Canary Islands, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, La Gomera

After a particularly lumpy (beam on) passage from Madeira we arrived at Lanzarote. Great island with awesome volcanic landscape, and we had a free anchorage at Puerto de Naos in Arrecife, which unexpectedly turned out to be a very pleasant Spanish ( sorry Canarian) town. Janet joined us for 10 days and we explored the weird and wonderful landscape, extinct volcanoes, lava fields and tunnels and architecture c/o Cesar Manrique,  by car and bus. Enjoy the photos :

Volcanoes, thankfully extinct

La Graciosa

Vines, in individual wind bunkers. No wonder it's so expensive!

Architects have the best swimming holes - this one is in a lava tunnel

Never underestimate your landfall!

Enjoy the surf when you are not on board your yacht...

In the volcanic park we met the guy with the best job in the whole world. How could you get bored pouring water into a hole, to make a geyser explode for the delight and fright of tourists from around the world. I have a great video of it, but it's upside down thanks to my smart-ass phone and one day I will work out how to right it and post it here.
It's really cool and he can't stop grinning. I want that job.


Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, saw the departure of the ARC, Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. Happy to watch the 210 boats sail over the horizon with all their hype and market created paraphernalia, the cash tills singing love songs as they left, creating their own credit crisis in their wake. See the boat leaving to cross the Atlantic fully prepared with sun loungers ready on deck :

Steph's mum had an exciting holiday on board here. Narrowly missing a impromptu swim in the harbour, as the boat rolled in the Atlantic swell. Stu rugby tackled her into the dinghy and all was well! Crisis averted.

Next stop La Gomera. We can't recommend it highly enough. Beautiful scenery - rocky coastal paths (read we did an 8 hour walk) enormous 25km downhill cycles ( we took the bus to the top), gruelling uphill cycling ( 3 hours in lowest gear, got the route wrong), and fab walking in rain forest with cedar trees, mossy paths, perpetual mists, emerging into cactus, date palm and goat country.
The terrain is so severe here, that the locals developed a whistling language of 4000 words to communicate across the barrachos or ravines, as they are impassible (hence the 8 hour walk!)

The uphill!!!!!!!1350m ascent

So, not really feeling that we have done La Gomera proper justice, we are off again, but it is high on the list of places to spend more time in....someday.

We have shopped and stowed, shopped and stowed all the way out of the Med, then eaten 90% of what we bought for the crossing. Now every locker is stuffed to the brim and there are bags and baskets all over the boat,nowhere to sleep, so I guess it is time to cast off tomorrow and head out to sea. Maybe Cape Verdes ( where there will be national mourning for the loss of their most famous singer) or if conditions are right we will turn to starboard (right for landlubbers) and head for the rum factory in Barbados. Perhaps the worlds second best job !!!
Gotta go, yet another group of old guys with guitars has just turned up outside to play folkloric songs in return for a warming glass of something.

Atlantic Islands, Madeira and Porto Santo

We escaped the cool and mouldy Rock of Gibraltar and made a slow 5 ½ day passage to Porto Santo and Madeira. We had very light winds, and didn't see many ships, so it was quite a boring introduction to offshore Atlantic sailing. Stu saw two whales, but as usual I missed them ( I think he makes it up). I read 2 books and had a really sore bum from sitting around day and night. Must find a way to adapt the yoga routine to the small and constantly moving cockpit.
Stu got so bored he investigated the plumbing under the floor. First he found a crab living in the pipe, which must have got too fat to get back out through the strainer. We kept him in a pot (to save him from swimming to the bottom of the ocean 4000m below) and gave him fresh sea water and a piece of fish as big as himself, but he escaped in the night and has not been found since. You just can't please some crabs can you.
Second Stu found a pipe fitting that had cracked slightly and was sucking air into the fridge intake, so he spent a whole day lying on the galley floor pondering that repair. He felt lucky to have found it early, as failure of the fitting could have been a wet sinking feeling (although it would only have leaked slowly) .
Anyway we arrived at Porto Santo, not feeling too bad despite the deprivation of full nights of sleep. We got the bikes out to counteract the sore bum feeling, but managed to cycle the entire island in a lot under one day. It really is a one horse island. Nice beach though and very slow pace of life. Too slow, even for us gypsies of the sea.

We slowly wobbled in more light winds over to Madeira and came straight into the Quinta Do Lorde marina. They sure know how to charge for their marina, and anything else they can come up with, but if  you want to see Madeira, there's not many other options, as anchoring off is a very rolly experience and Funchal harbour is permanently full. So we booked in for a week and tried not to think about the bank balance. We did a days walk that involved 5 bus journeys, and after that hired a car for 2 days to see more of the island. It is very stunning and beautiful, so now we know why it attracts so many people on walking holidays. It is an old volcanic island, and being high and  surrounded by the Atlantic ocean, gets a lot of rain and mist. Cunningly they built levadas or water channels all around the hills, so that the rain is collected and used to irrigate the very fertile volcanic soil. This makes for a very pleasant green island, lots of exotic foliage, and good walking opportunities, as the levada tracks all over the island have been restored and preserved.  It is a lot like walking in NZ, except that the bird life in NZ is much more lively and noisy. We did find this little robin enjoying his worm though.

So enjoy the photos. We have to move on tomorrow to go to La Graciosa island just north of Lanzarote.

Water water everywhere.

Long way down!

It has to be done!

This barrel of 3200 litres, costs 600 euros a bottle. So this one barrel is worth 2.5 million!!! We didn't get to taste this one.

Track our position through the winlink link in the top right corner of the screen.

Fish 'n' chips 'n' English beer

Ooh our blog is so out of date. We are now suffering English weather (well not really cold) fog, cloud, damp, and now rain. Sea 17 degrees and totally unswimmable.
Well we have plenty of other things to do. Gibraltar is at least a place where we share the same sort of values with the local vendors, and they speak the same language. In general the cost of getting stuff here duty free plus shipping is about the same as paying full RRP and VAT, but at least you can get it, and it seems you don't have to bribe the customs officials to get your goods that you have genuinely ordered for your yacht in transit. And they probably won't go missing forever...
La Linea anchorage is safe and fantastic on the Spanish side and no-one in the last 2 weeks has been forced to leave the anchorage (as previously  has happened according to blogs). The Spanish YC looks after your dinghy for 5E per day if you want to go ashore, and walk across the border to Gib.
After 5 days at anchor, we came into the marina to get boaty stuff done (diesel tank clean, liferaft service, batteries tested) and haven't left since. World Cup rugby on in the bar most mornings (very healthy apart from the English Breakfasts), Morrisons just up the road - cheddar cheese, marmite, Thai crackers, real bacon.... the yum list goes on and on. You guys in UK and NZ just don't know what side your bread is buttered - we have been seriously deprived in the Med. A short stop in Gib will help to fill our lockers for the next 5 years with unusual stuff to alleviate the boredom associated with local exotic foods that go on a tad too long. Long live : Marmite, Vegemite, Mango chutney, Thai curry mix, Cup a soup ( I kid you not), sweet chilli sauce, lime cordial.
It is hard to understand when you can just go to your local Tesco/Sainsbury and buy whatever you want, but we do appreciate our short period of gluttony and availabilty. I have never bought convenience food before, but faced with 5 - 30 days at sea in  rolling waves, I've coming to the conclusion that eventually they may have a place in our day to day kitchen. So bring on the bechamel sauce in tetrapak. Never would have been seen dead with it in my Waitrose basket before. To understand, try cooking your next meal with one hand  and on one leg. And then wash all your utensils in sea water. 
Now I know why we don't have any visitors...

Fornells, Menorca

Currently anchored in Fornells, Menorca, after spending a few days in
Mahon. 47 boats in a very tight space of Cala Taleura, with a forecast
for strong winds, and we were all on the minimum anchor scope to
prevent us swinging into each other. We found an unoccupied corner and
tied back to some small rock, to get out of the way, and all was
well, once we found some rocks that didn't fall apart.
Fornells is busy but beautiful. Attractive town and wooded hills. The
bay reminds us of Poole Harbour on an August Bank Holiday. It is
packed with windsurfers, kayaks, dinghies, superyachts, stink boats
(motor boats) and swimmers, all enjoying being on the water. I
spotted some blue stingy things, so am keeping out of the water here.

We are headed to Pollensa on Mallorca in the next couple of days to
meet up with some old friends there.

Sardinia

15 July 2011
Anchored in Carbonara Bay marine reserve, South Sardinia
39-07.8N 009-28.3E
Why is the blog not up to date? Well what would you rather do - swim in crystal clear water, eat Italian food, socialise with friends on other boats,
play music in the cockpit....or sit at a pc and write stuff?
Guess what my choice is. So you'll have to wait till we only have boring alternatives.
Salute!
Steph and Stu xx

Methoni, Peloponnese, SW Greece

Full update coming soon, and I will take off the yotreps position
reporting, which is not working.
We are currently at Methoni, 36-48.94N 021-42.49E and will shortly be
heading for Syracusa, Sicily when the wind blows in the right direction.
Then we plan to head around Sicily clockwise and head to SE Sardinia in
mid July.

Be careful what you wish for.....

Panormitis Bay, Simi, Greece
36 33 10.00 N, 027 50 73.00 E
3 May 2011

We escaped the sticky pontoons of Yat Marin and the sticky mud of Marmaris bay about 4 weeks behind the plan, but plans are made to be changed. The spring weather has been really pants, so if you were planning to come out in April, you really made a good choice not to come just yet. Marmaris will be forever raining in my memory and swimming is a far distant thought concept.

We did get lots of jobs done, including one that I've been putting off for 2 years. At long last I've put the contents of the old website (www.yachtmatador.co.uk) which is now long gone, onto a second blog site called www.yachtmatadorarchive.blogspot.com - there is a link on the top right of the page. It took ages, and I was wondering if anyone would ever look at it, but for me it was like flicking through an old photo album and journal, and was a good opportunity to reminisce. There's a link to a photo album too.

We celebrated St Georges day with British roast beef and yorkshire pudding, watched the Royal Coupling, and spent ANZAC day with the ANZACS, aboard Storm Vogel, a beautiful classic sailing yacht enjoying its 50th birthday - it featured in the film, Dead Calm, if you want an idea of what the boat is like.

Our shake down sail on 1st May was to Rhodes, as we thought we hadn't given it a fair chance to impress us. After trying to squeeze into spots that had some combinations of 20 knot cross winds, crossed anchors, lazy line conrete blocks and various obstacles, we decided we couldn't stay in Mandraki harbour after all, so we used the last 4 hours of daylight to head for the lovely Panormitis bay in Simi. Rhodes had its chance and failed!
It was full of fat pink, underdressed tourists as usual anyway.

The weather is still very unsettled, it seems to be about a month behind schedule this year, and this is a good place to sit out the latest series of weather fronts coming across the Med.
The bay is delightful, and the monastery here has a small shop for real basics, but we needed more substantial supplies, like wine and beer, so we took the bus across the island to Simi town. Unlike the numerous dolmuses that ply the streets of Turkey, Greek islands usually have just 1 or 2 buses a day, and Simi is no exception. As we wound our way up the preciptious road to the top of the hill I thought it was such a shame that I couldn't get a photo of the spectacular views through the dirty windows that are fixed shut. Well, be careful what you wish for, especially in Monastery Bay! After our shopping we waited for the one and only bus back to the boat, with about 18 other hopefuls. Alas the bus would not start, despite the attentions of most of the male population of Simi. After about an hour of trying, the bus was declared kaput. We feared an 8 hour trek over the hills,or an expensive taxi ride, but the bus driver and his colleague had by this time brought in their own personal vehicles and we were squeezed into a small hot hatch and a cattle truck. So we got a wild and windswept trip back to Monastery Bay with plenty of opportunities for pictures after all. He was very apologetic but we told him his cattle truck was much more fun than the bus, and paid him our bus fare all the same.
I will share the photos with you when we get to civilization as the monks don't provide wifi, and we can't get any internet. In the meantime this update is sent via the dark arts of Ham radio, from the computer it is turned into beeps and scratchy noises, to the radio, up the antenna, up into the ionosphere, back to Athens, down another antenna, radio and computer, and then by normal email to google's blogger, wherever that is in the world. Clever init?

Hope to move on to Crete as soon as we have fair winds or no winds.