Canary Islands: Lanzarote, Fuerteventura.
20 November 2016
Photo: Casear Manrique wall art.
We arrived back in Rubicon Marina, Lanzarote at lunchtime on 5th October after a busy time in the UK. The boat was all good and we set about doing more work in preparation for the Atlantic crossing. One piece of work we had not factored in was to install a new hot water cylinder, our old one decided to spring a leak on our second day back. Lucky for us the marina chandlery had one that fitted, but as usual with these things it took 3 elapsed days to get it installed and fully operational. The Canary Islands have very few good anchorages which makes it difficult to plan for changes in wind direction and weather, the options for changing bays is very limited and with Rubicon Marina starting to fill up we had to make a decision on whether to stay in the marina or try and find an anchorage. Talking to people who regularly cruise the Canaries, and contacting other marinas, it appeared there were no vacancies on Fuerteventura or Gran Canary. We discussed the options with Wind Pony and Scallywag and decided to extend our stay. We then contacted Santa Cruz Marina, Tenerife and brought our dates forward and decided to do an overnight sail direct to Tenerife at the end of October. Rubicon Marina is quite a good place to be stuck, it has plenty of cafes, bars, sports bars, restaurants and a market two mornings a week. The walk into Playa de Blanca is along a nice boardwalk and there are options for other walks along the cliffs and surrounding areas.
Wednesday 19th October we took the ferry across to Fuerteventura for the day with Dick and Lynn “Wind Pony”. There are several ferries that do the trip, which only takes 25mins. Once in Corralejo, we tried to get a hire car, not easy as the first three hire car companies we tried had no cars available. Luckily the fourth one did, so off we went to explore the island. Fuerteventura, like Lanzarote is volcanic and has lots of volcanos but without the lava flows of Lanzarote it has a desert feel to it with red sand and not the variety of things to see and do. We visited a La Casa de Los Coroneles, an old colonial house with great views, the Centro Arte de Canario and then headed across the top of one of the scenic roads that went over a mountain ridge between Betancuria and Pajara. The road was extremely narrow and winding, passing cars coming the other way was interesting, but the views were spectacular. We stopped at the top lookout which has a couple of very large bronze statues of Guise and Ayose, the warriors who were the chiefs of the two kingdoms on Fuerteventura before it was united following an invasion by the Normans in 1402. From there we wound our way down to Pajara for lunch, where Brian ordered a pizza which, when it arrived would have fed the four of us. As we walked around the small church, Nuestra Senora de Regla, we commented that it looked like two separate churches with the centre wall removed. True enough when we looked outside at the two entrance doors, they were two churches or more accurately one church built in the 17th century which was ‘extended’ in 1952 by adding the second section complete with its own alter and nave, very cleverly done. From there we went to Ajuy to walk along the cliffs and view the caves and then drove back along the east coast, stopping at the impressive sand dunes for a walk, then dropped the car back and had a cool beer on the way back to the ferry. Once back in Playa de Blanca we stopped for tapas and the walked back along the boardwalk to the marina, the end of a good day.
Before leaving Rubicon, we decided to end for end our anchor chain. As we rarely use more than the first 50ms of anchor chain, the galvanising on the last 50ms was in good shape, by end for ending it, the unused chain would become the usable portion. Finally on 31st October it was time to leave Marina Rubicon for an overnight trip to Santa Cruz marina, Tenerife. We have completed most of our check list for the Atlantic crossing, the freezer is full of passage meals, cupboards are loaded with dry goods, rig and engine checks done, sails good and crew is ready, Garry will join us at the end of the month. Unfortunately for Wind Pony they have a mechanical issue which will prevent them from making the trip to Tenerife, but hopefully they will follow in a couple of weeks in time for the crossing. We left Marina Rubicon fuel dock at 15:00 and had a great sail for 100nm of the 130nm trip to Tenerife, finally turning the motor on at 05:00 as the wind died and came from behind us. The crossing was totally uneventful even though we passed through a major shipping lane and must have seen at least 20 tankers on route to various places around the world. As we arrived at Tenerife, we were greeted by a pod of pilot whales, cruising along as we approached the harbour and tied up in Santa Cruz Marina at 11:15. The harbour looks like a main centre for oil platforms and ships of various shapes and sizes, although all are huge, including the largest seismic survey ship, the Ramford Titan, as Brian said “the weirdest looking boat he has ever seen”, it was triangular in shape. Class Afloat, a fleet of tall ships where students undertake academic study whilst sailing to different continents was also in port.