Lanzarote stands out as a rather special place amongst the Canary Islands. This is mostly so, because of the work of Cesar Manrique, a late artist, who has like nobody else, left his imprint on his beloved island.
He had an eye for the beautiful pleasing looks and found many ways to combine the volcanic black and brown tones with human developments. Now small white houses blend in with black ashes and green spots where protected grapes grow. And while there are some big and ugly tourist developments that spoil the other Canaries, they are not too many here.
He had an eye for the beautiful pleasing looks and found many ways to combine the volcanic black and brown tones with human developments. Now small white houses blend in with black ashes and green spots where protected grapes grow. And while there are some big and ugly tourist developments that spoil the other Canaries, they are not too many here. Having visited here many times, we still look very much forward to look at all the pleasant sites over and over again.
And this time it was even easier than ever to reach all the attractive places not having to drive for too long. Being in the new Marina in Arrecife is being in the center of the island, with Manrique's first lava cave house right outside the town and several other must see attractions just north.
But aside of various Manrique traces, pictured above, Lanzarote also has a Volcanic National Park that is a must see and in its very own way is as pleasing to the eye as Cesar Manrique's wonderful art.
We spent a week touring the island from Arrecife and found that, despite not being completely finished and maybe not as pretty as if Manrique would have had his hand in it, the new marina now is the preferred place to dock in Lazarote.
As this is again a year with appointments in Galicia in August, we need to keep our time in the Canaries shorter and so we skipped the bigger islands again and sailed over night to the other end of the group, to La Palma.
Santa Cruz is a nice little town, that is always worth a visit and this year a lot of paint is used to make it look even prettier.
Yet, the climate on the east side is always cooler and often overcast and the marina is notorious for the surge that jerks boats around. All-in-all not so bad that we wouldn't come back every year.
Sailing between La Palma and Gomera is most of the time a rough ride, with acceleration zones south of La Palma and more so in the Northwest of Gomera. It was no different this year and you are well salted in when you finally arrive in the void of Gomera at Valle Gran Rey.
We took a car for a day and inspected the known places of San Sebastian and Santiago in the south. It wasn't a great days and we were driving in fog most of the time. San Sebastian cold and windy, but Santiago in the south much nicer and a great meal there.
In Gomera we usually do not go into San Sebastian with the boat, but rather prefer to anchor on the west side under the towering cliffs opposite of the village of Vueltas. Most of the time it si astoundingly calm there and the new very long breakwater of Vueltas also offers a bit of new protection to the anchorage.
This year the sail from Gomera back to La Palma was not the wild 40kn wind ride as last year, but still enough to make good progress with tripple reefed main and a reefed staysail.
But once in the lee of La Palma, the wind suddenly disappears and one fins himself in different world, warm, the feeling of summer vacation. And the marina in Tazacorte is the place to go and enjoy that feeling.
It is no wonder that we spent the last 10 days in this place and leisurely explored the island from there.
La Palma is off course entirely different to Lanzarote, but also has its very beautiful sites, but here those are where humans haven't interfered. The pictures below give a sight at the are examples of the pretty sites.
Tommorow, Sunday June 14, we plan to leave La Palma and sail some 625 miles to Santa Maria in the Azores. More soon from there....
