A desert island

Caleta del Sebo - Graciosa's sheltered harbour

The strong winds having duly blown themselves out and Fettler arduously purified of the dust that befouled her, we weighed anchor and made an early start for Graciosa. In a straight line, the distance amounted to only 25 miles and with the forecast of a pleasant 14 kt breeze from the north west, we expected to have a pleasant day's sail of it. Ha. Ha.

It started out well enough as we cracked on to the northeast before rounding the headland where Lanzarote curves to the north and where we hoped to do the same. The wind, naturally enough, blew from the north, alternately much stronger and much weaker than forecast. It was a hard beat up the coast, becoming progressively harder as we reached the northern tip of Lanzarote, where the wind increased to near gale force and still right on the nose. It was an all sails out and all sails wet sort of a day and a weary pair who finally pulled into Graciosa having taken 10 hours to squeeze out those 25 straight-line miles. We found out later that the northern tip of Lanzarote is locally known as the 'Cape Horn of the Canaries'.

Happily there were good friends waiting for us - the Roede Orms - with a BBQ blazing on the beach and cold beer in plenty. The rigours of the passage were soon recovered from.

Playa Las Conchas, also known as the Bacardi Beach

Bacardi Beach from volcano top

Climbing one of the little volcanoes

Many people had raved to us of the charms of Graciosa and we find that they were wholly justified. It's just a slip of an island really and dry as a bone but there are very few people about, no paved roads and the landscape and coastline are superb.

Beachcombing (photo: S. Conrad)

Basalt bridges (photo: S. Conrad)

Mad man on basalt bridge (photo: S. Conrad)

Lava coastline

A note of caution for those planning to come here by boat though: be sure to have a reservation! If your name isn't on the list, they won't let you in. It's surprisingly strict for such a laid-back place, but there you go. We've seen numerous boats simply turned away on arrival.

Natural salt pans 

Cool rock pool

Bird on the beach - Berthelot's Pipit

After about 5 months of steady northeast winds we now have an odd spell of northwesterlies. Madeira, our next destination, lies to the northwest. No matter - we're not in a hurry. It's a great spot to wait for a fair wind and, as always, there are things to be done, including the slightly unsavoury job of dismantling the toilet pump (which, after a cleaning session with vinegar, now works as good as new).

How to dry fish

Balls!

Another crazy lava rock pool

East coast Graciosa

Shell sand under the microscope

Lava, lichen, locusts and lizards - Lanzarote

Wild volcanic landscape in Timanfaya National Park.

Despite the howling winds and erratic bus service, we've managed to see a reasonable amount of Lanzarote. It's a bit dry and dusty for our taste, but it has a certain arid beauty of its own.

Desert - Lanzarote's interior.

Locust, hidden amongst the lava and lichen.

Entrance to the secret free lava tube, 

There's a section of the same tube a few hundred metres away which charges €8 a head entry. We'd heard about this secret free section and spent several hours there entirely by ourselves, exploring as much as a kilometre along the cave towards the volcano, with no end in sight. It would be fun to follow it to the limit.

Inside the tube - a breakthrough to the tube below.

Inside out (see if you can spot Sonja).

Weathered rock.

Chomp!

 We had our lunch snack sitting outside the cave entrance. Apple core disposal was not a problem. The moment it touched down there were lizards honing in on it from all directions - incredible! The one in the photo was the first to reach the core. Things got a bit ugly when the next lizard arrived.

Apple-loving Atlantic lizard.

Lava, lichen and hardy plants.

Windmill for pumping water to salt pans.

Off to Graciosa tomorrow, after spending an entire day today cleaning away the horrible dust deposited on the boat by the recent strong winds.

Guess which way the wind was blowing.

Stormbound in Lanzarote

Not the most scenic, but safe - Puerto Naos.

Experimental post here - first time posting by email from the Kindle. Will add photos when possible.

Unfortunately we were turfed out of our snug corner in Arrecife to make way for a regatta happening over the weekend. Unfortunate because that's where we had planned to sit out the current spell of heavy weather.

It was already blowing 30 knots from the north east when we sailed off the mooring, which made for a fun beat the couple of miles up the coast to Puerto Naos. The setting is more industrial, anchored as we are right next to the container terminal, but the holding is excellent. Just as well really, since it has been blowing so hard we didn't even venture ashore yesterday. The volcanic dust borne on the wind has turned every windward surface on the boat a vile brown so there's a big cleanup operation in store.

According to the forecast it should start easing down tomorrow, so we should be able to resume our exploration of the island then.

Against the grain

Having kept a close eye on the forecast for our opportunity to get north and east to Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, we were ready to leave within four hours when it finally came, even though it meant missing the Friday night social. On our way out of the harbour at Las Palmas we were sternly admonished by the port police not to sail across the commercial harbour, which seemed a bit odd but we followed their directions and detoured south. It came on a beautiful night, with a spectacular moon rise, and initially light winds. Playful dolphins appeared as soon as it got dark; they seem to be busy with other things during the day here. The passage would have been near perfect if Sonja had not poo-pooed skipper's orders to take an anti-seasickness pill before setting off. The forecast conditions were very mild, but the sea state here doesn't necessarily bear any relation to local wind conditions and it was rather lumpy until we were under the lee of Fuerteventura.

There was a lot of shipping about but we kept first to the north and then south of the direct line between the islands and so avoided any conflict. The breeze freshened up nicely, but also died off completely at times, and we had the pleasure of completely out-sailing a Moody 346 that appeared from the south during the latter part of the night. Sunrise over the Atlas mountains in Morocco was a spectacular sight. It was as well we saw it then because once the sun was up, the African coast was lost in haze and that was the nearest point.

Gran Tarajal, with classic Fuerteventuran brown hill.

Gran Tarajal was a pleasant, cheap, no-frills, convenient stopping point. The marina provides water and electricity but no shower or toilet. It is cheap however (€5.37 per night for Fettler) and shelter is good, though there is a surprising amount of surge. We particularly enjoyed the company of a French ship's cat, Sikaflex, who visited us several times and who was always on hand when help might be needed to deal with fresh fish. A friendly fisherman came by with a load of still-flapping mackerel-type fish one evening, a delicious meal for us and Sikaflex, though we cooked our share.

Sikaflex, demonstrating how suitable the vessel is for cats.

After a fish snack, he condescended to come below.

Fuerteventuran coast by morning.

Fuerteventura looked interesting in profile, being rugged and mountainous, but it is desperately parched and brown. The weather continuing fair for heading north (a rare condition here) we moved on after a brief stop of two days. The anchorage at Isla Los Lobos, at the north end of Fuerteventura, is beautiful if rather exposed and made another convenient stage on the way to Lanzarote.

Sunset over Fuerte, from Isla los Lobos.

Isla los Lobos

We are now on a mooring in Arrecife, kindly provided free of charge by the local yacht club, but nevertheless inspected on arrival by diving on it despite the slightly chilly water temperature of 17.5 C. The plan is to spend the next days exploring Lanzarote and watching for a fair wind to take us on to Graciosa.

The harbour at Arrecife. That's the shelter we like.

Clear water: the view over the side at breakfast.

The Grand Canary

Not much to say, but here are some photos. The last couple of weeks have been spent looking a bit deeper into Gran Canaria and the effort has been handsomely repaid:

The centre of the island, looking towards Tenerife.

At Roque Nueblo. Amazing spot.

More Nueblo. El Teide floats in the background.

Even more Nueblo views. The air is like champagne.

Last one.

The dunes at Maspalomas.

You'd never guess Sodom and Gomorrah are next door.

Or that the wind howls nearly all the time.

Lunch stop by Spain's oldest golf course. Founded by the
British, of course. 

Hoopoe!

Not Photoshopped, I promise.

The sardine is toast

Carnaval is over and peace of some sort has returned to the anchorage at Las Palmas. Though there is always something going on - an Ultimate frisbee tournament on the beach, a fleet of children in Optimist dinghies and kayaks around the boats, a pair of swimmers muttering about freezing their cojones off, or a regatta of radio-controlled model sailboats, one of which bumped into our vessel yesterday and Jim sent it on its way. Unfortunately it was out of radio control range and had to be rescued by a bloke in a kayak.

Carnaval in Las Palmas is a serious partying affair with some parade or other going on all through the evening and night for several days, with only one day of rest in between. We chose to forego the main parade as we were going hiking early the next day, but of course we couldn't escape. The floats went right along the main road next to the anchorage and from about 9pm to 4.30am we heard the music blaring across the water. Strangely, they repeated the same song over and over again, the same one that had already accompanied every fiesta in La Gomera. We must have heard it about ten times that night. Any clues to its name and artist welcome - it's the last track on this youtube video.

The carnaval theme this year was comic heroes. When we reached the bus station at 7.30am after passing a smashed bus shelter and a discarded chest-piece, we found lots of jaded, spent-looking superheroes wandering about. However, we soon left the city and its debauchery behind and reached the chilly mountain heights, where a breakfast of goat stew fortified us for a long hike led by Uli, a German printer who has lived in Gran Canaria for 14 years and knows its trails very well. We headed down the valley to some caves once inhabited by the ancient Canarios who decorated the walls with petroglyphs. There are plenty of caves on the island and some of the them are quite deluxe with doors, windows and patios.

The entrance to one of the more deluxe uninhabited caves.

The main street in pretty and inappropriately named Teror.

As we descended we found ourselves on a field of pyroclasts with some mounds stacked up in places. We had stumbled into an ancient burial site in an archaelogical park which was closed for lack of funding to run it, a common problem with projects on the island. We wandered around the beautiful site, looked at some bones (which disappointingly proved to be reconstructions) in the burial mounds and then had to find a way out over the high wall and gate at the main entrance. Apart from a cactus injury sustained by Uli, we escaped unharmed.

Old water mill, with almond blossom. 

Ancient Canario burial chambers.

Scale model of  the site, showing all the graves.

The interior of Gran Canaria is very beautiful and, at least in the north, surprisingly green. We also rented a clapped-out Seat from a resident sailor one day to explore the island. It was the day after a snowfall, but luckily the mountain roads had been reopened.  We warmed ourselves with some Canary rum from the distillery in the pretty town of Arucas before heading for the lovely village of Tejeda, where we had to wait out a torrential downpour - the first proper rainfall since coming to the Canaries. Our scenic drive concluded in the not-so-scenic environs of Lidl and with a traffic jam on the motorway back to Las Palmas.

Tejeda, pleasant mountain town.

Yo ho ho and a barrel of ____! 

A Lidl moment, the first since departing Edinburgh...

The only Carnaval event we did attend was the 'Burial of the Sardine' (though strictly speaking it was a cremation), which is the finale. This year, because of the economic crisis, Carnaval had been curtailed by four days. The burning of a sardine effigy on a raft was preceded by a parade of the Carnaval Queen, the culture minister and the Senior Carnaval Queen on floats, accompanied by lots of men (and some women) dressed up as (rather kinky) widows grieving for the sardine. While the sardine smouldered away on its raft, thousands of people on Las Canteras beach, including us, watched a fireworks bonanza above it - no sign of crisis there.

Soon after our arrival in Las Palmas Jim noticed that a weld holding the support frame for the self-steering had pulled apart. The things that can break on a boat! Luckily, one of our friends here has a welding machine and fixed this problem without us having to take off the entire structure. Jim made some little reinforcement plates so that the weld is now stronger than before.

Noooo! Could have been nasty had the other end gone at sea.

Friend Ernst and his marvellous welding kit.

Better than new. The original join was a bit flimsy.

Now we are waiting for some wind to go east, which is not so easy in the Canaries, where it blows from the northeast nearly all the time.

Birthday on board

Night sky

My birthday began shortly after midnight when Sonja woke me with the welcome news that the breeze had freshened at last, that we could raise sail again and silence the engine, whose reliable thump had propelled us since a passing rain shower had stolen the wind away a couple of hours earlier.

We had cleared the northeast cape of Tenerife and Gran Canaria was visible in the distance ahead, the light on La Isleta broadcasting its identity with the steady rhythm of three flashes, pause, fourth flash - every twenty seconds. A beautiful night of broken clouds, a mild northerly swell and a bright half moon shining on the water. There were dolphins about, coming now and then to dart back and forth across the bow before going on about their business.

While Sonja took her couple of hours of blissful repose in the warm bunk below, I looked out across the sea, noted a passing ship, marvelled at the stars, adjusted our course as the wind shifted, revelled in the singular peace of a night passage with the promise of reaching secure harbour before the dawn.

By the time I roused Sonja at half past two, the wind had picked up a little more and we were tearing along, closing the coast and tracking our way around the island to Las Palmas, careful to keep a couple of miles offshore and so avoid the hazards close in. Turning off the wind, we dropped the main sail and ran on under the genoa alone, searching eagerly amongst the myriad of lights on shore for those that would guide us into the harbour.

A little before five we glided silently past the mole and swiftly crossed the large commercial basin, thankful for the momentary lack of moving ships as we made our way into the anchorage, starting the engine and stowing the genoa as we did so.
By six, we were anchored, everything ship shape, the crew tucked in and well on the way to the land of Nod.

The day began again a little after ten, with a quick swim around the boat and a leisurely breakfast in the sun before inflating the canoe and paddling ashore to get showered, buy some food and see which of our friends we could track down in the marina.
Back on the boat in the late afternoon, I enjoyed a beer and a read in the sunny cockpit, followed by a prime dinner of chops fresh from the butcher with tatties and sweet tatties.

Evening drawing on, I went to the locker of sin for tobacco and whisky, grabbed the earphones, selected an album of Renaissance music, the pure and close vocal harmonies of which I have always found particularly moving, and settled to smoke a reflective cigar as the darkness gathered, sipping a precious dram from a bottle of rare old malt, given us as a wedding present by a dear great uncle nearly eleven years ago.

Fettler swung gently to and fro on her anchor, pointing me now to the city and its bustle, now across the anchorage, where I looked between the other boats to the light blinking green on the end of the harbour wall and the dark sea beyond. Now to a kayaker dashing through the gloaming, now to a cargo ship making her pondrous way into port. Jupiter and Venus appeared overhead before disappearing behind drifting cloud.

I thought on life. On the abiding mystery of it. The miraculous capacity for joy. The deep wells of sadness and suffering. The many places I've been. The many people I have known; those who to my sorrow I'll never see again, those I hope to see much more of.

Cigar finished, whisky drained, I go below to the warmth of the cabin, conclusions open. A fine birthday.