The Salty Seamen Crusing Staff discover the Canary Islands.
A enjoyable and informing weblog written by Joseph Dieber and the intrepid Salty Seamen Crusing Staff’s journey crusing the Canary Islands. Joseph is a NauticEd Bareboat Constitution Grasp graduate with Worldwide SLC certification.
We had our trip weeks secured, journey itineraries booked, and most significantly permission from the wives for an additional Salty Seamen Crusing Staff trip. This time journey would deliver us to the Canary Islands, a small Spanish archipelago 60 miles off the coast of Africa within the Atlantic Ocean.
Consuming crusing media akin to magazines and podcasts, I had solely ever heard of the Canary Islands as a place to begin or break throughout numerous Atlantic crossings. I had by no means thought-about them for cruising functions till seeing a put up from NauticEd about Lava Charters. My crusing buddies and I are all the time on the lookout for distinctive and difficult crusing places moderately than the widespread, protected, tried-and-true crusing journeys. The final weblog article I wrote, for instance, was about our shoulder-season journey to sail out of Stockholm. The Canary Islands appeared to examine all of the bins being each unusual and considerably formidable.
Attending to the Canaries includes a visit via Madrid, with a connecting flight of about 3-4 hours. Lava Charters is predicated out off of the southern port metropolis of Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote, which is the japanese most island within the Canary chain. A simple 10-minute cab experience from the airport introduced us to the marina.
Stocking up on provides on the native chain grocery retailer was pretty simple. Not like extra fashionable European locations, there weren’t plenty of locals that spoke English. Fortunately considered one of my crewmembers was fluent in Spanish. Even with out his language abilities, I believe we might have been wonderful utilizing the everyday cadre of hand gestures and translation apps.
Jan at Lava Charters and everybody else of their workplace have been on the ball about getting ready the boat and offering orientation in a well timed and environment friendly method. In addition they had a stocked chandlery for forgotten provides.
We selected to cruise in a Dufour 412, which supplied every of us our personal cabin and had all the facilities that the typical charterer would require. There was, nonetheless, a problem with the home battery unable to carry a cost for a complete night time and the blower working constantly, draining the starter battery (for causes we by no means found). Whereas these technical points on a constitution boat might be stress inducing, I are likely to take pleasure in among the added challenges of downside fixing (and cracking a beer afterwards to have a good time arriving at an answer). Fortunately cellphone protection was nice across the islands they usually had somebody obtainable 24-7 from Lava Charters to supply mechanical recommendation.
Extra so than a most places at which I’ve chartered, this felt like extra superior cruising. The Canaries are positively on the market. The complete Atlantic Ocean surrounds you with little or no protecting buffer. The coves and bays within the Canaries don’t supply the extent of security that abounds within the BVI. Swells might be giant and wind gusts whip as much as 25-30 knots on any given day. There are a handful of crusing faculties across the islands that use the acceleration zones between the islands for his or her foul climate coaching. A crusing floor within the US that supplied us an identical stage of problem was the northern Channel Islands in California.
Earlier than chartering, Lava did require both the Worldwide Certificates of Competence (ICC) from RYA or the Worldwide Crusing License and Credentials (SLC). Having neither of those, I spent the months earlier than this journey getting ready and passing the necessities for the SLC. Particular thanks exit to Bruce Schwaegel at Landfall Crusing for the teachings and the testing that received me able to deal with the challenges that the Canaries supplied.
Our journey concerned greater than a 100-mile circumnavigation of Lanazarote counter-clockwise. An extended first day sail from the marina at Arrecife landed us on the neighboring island of La Grasiosa, which is nationwide park land and due to this fact required acquisition of a allow (utilized for a couple of weeks forward of time). Playa Francesca at La Grasiosa was a good looking protected seashore with an overlooking volcano and a small resort city close by with a energetic bar and restaurant scene. This was most likely my favourite cease, and we spent an additional night time at anchorage right here that included grilling an entire octopus that we bought at a neighborhood market.
The subsequent lengthy sail took us across the southwest facet of Lanzarote to Isla de Lobos, which sits simply off the coast of the following island down the Canary chain of Fuerteventura. This island is sort of completely uninhabited, which allowed for extra volcano mountain climbing, swimming/snorkeling, and other people watching as ferried vacationers and surfers from close by resorts made their approach out and in.
Earlier than returning to the marina at Arrecife, one extra night time was spent at Playa Papagayo on the southern finish of Lanzarote. The seashore was lovely. Sadly, the prevailing wind and swell didn’t permit for a lot of a go to and actually examined our abilities and stomachs in a single day and properly into the following day because the Easterly picked up sand from the Sahara Desert and added a hazy yellow fog to the air.
On our circumnavigation we caught to the anchorages out of desire, however there are a good variety of good marinas across the islands that will permit for that choice, as properly. A majority of the marinas are situated on the south facet of the islands due to the predominant northeasterly wind.
Earlier than our departure again to the true world, we spent a day having fun with a guided tour of Lanzarote that permit us go to among the viewpoints of the island overlooking our earlier anchorages. We additionally received to discover the spectacular Timenfaya Nationwide Park, which carefully resembles Volcanoes Nationwide Park in Hawaii.
Having been house for a couple of days now, I’m reflecting on what an journey this journey has been. It might be excellent for somebody who has chartering expertise and needs a problem that’s each distinctive and unforgettable. A full week permits for a small style of the realm, however it might be higher as a multi-week journey. I’m already envisioning a return go to, as I wish to discover extra of the western Canary Islands and grill some extra recent octopi.
