Pastures New But Still on Lanzarote

We are finally at anchor after what feels like months since we have been able to ride to our own ground tackle. On checking the log book, I find that we left Playa de la Puntilla in Bahia de Cadiz on the twenty third of July so it is nearly two months exactly. There is a real satisfaction of being more self sufficient when you are using your own anchor. It is usually free as well while ports and marinas always cost money. W are currently anchored off the tourist town of Playa Blanca just at the entrance to Maria Rubicon on the southern tip of Lanzarote. We will spend a few days here before moving onto Fuerteventura and other points south and west.

We had expected a nice downwind sail in the prevailing north easterlies but the wind had other ideas and it turned into a beat the whole way. We also experienced our first Canary acceleration zone. These are areas, generally near the southern end of islands where the wind gets accelerated by up to ten or fifteen knots. In the gentle winds we had this only took the breeze up to the top of force 5 for a while and a single reef in the main was adequate even though we were hard on the wind. Of course the wind also headed us round the point which meant we sailed nearly all the way across El Estrecho de la Bocayana to Fuerteventura before being able to tack back and make for the marina breakwater. Thus for a ten mile passage we covered 17.5 miles on the log. Other yotties will be familiar with this sort of demoralizing statistic! At least the tidal streams are not significant here. When we were still in England, we once logged 35 miles to travel the seventeen miles from Dartmouth to Salcombe.

Proof that we do occasionally hand steer!

The cruising guide is a bit cagey about anchoring here. They warn you that it is a bit roly as there are frequent ferries to Corralejo on Fuerteventura and the marina authorities get a bit antsy if you don't go and moor up in the marina. Just as we arrived, a nice chap from another boat disabused us of this and said the marina were actually very friendly and were perfectly happy for us to stay out here. We will be investigating the truth of this shortly as well as spending more money in the chandler here. One major reason for coming here is that there is a very good chandler who actually stocks stuff we might want. One thing we really want to do is improve the security of our dinghy. We will make up a bridle so we can hoist it out of the water on the level complete with the deck. We will also have to get a way of locking both the outboard and the dinghy to themselves and the dock. In truth, the dinghy is probably not really worth anything but the outboard is nearly new of course and they are favourites for thieves. Sadly, statistics show that most boat burglars are other yotties. We will be moving into areas where theft is more of an issue than it has been to date and we will not be able to rely on being a bit scruffy with other much more attractive targets around us.

In the meantime, we will enjoy our stay here. We need to wait here for a while as we are still waiting for a package to reach us from the UK. I ordered a new masthead navigation light. The existing one uses very thirsty incandescent bulbs while new ones use LED lights which require much less electricity. It also transpires that a bird must have hit ours at some point as it is all wonky. I would rather only do one trip up the mast to replace rather than mend and the replace the light. So, we wait.