21 – Canary Islands I – Lanzarote

Anchored on the Canary Islands at La Graciosa

Illika being safely anchored in the bay (all alone), we had a pleasant wake up with stunning colours in front of la Montaña Amarilla on la Graciosa, north of Lanzarote. A wonderful first impression of the Canary Islands, although not quite unknown territory for me, having lived on Lanzarote 27!!! years ago for over one year. Our first snorkelling, which was meant to be just for checking the anchor, was spectacular as we saw a big ray and loads of parrot fishes and other sea creatures we never saw in the Mediterranean.

Back with friends and successful home schooling

After 2 nights in the bay we sailed first back through the tight passage between La Gomera and Lanzarote, then 25 miles south to Arecife, where we met our friends from Eagle and Naïa again, who had left Agadir the same day as us to cross to the Canaries. More meals, game evenings, creative work, aperitifs, coffees, Zumba-lessons (fitness centre 50 metres in front of our peer) and a little bit of carnival feelings were lived and shared during the week Jean-Luc went back to Switzerland. But mainly, thanks to Marion from the Eagle-family, we (and other boat families) discovered that doing the schooling in one of the libraries in Arecife was far more efficient than working on the boat, at least for the Illika crew. So mornings were reserved for the idyllic and peaceful library on the seafront.

Rainy and sandy days

I didn’t know Arecife from the past, so when we tried to make an excursion to the Jardín de Cactus we managed to get lost walking to the bus station! We saw our bus leaving as we arrived… therefore our planned visit to César Manrique’s famous garden was postponed and instead we visited Costa Tequise, that I didn’t recognize at all.

The weather had been terrible most of the 1^st week: strong winds, sand loaded sky (Calima, a wind blowing over from the Sahara, blessed us with a shower of sand!), rain and quite cold for the Canaries. And as we seem to be at luck, the next 10 days weren’t much better in terms of weather – who said the Sun always shined on the Canary Islands?

Re-living Lanzarote

Anyhow, when Jean-Luc was back, we hired a car for 2 days to follow the tourist masses arriving in the winter period on the Island of Lanzarote mainly for sightseeing. Timanfaya national Park with the 300 year young volcanos, the emerald green lake of El Golfo, the black beaches with the olivin stones, the wineries of La Geria, the wild surfer beach of Famara, the famous Jameos del Agua and the house of César Manrique as well as his Cactus Garden (see more on Alexander’s news about the subject); we loved it all and I loved it again!

Preparations and maintenance

Finally, we stayed on Lanzarote for 3 weeks. During this time we never saw the boys except in the company of their friends on the catamaran Eagle, Antoine, Agathe and Claire. Hence, our meals on the boat were either two or seven of us! In this case, the washing up was done by the group of youngsters, in a very good mood, which was a pleasant change, our boys constantly grumbling when they normally had to do the work…

A lot of things on the boat have been done by Jean-Luc and us a bit. A shiny new gas conduction (the old one was 30 years old…) for the galley, a water maker and a UV water filter were installed, oil filter, diesel filter were changed and the engine was drained and checked from every visible angle. As this is our last “technical” stop before Africa, all the necessary spare parts were bought by Jean-Luc who had to ride up and down a hill about 25 times on one of our small, rusty, squeaky foldable bikes (it’s amazing what the sea and salt do to them: even if they are oiled and minimally maintained, the rust takes over very, very quickly. We even had to change a bike chain, because it was so stuck… !)

Au revoir les amis

After all this time, it’s time to say goodbye to our French friends (Catamaran Eagle with their project L’ancre et les voiles) who had welcomed us so warmly in Agadir and with whom we spent so much time in Arecife. We set off with good north-easterly winds (and quite a few waves) towards Tenerife for new adventures. After a quick but bumpy ride, we landed at our first anchorage on Tenerife. A breathtaking bay! Good pick!… 😊