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Arrival on the Canary islands
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| Farewell
to the fishermen in
Essaouira (Morocco PHOTO
1),
and heading for Lanzarote. We had a marvellous sailing trip with on the
first evening a beautiful sunset PHOTO
2.
255 miles further and 46 hours later we dropped our anchor in the
sheltered bay of Puerto de Naos (Arrecife). What a difference with Morocco! Silence everywhere! Now we realised how busy things are on the Moroccan quays, the fishermen, the fish market, and we missed it immediately. The nice part about our new surrounding was that many people came by in their dinghies to say hello, as yachties are keen on social contacts. We were invited on a huge catamaran from Norway (35 foot wide) so we could finally stretch our legs on board! Did we have to get used to the hassle with anchoring and the dinghy, our first steps on the shore were an absolute culture shock! Sunday and siesta: not a soul on the street, no donkeys, no handcarts and people sitting or lying around and greeting you kindly. While enjoying a slush ice on the boulevard, we decided there and then to postpone the Caribbean one more year, also because we feel that we have missed a lot. Our amended sailplan obviously includes Morocco again because the Sahara and the Atlas mountains are tempting us, and we also want to visit the north coast of Morocco. Then we'll continue to south Spain and Portugal and resume our initial plan by going to Madeira. |
But
first the Canaries. Unfortunately we had to skip the beautiful island of La
Graciosa because the anchoring bays were at that moment not sheltered against the
prevailing winds. On Lanzarote
we checked out Arrecife only but probably we'll return there before
leaving for Morocco. Lanzarote is a beautiful island with some nature parcs. The houses are not higher than 3 or 4 stories, all beautiful white with green or blue woodwork. PHOTO 3+4  On Fuerteventura we visited two towns and decided that the island is quitte barren. Viewed from the sea the brown slopes look rather nice, especially when some clouds make the scene "lively" PHOTO 5, but the smell of sun tan and cream&oil that rises from the beaches, crowded with rows of lobster pink English tourists, is breathtaking. We didn't dare joining them but instead played with our scuba diving gear and used our air compressor for the first time to fill the bottles. It gave a lot of noise but within an hour we had the two bottles filled. We put on our suits & gear and swam for an hour or so in the 5 m deep harbour. The water was crystal clear so we could check Miep's keel and saw that nothing's wrong despite the violent crash in the Oualidia lagoon in Morocco. |
After
a heavy day of sailing (wind speed up to 30 kts) we moored on Gran Canaria
in Las Palmas. It happened to be the 5th of December, Sinterklaas,
so we invited our Dutch neighbours and had a nice evening with typical
Dutch sweets. PHOTO
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