Graciosa N29 13 W13 30
Gryphon II
Chris and Lorraine Marchant
Sun 27 Sep 2009 07:30
 We left the Salvage Islands after 2 nights and felt
regret at leaving this unique place. We had an uneventful sail heading
eastwards for a change, with a good beam wind that sped us slightly
uncomfortably on our way, yet again we failed to see any sea life. The German
couple we anchored with at Salvages had had whales close to their boat. We have
not seen even dolphin since the north coast of Portugal. However, we did recover
this poor flying fish specimen in the morning from our deck (it has gone into
the fridge as future bait)! At least it proves that we are entering more
tropical waters.
 9The landfall at dawn with Graciosa on one side and
Lanzarote on the other was very dramatic.
 We found a calm anchorage and caught up on some much
needed sleep.
In the morning we saw a moon like landscape, no green just
brown and orange volcanic cones of hills swirled with great flowing patterns of
rock which were once flowing streams of hot lava.
 We sailed into the next bay so that we could walk into the
main town on Graciosa (this would just about qualify as a village in UK).
Someone who had been there already told us it was a one horse town but we hadn't
quite understood. We do now, Graciosa is like a cross between one of the Scilly
Isles and a small, barren but friendly corner of Mexico with creative and
artistic gardens where the garden furniture is fashioned from the products
of beach combing and reclamation of just about anything! Wandering along the
beach we came to the start of the houses, no made up roads here just sand
streets, there are no roads on the island and all the vehicles we saw were
British Land Rovers - they need them, the sand tracks are all they have.
The appeal of a place like this is instantaneous: totally
relaxed, sparsely populated, no hassles or urgencies, the shopkeeper appeared
half and hour after opening time and was surprised to see customers outside; so
laid back this town is almost lying down. It is a very different world and
difficult to believe that it is in the same archipelago as Tenerife and Gran
Canaria. We are both very glad we came and would benefit from a longer stay but
the transatlantic schedule demands otherwise!
|