Season 13 - Gibraltar to The Canary Islands

Hi All:

 

It has been a while since we have posted to our blog, the last time being when we did our partial Pacific crossing.

But we are now back aboard Two Moons , enjoying our 13^th season and true to form, unexpected events have occurred which delayed our departure from the winter berth in Almerimar, Spain by more than a month. Things, which worked perfectly when we lifted the boat in the fall of 2015, inexplicably required repair or replacement. In cases for which a spare was not aboard, 80% of the job was chasing down a replacement.
 

The pic shows how not to overload your boat, if you don’t want to attract attention. This 42 foot boat was escorted into the Almerimar marina by the Spanish Coast Guard, because they only had about 6-8” of freeboard showing, before the decks were awash. At the dock they unloaded 11 tonnes of marijuana and hash. The captain claimed he didn’t know it was there.

All this was inside the white boat .

 

From Almerimar, we sailed directly to our last Mediterranean port of call - La Linea de la Conception, with further hopes of acquiring spares to complete the repairs. It was not to be. We stayed in this Spanish port for another two weeks scouring all the automotive, chandler and repair shops for parts, until we finally gave up and decided to make do and bring the parts back the illusive parts in our suitcase next spring.

 

La Linea is right next door to Gibraltar, which involved only a 20 minuet walk to The Rock, which we did practically every day. Although we had already visited the top of the rock when we entered the Med in 2010, the return experience couldn’t be missed. The Barbery Apes continue to stand guard and the vistas are just as satisfying. We didn’t repeat the tunnel walk inside the Rock, which is about 200 yards long, but subsequently, learned that there are 26 miles of tunnels inside.

 In the mid left is the Gib airport runway. North is where we are moored in Spain. South is all Gib.

 

Although Gibraltar is right at the gap leading into the Med, timing is everything when leaving. If you don’t get it right with wind and tide, the sea can be more than unpleasant. Added to that, the constant stream of container ships passing through the mouth of the Med is one of the busiest channels in the world. So we planned and we waited until the wind and tide and stars were all perfectly aligned. At the two hour mark we were quite chuffed with ourselves. We got it right. Then the fog closed in. There was not fog in the forecast. At one point in the trip we needed to cross the shipping lanes. Ship fog horns where blaring from everywhere, but you couldn’t see them. Without the use of AIS, GPS and radar, it is not a trip we would ever contemplate.

 

There were two places we had tentatively wanted to visit on our exit. First Tangiers, which has a brand new billion dollar marina, with which they hope to attract tourism. It would have been a nice stopover, but were denied entry because the Moroccan king hasn’t officially opened it yet. So it sits unused until the royal visit. The second place was Madeira. We took a pass on stopping here because of our previous experience with Portuguese officialdom. We are at the end of our allowable time in the Schengen Territory and didn’t wish to give them opportunity to fine us for overstaying our welcome again.

 

So we sailed directly to The Canary Islands, which was a six day passage of rock and roll. We have prepared for this down wind sailing, when crossing to the Caribbean, with something called a Twistle rig configuration, but it seems best bent on when in port, not underway.

 

We stayed well off the African coast (50 miles) not wishing to make ourselves available to any uninvited guests. Twice, fishing boats appeared from ocean side and seemed to come closer than need be, only to turn and continue shoreward. In both cases nerves were on edge until they were out of sight.

 

Our landfall was La Graciosa, the most NE island of the Canary archipelago. We anchored in a beautiful sandy bay, out of the wind, surrounded by the volcanic hills of La Graciosa and Lanzarote. It was a superb place to recharge despite the arrival of the afternoon tour boats.

 

 

Apparently each of the islands have their own personality and La Graciosa is not yet on the tourist flight plan. The topography is all volcanic with no vegetation. All roads are packed sand, so Land rovers are the vehicle of choice. PIC

 

We moved south on to the next island – Lanzarote- because of a high wind forecast. The Trades have definitely settled in with a constant breeze of NE 10-20 knots. It is much like La Gaciosa, with volcanic hills and planes. Not much vegetation, but an interesting attempt at growing grapes. Each vine lives in its own pit out of the impact of the wind. The end result is a rather sweet, expensive red. Sorry, couldn't get a picture of that.

 

 

Lanzarote is also trying to minimize the impact of the growing tourist industry, which is beleaguering its cousin islands. The white-washed block house, with their mandatory blue, green or brown painted woodwork have an eye pleasing uniformity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have three more islands to visit before holding up for winter, which is where we will pick up on our next posting.

 

Good summer to all……….Mike and Grace