Fuerteventura
It was a still day when we woke and there was some cloud cover. We were moving on today, so some provisioning was required. We had breakfast and then some went to the supermarket. We had watched a Beneteau 60 moor beside us the night before and it turns out they are going to do the Arc (Atlantic Race for cruisers) this year (we had done it in 2019) and are in their way to Grand Canaria for the start. We were not impressed by their mooring skills as the Skipper had misjudged the wind and had scrapped his hull badly in 2 places. It looked a new boat – 2022. Mark though he should offer to give him a mooring lesson.
When we were ready, we set off and planned to go to an Island just off Fuerteventura called Isla de Lobos (islet of wolves – which is what they called monk seals that used to live her now apparently extinct). Fuerteventura was the next island south of Lanzarote and it is the second largest island after Tenerife and is also the closest to Africa of the Canaries at 60 miles. It is also one of the windiest islands and the wind and kite boarding championships are held here. It has 30 miles of sandy beaches blown from the Sahara Desert and it is 75 km long and 25 wide. The interior is apparently arid and desert like (like Lanzarote) and the coastline rugged. Its landscape is more due to erosion than eruptions as its last volcanic eruption was millions of years ago. Bernard Moitessier, a famous sailo, loved the island and said the island impressed with its grandeur, solitude and vast beaches, its high dunes of white sand and its clear waters. Not so sure about the solitude anymore.
Puerto Calero had been a good base for the last few days and there was little between it and the south of Lanzarote. We said goodbye to the tourist boats and the yellow submarine which took streams of visitors out each day. The cliffs were rugged to the south, but we were greeted by a pod of dolphins fishing as they bodies arched and their fins breaking water. As we continued south the wind began to fill and instead of the usual Northeast this was West to Northwest. We manged to sail past the south of Lanzarote which clearly had a large town on the bottom and Fuerteventura loomed up and the Isle de Lobos to its east, This small island is a nature reserve and triangular with volcanic cones the highest being 109 meters.
We sailed on and began to see the east coast of Fuerteventura which had towns on the coast and beaches and a similar landscape to Lanzarote internally. The sand dunes near Corralejo were visible and was roughly opposite the island. We sailed around and saw where the anchorage was and found a spot in about 8-9m of water. As we approached the Island, we noticed how clear and blue the water was. It looked like we could see the bottom and I think we could as it was all sand. We had a swim off the boat, and it was clear white sand and we could see clearly Stormbird’s hull, now a little dirty as expected and our anchor buried deep in the sand below. There were a number of boats present and lots of ferries bringing people back and forth to the island. Mankind ruining things again.
We got the dinghy out and decided to go an explore the shallow lagoons the island has some of which were round a rocky corner. This meant motoring slowly with a lookout of Corinne and Jules on the front and Mark with a lead line (line with a lump of lead with measurements on the rope which tells you the depth. This is how ships in the past calculated the depth before electronic depth logs). We wanted to avoid low rocks which we could see on our chart, so we picked our way through using the light sandy bits to help us navigate. We eventually got into one lagoon and anchored the dinghy. We then snorkled and paddle boarded in the lagoon which had clear blue water and lots of fish. This was away from the madding crowd and the party catermerans which continuously came to the anchorage. Luckily, we did not hit anything and we felt quite adventurous, although getting into the dinghy from the water was quite a challenge.
On our return we chilled in the cockpit and watched the world go by. We then saw that a yacht near us had lost its dinghy which was floating way. It had obviously not been tied on properly. It was drifting south. Suddenly a man dived in from the yacht and began to swim to the dinghy. However, it was a long way and was also on the route that the water taxis took. The first one nearly hit him in the water and as the second came by we sounded our horn and alerted the taxi to the man in the water which would have been very difficult to see. However, the man got to his dinghy and took it back. He had been lucky.
We enjoyed the sunset although it was still quite windy and some 17-20 kts and gradually the boats departed until we were the last one. We dined on lemon chicken and vegetables. It had been an adventurous day and we were somewhere new.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions – do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com