restaurant. We often stop for a beer on the seafront in the early evening so we had an idea of where we wanted to go and had waited until Tuesday evening thinking that many restaurants close on Mondays. There were many families still around at 8.30pm, some even still swimming in the sea, which shows you just how pleasant the temperature is here in the evenings. However, the restaurants were mostly closed, those which were open were full of families, but they all appeared to only be eating ice cream and the menus were really snack food. It appeared we hadn’t been missing a busy evening atmosphere, that here as in Graciosa, the main trade was lunchtime when the tourists were out. In Graciosa, the evenings were quiet because there was little accommodation on the island and the tourists all left on the last ferry. In Gran Tarajal, I am not sure the reason, I suspect it may be that the people out are local families or Spanish tourists who perhaps have less of an eating out culture or less disposable income.
So, we went to the trusted Fisherman’s Cooperative for our meal, where we had lunch when we arrived. There were only about 4 couples in here too, but at least they were serving a full menu, most of which is about 14 varieties of fish, though it is very difficult to recognise the Spanish names for them (the English menu “translation” just provides the Spanish name and my dictionary does not extend to Red mullet etc). So I’m afraid to say that we both had the tuna steaks again, mostly because they were so good last time we came, but this time with a garlic prawns starter, both of which were delicious. We had a bottle of house white and managed to get a half smile out of the Spanish waitress by asking her the correct pronunciation for the word for wine bottle. I think this and our willingness to attempt the Spanish brought her round though, because she had had quite a stern appearance at the start. Furthermore, by the time Kevin started on a brandy, I asked apparently incorrectly about a desert, which meant passing the dictionary over for her to understand, which she could hardly read but she was quite amenable by now, she read it back to me, though obviously it sounded to me like I had just said then disappeared off. I assumed she’d gone for a menu, but actually she came back with a small earthenware dish and a big smile (to sort of say you’ll like this), actually she was so encouraging that she dug a spoonful out and handed it to me nodding enthusiastically. Kevin arrived back to the table quite amused by the sight of me being hand fed desert by the waitress. It turned out to be a butterscotch/toffee sauce with fudge-like pieces topped with what appeared to be clotted cream! It was absolutely lovely, though probably about as bad for you as possible, luckily I managed to persuade Kevin to try some to offset some calories.
After that feast, we headed back to the boat for some fresh air and more Gin Rummy. I managed to score some back on Kevin last night, though I think he might have been slightly sabotaged by brandy and wine, but I’m still counting it!
Today, I have been busy doing some personal admin jobs, whilst Kevin has been glued to his Patrick O’Brien. It’s been quite a hive of activity around us with more Optimist dingy sailors in the marina and a mast fitting next door but one to us plus all the rigging resetting that entails which we have been watching. I wasn’t quite so sure when the riggers took an angle grinder to the gooseneck (joint to fix to mast) as part of their fitting “procedure” but at least it is not our boat.
We head off for Morro Jable (southern point of Fuerteventura) tomorrow for a couple of days before we make for our next island of Gran Canaria, so I think tonight will be a fairly quiet night in.
I can’t believe it is July already, the days and the weeks are flying by, it is 2 months since we left La Rochelle and I can’t think where that time has gone! We were discussing this morning how we have just adapted to our new lifestyle; it just seems really natural to be here and on the boat. We were actually saying we can’t imagine not living on a boat in the future, although I suppose we are probably quite selective on the boat in that as we are both firm catamaran fans.
Overnight we had some really strong winds in the marina, starting about 7pm when we were the cockpit reading our books in the late evening sunshine, it started to gust up to 20 + knots from having had light winds all day. All of our observations on wind patterns seem to get overturned after a couple of days, as when we arrived we had thought that the wind built up in the afternoons as you might expect and died off overnight. Hence we had been planning ahead to our longer crossing to Gran Canaria to go overnight, but I think with the randomness at the moment we will just keep watching the forecast and see nearer the time. The wind had died down again by the time we had breakfast and it has been a very pleasant day’s weather with clear blue skies and a moderate breeze.
We had a bit of a slower start after our broken night and late finish last night (another Gin Rummy win for Kevin, though I was leading at the beginning and narrowed the gap from the previous trouncing!), we gave the boat another good clean down. We then realised the next bus to Las Playitas would not be until 1pm (our original plan for today); neither of us really relished a bus journey during the heat of the day so we decided to head off on a walking tour of the town. There was some sort of school watersports lesson going on in the marina, with teams of three racing in circuits on those yellow plastic kayaks you see around. There is little boat movement during the day and they were supported by a RIB, so they weren’t causing any harm. There was lots of cheering and two of the boats were neck and neck as they ducked under the ramp down to the pontoons at which point the lead boat lost an oar and lost the race. There was much cheering and yelling about that one afterwards as they valiantly hand paddled over the line in second place. It was great to see outdoors activities for kids not hampered by health and safety regulations. Just a little further round from the marina is a few little lockups containing diving and sailing club kit which seem to be quite active. There was another group of kids and supporting RIB sailing optimist dingies in the bay. They seemed very competent and the conditions were excellent with a good breeze and no swell.
There is a lot of housing development going on overlooking the marina and the bay to the south, with a show flat. We wandered by and up the hill behind the marina, where we got some good photos of Invincible on her berth. We carried on through the more residential streets in the south edge of the town. I gather from the tourist literature we have picked up that Gran Tarajal is the second largest population in Fuerteventura; however you can still walk from one side to the other in about 30mins. The architecture is generally fairly utilitarian, the older buildings being very cheaply built some with plain rough block construction and no render. The newer buildings however are built to a much higher standard, there does seem to be a chronological split in the status of the houses, with signs of investment coming only in recent years. However, there is also a lot of municipal investment including a very large purpose built nautical centre on the end of the south beach and various other adult centres, youth centres etc.
Kevin managed to find several hardware stores on our route and finally got the specific petrol jerry can he had been looking out for with a hose which stores inside the can so reducing the risk of grit contamination (as we had already purchased for diesel). We stopped for a coffee on the beach after all that walking, by which time at was already 1pm, not sure where the morning went. After perhaps the worst coffee we have ever had, we decided that as we were that end of town we’d pick up some more of the wine cartons which are on offer to stock up at Eurospar. We did actually find the Hiper Dino yesterday for stocking up, though wish we hadn’t bothered as it is not as good as the Eurospar, and unusually more expensive, they had even sold out of wine cartons for heaven’s sake!
Back to the boat this afternoon for Spanish lessons for me and more Patrick O’Brien for Kevin (he’s on “Desolation Island” now). About 4.30pm we both had an hour on the trampoline to catch a bit of sun before heading for a meal out this evening.
