November came and the ghosts in the machine were well and truly banished.  With a residual sense of achievement, on Thursday morning Nigel strolled confidently up to the car hire office in Puerto Calero and came back to the boat 15 minutes later triumphantly holding the keys to our steed for the next couple of days – a silver Corsa with air conditioning! 

So we started by travelling south from the marina, exploring the coast and the fantastical terrain of the island. Then on to Playa Blanca in the extreme south of the Island and the new marina village called Rubicon after the lava plain just inland.  Lunch was planned for the Timanfaya National Park….here they cook steaks, hog roasts and hundreds of chicken quarters over the fumeroles in the sides of the volcanoes which have formed and shaped the island.

It is no exaggeration to say that the dramatic “moonscape” formed by eruptions to several of the southern volcanoes in the 1760’s and then the 1820’s is astounding. We were astonished by the implied violence of the geological “happening” and really rather impressed by the way in which the Lanzarotean authorities have managed this tourist resource.  And the steaks were excellent too!

After the drama of the volcanoes, we visited the bleak and craggy north coast of Lanzarote. Our electronic charts suggest an inhospitable and wild coastline replete with huge breaking rollers from the seas rolling in on the prevailing north east trades.  In fact there are some sandy beaches here with excellent surfing for those fit and skilled enough to brave the rocky shelves and spurs. But even on calm days the Atlantic swell demonstrates it’s power creating huge spumes of spray on arrival at the shoreline. We found one delightful old harbour where the local fishermen use enormous fish traps made of steel rods and chicken wire, and launch their boats from rusting makeshift trailers via the tiny harbour. Presumably their boat handling skills are exceeded only by their tenacity, since the rollers blasting past the tiny entrance to the dock (which doubled as a sea water lido for the local kids) made the entire enterprise look a tad hazardous to us.

The tour back to our marina was via the vineyards in the centre of the island. Here the locals found that spreading the black volcanic ash on the land enhanced its ability to sustain crops as it promoted water retention from dew. Apparently it never rains in Lanzarote, though we can testify that this claim is perhaps more aimed at the package holiday consumer than meant as a meterological certainty.

On Friday we visited the north of the Island. This is so very different from the barren south. The early settlers worked so very hard to terrace the slopes with dry stone walls to create agricultural space on the steep sides of the extinct volcanoes. We visited the northernmost point with it’s celebrated viewpoint over La Graciosa created by a local artist, Cesar Manrique. He had a taste for the Moorish and was famed for his natural sympathetic approach to design,  --retaining the natural forms offered by the landscape. He had a hand in the development of the Jameos del Agua  - caves formed by lava flowing towards the sea, and now housing restaurants and an interesting museum all about Canarian volcanoes.

We hopped on the motorway and met up with Dick and Moira (Equinox, Westerly Corsair) for a spot of wine tasting in the wine region situated mid island before heading back to Persephone.

We love Lanzarote. It has so many surprises. Yes, there are tourist traps (and we are, after all, tourists) but there is so much to marvel about. It is as if the island is designed to make you think about the unimaginable forces of nature, which combine to create the environment we all share. And then we step onto our boat and set off into the wide blue yonder, as if to emphasise the point.  Well not quite – we sailed off on Saturday afternoon and found a little anchorage off the southern tip of the island, a mile of so from Playa Blanca, where we listened to the rollers pounding on the nearby beach, ate a roast chicken on board and contemplated the short trip across to Gran Canaria.