After cruising and exploring Gran Canaria (Blog Page 6) we
sailed back the 140 miles to Arrecife in Lanzarote to pick up Max and Sue
Walker who joined us for a week’s cruising.
Gran Canaria back to Lanzarote
As the owner of a yacht delivery
business for nearly 25 years, Max had obviously been to the Canaries before –
but never to the eastern islands of Lanzarote or Fuerteventura. This was not a problem from our point of
view since the weather is better here than in the other islands and one of our
principal objectives was always to get away from the British winter.
To optimise our coverage of the
islands, we sailed on three separate days, hired a car for three and travelled
by bus the rest of the time.
Sailing route with Max and Sue
By so doing we were able to cover
much of the islands’ coastlines and interiors; in particular Max and Sue were
able to see the three main attractions (in our opinion) on the two islands (see
previous Blogs for detail):
La Graciosa (Lanzarote)
– the jewel of the Canary Islands
The Fire Mountains
(Lanzarote)
– showing some of the 300 volcanoes
Jandía peninsula, Fuerteventura
– showing the Saharan
sand beaches
On our way back to Arrecife we called into Puerto Calero
marina (Lanzarote) to refuel and allow Max to inspect a yacht that one of his
skippers is due to pick up and bring back to the UK in April.
Fuelling in Puerto
Calero’s upmarket marina
One of Puerto Calero’s famous brass bollards!
Max inspecting a
Rustler yacht in Puerto Calero marina, prior to its delivery back to the UK in
April
During our travels inland we visited a number of sights in
Fuerteventura which we had not had the opportunity to see before. In particular:
Betancuría, the former
capital of Fuerteventura
Mountains along the
island’s barren west coast
Jandía Isthmus and
30-mile west coast beaches viewed from the north near La Pared
At last we also found two of the island’s more famous
statues:
The “Water Carrier”
statue in Puerto Rosario commemorating the importance of such men at a time
when water had to be shipped in
Statues of Ayuze and Guize, the Warrior
Leaders of the Maxorata and Jandía Kingdoms who ruled the island prior to the
Spanish Conquest in 15th Century
Obviously we continued to test the local cuisine with
varying degrees of success!
An excellent seafood
paella in The Blue Cow in El Cotillo
Canarian fish “stew”
(would you believe?) at the Fire Mountains – a dismal failure! Witness Max’s
expression!
We’ve been watching the weather in
the UK with some concern since we’re told that the sea reached to within a few
feet (if not inches) of our beach chalet at Calshot. The first time ever, as far as we know. Will is going down at the weekend to check it out!
Here we are still in T-shirts and
shorts but sometimes need a sweatshirt in the evening. We’re also getting the seasonal rain. In Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, where only
four or so inches a year are supposed to fall, it has been a bit cloudy and
damp on occasions. Dew often condenses overnight on the deck. In the north and
central region of Gran Canaria it was often cloudy and rained hard at times –
although in the south it was far sunnier and warmer. It was very noticeable how
much the vegetation had grown in the three weeks we’ve been away from
Lanzarote. Rows of crops are now
sprouting in the cultivated black lava fields and wild flowers are blooming
along the verges.
The better weather in Lanzarote
and Fuerteventura possibly explains why we’ve been happy to linger in these
islands rather than rushing off earlier to explore their western neighbours,
which we now know to be cooler and wetter in December and January.
We now plan to have a sort-out and do a bit of boat
maintenance before sailing the 170 or so miles to Tenerife – probably to Santa
Cruz on the north east corner of the island.
Canary Islands Archipelago
Keep posting pictures of the food!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Bob & Beryl