End of First Stage

Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Sun 5 Oct 2014 14:29
Tomorrow we are flying back to the UK and returning here at the beginning of December to head off across The Atlantic with family on board. Plan A

We have spent the last week touristing, getting a few jobs done on the boat and generally clearing and cleaning.

We were impressed by the coastal scenery as we sailed from Il Graciosa to Marina Rubicon and now we have explored the island we are just as impressed if not more so except for the number of tourists. The Marina is thankfully reasonably quiet.

In the past week we have driven round the island and can't get over the amount of old lava and extinct vclcanos and red ash around. We did a 7 mile walk to a volcano and up it and mostly round it. Pretty hard walking on a path made across the larva field and very windy on top but definitely worth the effort.

We have also visited several of Cesar Manriques previous residences one of which had rooms built into larva balloons. We really liked that. He was an impressive character and obviously had a big influence in the island and it's architecture thankfully. The villages with their white boxlike houses mostly with green, black or blue paintwork contrast strongly with the black lava. Quite different from anything we've seen before.

Other visits have included an impressive cactus garden and a wonderful lookout on the north of the island over where we were anchored a week ago. Several villages, two interesting museums one on volcanos and the other on wine. Boringly but essential we've also visited supermarkets in the main town Arrecife and here near the Marina to weigh up what we can buy to finally provision the boat when we return in December.

We've had some very good fish meals in restaurants around the Marina along with some good Lanzorote wine. (Again something we knew nothing about and seeing the vines growing in hollows in the volcanic soil surrounded by man built walls of larval stone is impressive )

I've certainly managed a number of swims both in the pool at The Marina here and from the beach at Playa Blanca.

So end of the first stage of what has certainly been quite an adventure for everyone (Joy and Brad now in Barcelona) and for me quite a steep learning curve but have coped and even enjoyed (sun and warmth helps the sailing!). We're still hanging in there and are looking forward to the next stage.