Still Marina Rubicón, Islas Cana rias 28:51.41 N 013:48.9 W

Stargazer
Andy & Jo
Thu 1 Dec 2022 14:09

Still Marina Rubicón…

A lot of people are saying that we must really like Lanzarote, having spent so much time here. Well, yes we do and having arrived here we are really appreciating the super climate. Whilst the UK is suffering wind and rain we’ve been enjoying temperatures of over 25°C. Although I must admit that some of the depressions approaching the UK seem to have been so deep that the occasional front has extended as far as here. That all said the weather here is superb overall and I must confess both the mate and I would, given choice, take a full 12 month season here and visit all the islands (I may have already mentioned this).

Papagayo beach with Fuerteventura beyond

Volcanic peaks – Timanfaya National Park

So, what have we been doing? With the exception of boat jobs (foredeck re-coring and gelcoating, fairlead refit, stiffening up the coachroof handrails – I could go on…) our time here seems to have flown by. We were even visited by my in-laws. Yes the mate’s parents came out to see us – and what a lovely week we had. I’ll hand over to the mate to tell you all about volcano tours and the like later… They really enjoyed it and it was great to see them.

Taking time to go over the boat and get everything ready for our upcoming long passages can never be discounted, not least in provisioning as UK supermarkets have so much more choice and often at better prices than we have found on our travels so far (this came as a surprise to me). It’s also true that everything on a boat takes much, much longer than in a house on land. There are many reasons why, but storage is one of them. Anything you seem to want is at the bottom of a locker with everything else on top of it. It wouldn’t matter which order you place things in as the above would always hold true J

Still, we’ve had plenty of time to look around the island and we’ve spent many days at the beach. Imagine that – late November on the beach!

I must mention that whilst we’ve been in Rubicón Marina (highly recommended if you ever come this way) that we’ve had a lovely German neighbour, Peter. Peter has been kind enough to let us have loads of Google earth images for our OpenCPN plotter program plus lots of bolt-ons that now make this one of the most powerful chart plotting devices that I have ever seen. Brilliant! It even has sun and star sight calculations which save enormous amounts of time (and possible error in calculation). The only snag is that having a sextant onboard is supposed to be a coverall for electrical/electronic failure – in which case OpenCPN wouldn’t work anyway; ah well, such is life :)

Speaking of getting the boat ready, we’ve been practising poling out the headsail ready for some traditional trade wind sailing. The plan is to pole out our No. 4 Yankee on the windward side and run with the main genoa to leeward. This should make for a fast and stable sail plan. The only slight difficulty is setting up all the lines needed (in the correct places) to control the rig. Of course, me being me, it all has to be precise and the mate sometimes despairs at all that’s involved. It does, though, make perfect sense as once everything is set up properly you can control everything from the cockpit without the need to go on deck at all.

Having done and said the above, we were due to leave Lanzarote on Friday 2nd December but a check of the grib files showed the start of the passage to Cape Verde to be upwind! The reason for this is a deep depression being forecast off the Portuguese coast with associated winds affecting our planned route – normally such depressions head further north (as any UK resident will know). The look on the mate’s face said it all; our new leaving date is Wednesday 7th December*. That should give us plenty of time, ha ha.

*having just checked the gribs again there is another system heading our way so this date is not set in stone!

The mate’s hovering about, eager to get her bit in, here she is J

Arrival celebrations J

We had such a lovely time when my parents came to visit. They arrived bearing gifts of tea, toiletries, anodes, books, knickers, epoxy, contact lenses and magazines and continued to look after us all week. Their posh hotel was only a short walk from the marina so we enjoyed all it had to offer. A particular highlight was three ‘grown ups’ with a combined age of 204 racing each other down the water slides and hooting with laughter J We also had a great guided tour to Timanfaya National Park and the volcanoes (I was awestruck by the lava flows. Skip was awestruck by the geothermally cooked chicken), and a vineyard (yes, they make wine here) with wine tasting (thankfully only a small amount as the white one I selected had the bouquet of a wet dog!). Skip bravely bought some untested red wine which later turned out to be drinkable, although predominantly by Skip. Thanks so much for coming to visit M&D. We hope to see you again somewhere in the Caribbean J

Lava flow - Timanfaya National Park

Upwind to Cape Verde?! Pah! I’m very happy to spend a few more days here enjoying the great weather. Swimming every day is good for body and soul. I didn’t expect to like Lanzarote so much – maybe always being surrounded by people on holiday gives the place a really nice vibe.

It is really interesting seeing Christmas decorations against dazzling blue skies and hearing Christmas music as you come back from the beach in bikini and Birkenstocks! The decorations have been appearing around the marina (including fairy lights on the walkways down to the pontoons) but the big switch on hasn’t happened yet. Most of you will know that Skip isn’t a big fan of this time of year but he seems to be coping much better with all things Christmas at around 25°C, though I haven’t put the boat decorations up yet. This may have to wait until we reach Cape Verde as the no-expense-spared glittery penguin and snowman from Trago Mills in Falmouth last year probably aren’t very stable in a sea.

FC requires a slightly different outfit here!

When we (finally) leave here there are several things I will miss, including: Atlantic FM (a German radio station which plays a great cross section of music, including lots of funk and disco); great mobile comms (if you are visiting here for any length of time and your UK mobile phone provider is going to charge you ridiculous roaming charges then get a Másmovil SIM with a 40Gb data allowance for €8.80 a month!); and friendly, healthy and happy cats (there are bespoke cat feeding sheds all along the seafront with a seemingly endless supply of water and food. The luckiest cats even live in the 5 star hotels and can choose between sleeping on a sun lounger by the pool or in the piano bar!).

As I write this the sun is shining so I’d best go and get ready for the first beach visit of December… J