On to Las Palmas

It was time to move on to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria to start the final preparations for the ARC+ Rally.  As the distance between the two islands is about 94 nm, which would take about 17 hours, we decided to do a night passage to get us to Las Palmas early morning.  What a night!  We had a hideous passage.  A large storm in the northern Atlantic was causing a very nasty sea state hundreds of miles away in the Canaries.  The boat rocked and rolled horribly.  No one got any sleep and we were a grumpy lot as we approached the busy commercial harbour of Las Palmas just as dawn was breaking.  A small consolation was that we found out in the subsequent weeks that everyone else had a bad passage to Las Palmas.  You can’t argue with Mother Nature.

Approaching Las Palmas at day break

Our first few days in Las Palmas were taken up with doing all those jobs identified on the passage down to Las Palmas.  The first priority was to fix the gimballed stove and oven.  On a boat this appliance is on gimbals so that it stays level when the boat rocks.  On the way down in the rough seas the stove would get jammed and there was a real danger of hot food falling on the floor or worse, on the cook.  Reg and Bob spent a day taking out the stove and adjusting the height so it would swing freely.  

Next the sail plan for downwind sailing had to be set up and tweaked with the rest of the crew so everyone knows how things work.  We have a couple sails for light winds such as the spinnaker and mizzen stay sail.  We bought a second hand storm jib for nasty weather (hopefully we will never have to use that one).  Finally we had a spare No. 3 Genoa to set up as twin head sails with our 150% main genoa.  We plan for this to be our main downwind sail plan in the trade winds when the winds generally will be between 15 - 25 knots.

Phoebe and I (mainly Phoebe, cook extraordinaire) worked on meal planning, tweaking the galley set up and making provisioning lists.

With the major jobs done we had a few days to see the island.  We hired a car for two days and toured around the island.  Gran Canaria.  The main city of Las Palmas is not at all as I imagined but quite nice none the less.  Las Palmas is a city of over 300,000 people.  At first we were all disoriented at the big, bustling, modern, prosperous and upmarket city around us.  This was not what I expected on a small island in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa!  It is more like Barcelona or the French Riviera.

Gran Canaria is quite different from Lanzarote, much lusher and more developed.  The island is essentially a 50 km volcanic circle and can be easily seen in two days.  On our first day we headed south to the fantastic sand dunes of Maspalomas.  Unknown to us, nude sunbathing is de rigueur.  Walking along the beach we saw much more of middle aged bodies than we really wanted to but the sand dunes and natural scenery was stunning.  

Sand dunes of Maspalamas

  

The gang

We moved west along the south coast to the pretty port of Puerto de Mogan for some lunch.  This was a charming harbour lined with white washed buildings trimmed in pastel colours and bright bougainvillea.

 

 

The steep headland cliffs at Puerto de Mogan and the development dug into them

From Puerto de Mogan we headed inland up spectacular (and scary) twisting mountain roads to Roque Nublo and Pico de las Nieves, the highest point on the island at nearly 2000 metres.  The whole area is filled with amazing volcanic rock formations.  Roque Nublo is the most noted formation, measuring 90 metre in height formed by volcanic clouds hardening and cooling.

Roque Nublo

Roque Nublo from the road

   

The twisting roads up the mountain

The views from Pico de las Nieves were stunning.  We marvelled at the fantastic volcanic rock geology and spectacular views.  We could see down to Las Palmas and to the west, the islands of Tenerife and La Gomera in the mist.

The view from Pico de las Nieves.  Tenerife is in the distance and beyond that the flat island of La Gomera

View to the coast and Las Palmas

Looking north

The second day we explored the northern parts of the island, hopping between charming mountain villages.  First stop was the town of Teror, known for its architecture and pretty wooden balconies that reminded us of Turkey.

 

 

The charming buildings of Teror

Next stop was the rum distillery at Arucus.  The Arehucus distillery produces 3.5 millions of bottles of rum annually and makes 20 different varieties of spirits, 9 rums and 11 cream liqueurs.  After the interesting tour of the factory it was time to do some taste testing.  Bob and Reg were taken with the 12 and 18 year old rums so bought a few bottles which quickly disappeared over the next few weeks.

Rum barrels

Famous people come to the distillery and sign the rum barrles.  This barrel was signed by Placido Domingo.

After the rum tasting we went for lunch in the town.  We found a very nice café near a beautiful neogothic church.  Afterwards we walked back to the car through an attractive public garden with odd shaped trees.

A nice backdrop for lunch

Reg dwarfed by the massive church

The park in Arucus

The final stop was the quaint town of Firgus, known for its waterfall in the centre of town, its bottled spring water and its tile plaques representing the different towns of the Canary Islands.

Waterfall in the centre of Firgus

 

 

The tile plaques along the waterfall

We got a lovely taste of the island on our road trip and went back to Las Palmas into the rush hour traffic and crazy roundabouts and slip way roads to the marina.  Sightseeing finished, it was time to tackle the provisioning and final preparations for our Atlantic Crossing on the ARC+ Rally.  That will be for the next blog post but as I am writing this post just one day before we leave, the next blog entry will probably be posted when we arrive in the Caribbean early December.

Otherworldly Lanzarote

After a good night’s sleep following our five and a half day passage, I was still feeling a bit groggy.  I felt like I had jet lag but I suppose the more accurate term would be ‘watch lag’.  Perhaps I could get the condition in the next edition of the International Classification of Disease (ICD) as a new syndrome.  Hang on, there is a diagnosis.  It is called ‘Circadian rhythm sleep disorder’, mainly relating to shift workers.  But I reckon sailors deserve their own classification!  But I digress (Could I be missing my epidemiology work after being retired for 5 years? – Let me think… No!!). 

   

When the bleariness cleared from the eyes we were greeted by the pretty anchorage of Playa Blanca.  

Playa Blanca on the south coast of Lanzarote

After a late breakfast, we weighed anchor and headed into Marina Rubicon for a few days.  This is a large, very nice marina surrounded by restaurants and shops; a bit touristy but pleasant.  First order of business was taking a much needed shower and getting into clean clothes.  Then we headed ashore in search of a nice Linner.  There was no shortage of restaurants to choose from but most were a bit upmarket.  We found one that suited our budgets and during the meal we were introduced to the local liquor – Honey Rum.  I really took a shine to it.  It is a bit sweet but a very pleasant drink after dinner.  We had no idea that the Canary Islands had a thriving liquor industry.  Needless to say after our early dinner, our three shots each of honey rum and Circadian rhythm sleep disorder, sailor subtype, we adopted the Spanish siesta time!

 

Reg and Bob partaking in the local brew

The next day was taken up doing laundry, washing the boat, food inventory and getting everything back in order after the passage from Tangiers.  Walking around the marina we saw the ‘famous’ boat Delos.  I have been following their adventures on their blog for years.  For anyone who wants to see how some Millennials are living the dream, check out their website: https://svdelos.com/ .

SV Delos

Chores done, we decided to rent a car and tour the island.  The Canaries were populated by Europeans in Christopher Columbus's time. Columbus stopped off at one of the islands, La Gomera, for blessings from a church on in 1492.  Lanzarote was hit by massive volcanic eruptions in the 1730's and is still covered by lava flows and barren rock.  The island is an amazing place!  It is simply otherworldly.  Some areas reminded me of the gibber desert in Central Australia, other areas were like nothing I had every seen.

 

 

 

Tourists ready to take a camel ride up to the volcanos

Since there is so little rainfall in Lanzarote (125mm or 5 inches a year) very little has grown on the rock.  The island is a moonscape yet there is a thriving wine industry. They grow vines in holes in the volcanic rock surrounded by rock walls to protect the vines from the prevailing winds.  These vineyards are not the image that comes to mind when thinking about wine production!  We stopped at one winery, had a tasting and bought a couple of bottles of very nice wine.

Each semi circle contain two vines in a recess to catch any water

The vineyard stretching up the barren volcanic hills

We continued on to the northern part of the island.  The whole island is only 60 km long and 25 km wide.  There were some fantastic views from the sheer rock cliffs.  

 

On the northern end of Lanzarote over looking La Graciosa

On the way back south we stopped at a cactus garden.  The gardens were very well done. There were thousands of different species of cacti.  We spent hours there and took hundreds of photos.  I had no idea cacti could come in such a variety of bizarre shapes and sizes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a grand day out. Lanzarote is a fascinating island.