On the Canary Islands

Canary Islands — Graciosa — Lanzarote - Teneriffa

On Graciosa we enjoy a week of ‘Dolce Far Niente’. We commute back and forth between the beach, where the children of the family boats run around, and the little town of ‘Caleta del Sebo’ for an aperitif. We spend a lot of time with the family on ‘Daisy’ from Geneva, whom we met on the Spanish mainland. Despite speaking different languages, the children communicate quite well and play without using a lot of words. For Andrea’s birthday there are homemade muffins on the dunes and a dinner in town.

We are getting additional crew on board for the long passage across the Atlantic. Stefan, who first studied and lived with Silvio and was later our neighbor in Wipkingen, accompanies us across the Atlantic. He will live with us on Mirabella for 5 weeks, we are excited and think it’s prettu brave — for all of us — to dare this adventure together. Stefan ‘only’ knows sailing from our small sailing ship ‘Pina’ on Lake Walensee.

We sail from Graciosa to Lanzarote, where we luckily got a spot in the Marina Arrecife, right next to ‘Daisy’. We welcome Stefan happily. However, his luggage does not arrive on the same plane. Apparently itgot lost making the connection in Barcelona. In the marina it’s quite relaxed waiting for his luggage and so we spend the time running a few errands and exploring Arrecife.

After the luggage finally arrives and with it a few long-awaited spare parts, we sail back towards Graciosa. We first want to spend two nights at anchor with Stefan before we sail a longer distance to Tenerife. This allows his body to get used to the rocking of the ship while he sleeps.

After two nights on anchor we set out towards Tenerife to sail 177nm, ultimately the shortest route to our next anchorage. At this point we don’t know that we will anchor.

Actually, our plan is to go to the marina in Santa Cruz and do the preparations and shopping there for the crossing to the Caribbean. Things turn out differently: The marinas are currently so full that we can’t get a place in Santa Cruz, and our friends from ‘Daisy’ tried to get us on site to speak up for us without success. We also can’t find space in the other marinas on the island far to the southwest. So we sail with increasingly strong winds between Gran Canaria and Tenerife to Punta Roja. In the end we have up to 32kt of wind and a good wave accompanying us.

At Punta Roja we are well protected from the swell, especially as long as the wind remains strong. But not from the wind and so it will be restless nights in the lee of the headland of Tenerife’s most popular kite and windsurfing spot. We measure up to 38kt of wind at anchor. But the anchor holds well in the black volcanic sand and so it is just very windy. Over time, we get used to it and a drop in wind speed to 15kt soon feels like calm.

We get a confirmation for a place in the marina ‘Las Galletas’, in the south of Tenerife. A a small, tranquil harbor, seemingly far away from overcrowded, gigantic marinas.

We enjoy our time here and go out to eat. After one night, we meet the crew of ‘Daisy’ again. We spend a lot of time together and the children enjoy playing with each other and are becoming more and more independent. Joséphine even learns a little French from Charlie. We are enjoying the last few days with this great family. They are pursuing a different plan and will sail towards Brazil after Cape Verde and a detour to Senegal on their multi-year circumnavigation.

During all the preparations we haven’t managed to fill our propane bottles yet. Even in the gas distribution center for the whole of Tenerife, they can’t fill our bottles despite the adapter. Instead of filling our two bottles, we buy two of the standard 3kg Camping Gaz bottles and will sell them straight away in Martinique if we don’t need them on our crossing. This way, we know we have enough propane with us to avoid suddenly not being able to cook in the middle of the Atlantic.

After a few supply runs, it feels like we are filling the entire ship with food. Stefan has organized a rental car so we can do all the errands. With all the bananas hanging between our heads, we become a ‘banana boat’. Pasta, cans, glasses and everything we need for our menu plan can now be stored in every possible storage space.

Now we’re almost ready — or at least we’ve crossed off everything on our list.