Lanzarote Relocation

Here is the next instalment of Paul, Sally and Megan – and their trip to Lanzarote in 2008… by boat.

If you missed the first post – click here – Week One

Monday 23rd June

Still in Santander, we bike to the shopping centre, which is about three and a half kms away from the marina. Paul and Megan are on their bikes and poor old ships cook is walking it is not too hot but it takes us about 2 hours. When we get there, Mega thinks it is fabulous. As you walk in there is a shop called “Glow” it is dark and the shop is full of magical, peculiar glow in the dark objects. It is no way near the size of Peterbourgh Queensgate. We also go into the sports shop, it is massive it had things for diving, surfing, windsurfing, roller skating and other manly bits and bobs Paul loved it so did Megan. Then we eat at some Chinese sort of place it is not very nice. We head home, in total it is about eight and a half km to get there and back on the way back it got really hot we had no water with us no sun block no hats by the time we get back we are all shattered. This is the live of liveaboards; hours spent provisioning, and using a shopping trolley that we tie behind one of the bikes, Paul tearing of down hills forgetting the trolley is attached to his bike, so that our shopping is flung out all over, much to the amusement of the people walking past.
How did we have time to work?

Tuesday 24th June

We get up and chill out until we set sail at 3pm for Gijon about 86 nautical miles away. We have decided to leave later and sail overnight so that Megan can sleep through most of the trip and we love night sailing.
Once again  the wind was in the wrong direction  so we sail for miles out to sea then after about 6 hours  and  we tack turn back in to land at which point we give up and motor sail the rest of the way. Once again, we are joined by dolphins that came to play, jumping out of the water and splashing down their sides. We see several big boats during the night; fortunately, the radar seems to work well, as they do alter their courses to avoid us.

Wednesday 25thJune

What coastline we can see looks fantastic, very green and rocky. With dramatic cliffs.
102 nautical miles later having had winds force 1-3, we arrive at Gijon early in the morning and moor up at the visitors pontoon thankfully their is a French couple who take our ropes as we are very  high from the  very small wooden pontoon. We book in and then move to a much nicer berth.
Gijon is lovely we have a walk around the Cimadevilla part lots of narrow fisherman streets showing how this city is linked strongly to the sea, fisherman streets it is like going back in time, the buildings are very ornate and old steeped in their historical past.
Meg and Paul have a cake from a very posh looking shop where the women wear very fancy clothes, and wrap the cakes in gold wrapping with a ribbon; I thought it would cost a bomb, but only 3 euros!
Walking around feels a million miles away from England, no casual wear here for the walks on the promenade everyone dresses up for the occasion.
We get back to the boat relax,  we meet with some English sailors we have seen in Santander they have bought a boat with their retirement funds and are sailing around to the Med, and then spending 7-8 months a year on it. The rest of the time in the UK, what a wonderful way to retire.

Thursday 26th June

Megan writes about her day,
Today we go to the aquarium in Gijon we have to walk from the marina, when we are near the aquarium there are lot of flats in the shape of cruise ships. When we get into the aquarium we firstly go to the section where all the things like salmon, eels, trout, sturgeon are there are  also a couple of very cute otters! The scenery was set as if you were walking on a rugged path through the mountains it was meant to be the Cantabrian River, which is a river close to Gijon. Then we went to the Bay of Biscay known as the Cantabrian Sea to the locals, inside this part there are rainbow wrasse, red mullet, rays, turbot, cuttlefish, rock mollusks and crustaceans. We then go to the Atlantic where you could see lobsters, crabs, jellyfish, octopuses and swaying in the current, the herring, mackerel and White Sea bream. We go to a section where you can see a few penguins they were lovely they come up the glass when they are in the water and you could see them swim they are very streamlined creatures. We go down an escalator, which is inside the shark tank obviously protected by glass! There are many sharks. Then we finally come into an area, which has lots of rubbish scattered around the room the bits of rubbish all have labels on which they tell you how long it takes the object to decompose, it was very surprising some things took up to 100 years! Plastic bags and plastic can rings are so dangerous to marine life; we have seen many bags at sea. This has been a good visit.
We get back to the boat and get ready to go out, so we can watch the semi-final of football! Spain gets into the final! Lots of noise and celebrating all night for the locals.

Friday 27th June

We walk around Gijon trying to find a launderette, with no luck, back to hand washing clothes again; I now know how my grandmother must have felt!
Found a butcher though and we manage to buy a chicken and some kebabs, even though he speaks no English.
We seem to attract seagulls, maybe due to the fact Megan feeds them, much to Paul’s annoyance. One of the seagulls only has one leg.
We meet several more interesting sailors, a group of Spanish men and 3 French men, who seem to be enjoying the local wine.
We relax on the boat until gone 11pm then go for a walk around the bit of the town nearby, it is absolutely packed, with young people, families and pensioners, it seems weird that they are all out socialising together and so late.

Saturday 28th June

Get up late again, the live of a liveaboard, so wonderful after years of having to be up before 06.30am.
We spend the day on the boat until 4pm when we go to the beach; it was busy, no English people though. This is not a normal English travel destination, but it is beautiful.
Megan goes into the sea, she must be mad as it is freezing.
We stay until late then go back to the boat have the chicken that was cooked in our new skillet, (a saucepan you use, with a lid that cooks like an oven but quicker. It is a brilliant invention that we got from a caravan show).
Gijon is a beautiful place; however, we have planned our journey to Lanzarote and must move on tomorrow night to the next place.
We tend to night sail as we get a nearly a full day at the place we are leaving, Megan can sleep on the way so it is not so boring for her, and you then get more time at the next stop.
In addition, it saves paying for a night at a marina (which is quite expensive) when you arrive at about 8pm.

Sunday 29th June

Still in Gijon, walk around the old fishing part of the town. Then back to the boat, to chill out.
Paul rescues a pigeon from the marina that had been attacked by seagulls and is drowning. He swam and got it out, poor bird was shaking do not know if it survived. An American bloke watched and thought Paul was mad going in the water to get the bird.
We speak again to the English couple we had meet in Santander, on  yacht Alycon, their son is Ian Purcy and will be sailing in the Olympics. We are meeting some very interesting folk on our travels, all with wonderful sailing tales and experiences.
We go into town to see the Spanish celebrate their football win, they were very noisy and I am convinced they are shooting guns, perhaps only firecrackers.
They are still celebrating at 7am the next day. The Spanish sure love to party.

You may wish to read further adventures too!

Week Three

To find out more about the Cook family, and their yacht, “Moonchild”, you can visit their website: Sail Lanzarote

Sail Lanzarote operates bareboat charters out of Puerto Calero, as well as day trips. We have been lucky enough to go out on “Moonchild”, and coast around from the Rubicon Marina… past the Papagayo beaches, and into Puerto Calero.

Highly recommended!

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