Position: 28:51:47N 13:48:87W

Marina Rubicon, Lanzarote, Canary Islands

Marina Rubicon is a smart marina close to the resort of Playa Blanca.  It has all mod cons and the contrast after Graciosa couldn’t be more different!  It is like a Gunwharf Quays or Ocean Village in that there are lots of restaurants and shops right at the top of the pontoons.  There are also a number of hotels dotted around the vicinity.  The marina has it’s own swimming pool which, in our time here, has been almost always very quiet.  In all, it’s a very pleasant place to base yourself for a little holiday..

Before we had even tied our warps, the Volvo agent was on the pontoon waiting for us, with a shiny new (and very very expensive) alternator.  After I had gone with him to empty the cash machine, we settled in and reacquainted ourselves with such luxuries as mains electricity (we last had shore power in Porto Santo) and water on the pontoon.  I love living the simple life but I also love coming back to civilization, and you certainly appreciate luxuries more when you have had to live without them.

We have ended up staying at Rubicon for a week and a half – the longest we’ve stopped anywhere.  It’s just been a very relaxing place – our daily routine has been something along the lines of – morning: school / jobs, afternoon: pool.  In terms of school, Millie has had one of those breakthrough weeks where she’s suddenly picked up basic reading and writing and from needing to be coerced into doing it, is now desperate to soak up more.  Jemima is improving her fine motor skills although she is a long way behind where Emilia was at this age.  She loves school and is keen to try everything.

Pool life, Marina Rubicon

We decided that it would be better to work through our boat job list whilst we were here, rather than leaving it to Las Palmas where we will have to contend with 300 other boats all trying to do the same thing.  Getting everything done here has other advantages – (1) the pool is great for when I need to take the boat apart and the kids need to be off the boat; (2) all the jobs we do and the new parts have a chance to be tested on the 100M sail to Las Palmas, rather than for the first time on the Transat; (3) there is a good boatyard & chandlery.

None of the boat jobs were critical but several were important.  These included hauling the boat out to inspect the bottom (no obvious problems from our hitting the bottom twice!), fitting a 3^rd water tank to maximize our water capacity (now 400 litres), checking for chafe on electrics, gas and water pipes, sorting out the alternator & spare, and a hundred small jobs that I am sure every yacht must have prior to a transatlantic crossing.  I am sure that when we arrive in Las Palmas we will find it is extremely hectic however prepared we think we are, so I am glad that we won’t be arriving with a long list of things still to do.  We even managed to scrub the decks and give the varnish work a new coat – the first time we’ve got to the “aesthetic” jobs since we bought her!

Nutmeg having her bottom scrubbed, Lanzarote

Hiring a car here is very cheap so we hired one for a couple of days and drove round the island.  I think most Brits who have not been to Lanzarote will have a preconceived view of what it is like – probably involving lager louts and lots of hideous hotels and tourist traps.  I have to say, I have been pleasantly surprised.  It is really quite a beautiful place – very barren after the lushness of Madeira but personally I like the desert and volcanic landscape.  It would be a good place for off-roading or mountain biking.

We drove through the resorts, just to see how bad it really was.  It wasn’t bad at all – a few “Red Lion Pub”s and places offering English Breakfasts, and lots of pasty-looking chubby tourists but it certainly wasn’t as tacky and tasteless as I had feared.  Or perhaps I myself am more tacky and tasteless than I thought I was…

We had a lovely lunch in a beautiful restaurant/vinyard high up in the hills, overlooking one of the few farmed areas of land in the South of the island.  Because most of the South is covered in volcanic rock and lava flows, there is little fertile soil, plus a lot of wind and not much rain, so the Lanzaroteans have built hundreds of small crescent-shaped walls each protecting a vine grown in a hollow.  It seems like a very inefficient way of doing things, but the wine is good and it obviously kept a lot of people busy for a long time which must have been a good thing.

Lanzarotean vinyard

Much of southern Lanzarote was shaped by a series of cataclysmic volcano eruptions in the 1730s.  This wiped out more than 20 villages and clearly changed the coastline as you can see the volcanic rock goes right into the sea.  It has left an eerie moonscape of lava, volcanic rock and sand which, by its vast scale and hostile jagged shards of rock, still evokes a feeling of awe at what this place must have been like 280 years ago.

Lanzarote moonscape

Volcanic landscape

We celebrated Sarah’s 35^th birthday on the 1^st November, with pancakes for breakfast before sending her off to the 5* Princess Yaiza hotel spa for a couple of hours of indulgent scrubbing and rubbing.  She returned rosy pink and glowing, and Jemima, who had missed her Mummy whilst she had been in the Spa, was most upset as Mummy didn’t smell the same!!!

Sarah’s 35^th Birthday

Jemima being affectionate

Emilia