Puerto del Rosario

Lochmarin
Tue 11 Dec 2012 10:12
28:29.59N 13:51.56W

After a lovely gentle sail (under jib, staysail and mizzen, Ellie!) along the East coast of Fuerteventura we have settled for a couple of days at the new capital city of the island, Puerto del Rosario. As we followed the line of volcanoes down the coast we realised that it was quite a different Island to Lanzarote, with a charm that might be harder to discover. Gone were the white plastered traditional buildings, a tumble of styles and colours met our eyes when we passed towns and villages. But the old parts of the Island are inland here, instead of a spine of volcanoes there is a ring of them around the coast, with a plain in the interior where the old capital, Betancuria lies. Perhaps there is where we'll discover this Island's charm.

For a week we've had no need of money, there's been nowhere to spend it, we've had at most 2 other boats near by when we've anchored overnight and we've been detached from the bustle of every day living. Now we are just next to the harbour of a substantial town, there's a container quay alongside, I can hear the hum of the traffic.

We're anchored amongst the moorings of the local boats, there's no cruising boats here at all apart from us. Perhaps the pilot books saying that yachts aren't welcomed here have kept them all away and they're down the coast in the marina at Puerto del Castillo. We wanted to tuck in close to the mole, to give us shelter, and because we weren't sure how much depth we'd have away from it, but if the wind swings around we could have ended up against the wall, so we put out a kedge anchor. A kedge anchor runs from the stern of the boat, so you're anchored fore and aft and can't rotate with the wind like you usually do on anchor. We lowered it into the dinghy, then Phil rowed out away from the boat and dropped it overboard, whilst I let out the rope then winched it in to dig the anchor in and be sure we were held firm. The advantage is that we can't swing around and hit the wall, the disadvantage is that we may end up side on to any swell and that the wind generator has to swing around more to always be facing the wind and may tangle the cable!

We took a walk into town yesterday evening and found a great fruit and veg shop - we've plenty of dried and canned stores, its the fresh stuff we miss, and stopped in a cafe overlooking the harbour for some tapas and a glass of wine. There are certainly advantages to being in town.