El Hierro
It rained again in the night and we woke early to prepare for our trip to El Hierro. It also rained as we were having breakfast and then as we prepared to leave. As the marina had a gate which went down, we had to wait whilst it was being lowered before we could leave our pontoon. The rain fell and then we left the marina bound for El Hierro. I noticed that the bow thruster sounded better so the oil we made sure the fitting could provide was hopefully working. The forecast which we downloaded from Predict Wind was for 13-17 kts from the Northeast and 1.8-1.9m swells. It was about 54 nm.
El Hierro is the most south and westerly of the Canary Islands and triangular in shape. It has 500 visible volcanic cones including the most recent ones which came out of the seabed just two miles off the southern tip in 2011 and 2012. Christopher Columbus sailed from here as his last port in 1462 before discovering America and it was thought at that point the end of the world. It is the second smallest of the Islands and measures just 30km from one end to the other (103.75 sq. miles). It is also the youngest Island formed less than a million years ago. About 50,000 years ago it was hit by a massive earthquake that took away a third of its land mass. It is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. It has a varied terrain that includes landscapes like Lanzarote. It is also known as Isla del Meridiano (Meridian Island) as it was the prime meridian until it was transferred to Greenwich in 1885. Valverde is its capital some 570 m above the port of Puerto de la Estaca (which is where we are headed) and it has just a population of about 2,000.
Its main source of income is agriculture although tourism is growing. The highest peak is Malpaso, in the centre of the Island and this is 1,501m above sea level. It has a lot of Canarian pine and laurel forests high in the centre and roadsides apparently lined with flowers. There are few beaches and some rock pools in the North of the Island.
We left the port and the wind seemed relatively light about 10-13 kts so we put up the genoa and a reefed main(reduced size) as one forecast suggested it could be between 15-30 kts. Force 4-7. The course we could make with the wind behind us would take us between La Gomera and El Hierro so not fully in the direction we wanted to go. However, we hoped the wind would come round more to the Northeast as forecast. As we left La Palma’s shores, we could see a rainbow over its side and quite a lot of cloud on its high regions. We sailed down its east side and the extent of the banana and other crops was very visible as well as its green landscape. We passed the airport and could watch the planes land from some distance.
The wind did come round a bit which helped our general direction, but it also increased from 13 kt to 20-24 kts and the swell increased so we were soon cracking along at 7.5-9 lts but the swell was on our quarter and we were rolling a bit. This strength of wind was not expected but we continued for some time. I saw it go up to 27-29 kts i.e., force 7 and thought we ought to reduce sail a bit so we changed the genoa (front sail) for the Staysail (second and smaller front sail) which did not reduce our speed that much but we felt more in control.
We had a chicken and avocado wrap for lunch and the sea was lovely and blue but there were quite a lot of white horses which gave white splashes of colour everywhere. There was no one else out here and unfortunately, we saw no whales or dolphins, but we did see the odd seabird gliding very close to the waves and twisting and turning its wings to the contour of the waves. As we began to reach the southern point of La Palma it was still covered a lot in cloud. We suddenly saw on our chart plotter another boat coming from the west side of La Palma and heading toward La Gomera. Goodness gracious there is life out there. It was called Hey Sandy (the owner must like Greese!) and was a 16m sailboat. Our chart plotter tells us the nearest point of collision and in terms of time how long that would be. Although it was 3 and 30 minutes away it was saying we would only be about 300m apart so we would have to keep an eye out. Over time it gradually got closer, but we could not see it visually until it was 3nm away. We put our collision setting on and as we were going slightly faster, we should pass in front of it. However due to the waves and swell the calculations kept changing. Soon we could see the boat quite clearly and he had only a tiny handkerchief of genoa out and very little main. He was sailing very conservatively and was rolling quite badly in the swell. We thought if he sailed a bit faster and had more sail out this would be more stable. We passed within 350 yards of each other and that was it – we saw no one else on the water all day. We saw no-one in the cockpit.
El Hierro started to appear on the horizon and we were making a reasonable course for it. It was clear that we may be a few miles off the waypoint which we had put on the end of the pier of the Puerto de La Estac.
As we got closer, we saw that the peak of El Hierro was in cloud, that it was a much smaller Island and that it was quite rocky. We continued our rocky and rolly ride and sailed almost past the waypoint so that we could gybe and then sail for it. Gybe means to put the boats rear through the wind rather than tack which means putting the bow (front) through the wind. When we gybed, we only had 3 miles to go and before long we took the sails down and were heading for the pier. We called the port to ask permission to enter and they were waiting for us and will have seen us on the chart plotter.
It was good to get round the breakwater as the waves died and so did the wind. We felt flat again!. We prepared the lines (ropes to moor) and put our fenders out (cushions against the pontoon) and motored into the marina to moor at our reserved place. The policeman of the port met us and helped us with our lines. I then went to his office to check in. Luckily, he spoke good English. There was a ferry terminal as usual next to us.
We had supper – burgers and ratatouille whilst we watched the ferry dock with some red wine we had bought from La Palma.
The port we were in was quite remote and had a large cliff around it and you could clearly see the road meandering up. There were a few buildings and the ferry terminal but little else. The main town and capital was 7 km away. I ordered a car for the next two days online and hope that we can pick it up at the port as booked.
It had been a great day’s sail of 59nm and it had taken us 9 hours with only 42 minutes of use of the engine. It had been a rocky rolly day, but Stormbird had looked after us and we commented that the waves can throw a 44 ton boat around quite easily.
We were now ready to explore El Hierro.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions – do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com