Madeira and Canary Islands

During the 8 hour crossing from Porto Santo to Madeira we were blessed with 2 whales, unfortunately these where 50m or so away from us and swam off, one turned towards us and dived and we didn’t see him again.

Funchal (Madeira)

Funchal harbour and anchorage

We arrived in Funchal (Madeira) after an overnight stop in Machico harbour and anchored in the bay. We were made up to hear that despite the rumours, they were not charging to anchor and they even let us use the showers just with a deposit for the key (so we weren’t complaining that the heads had no sprinklers so were just like hose pipes!). What a lovely place Madeira is. We watched the cruise ships come in during the mornings and leave in the evenings, and went on some brilliant mountain walks.

Funchal market square

Smileyface cruise ship

Keith and I on one of our walks

One walk in particular was over and into Nuns Valley. The scenery was stunning! The bus journey to and from the place can only be described as a white knuckle ride, especially for Keith who suffers from vertigo! The sheer drops alongside the roads and the speed with which the drivers throw the buses around is well worth the trip. Only 20mins into the 3½ hour Nuns valley walk the soles of my old faithful walking boots decided to come unstuck flapping around like great wagging tongues. I had to do the rest of the walk with elastic bands wrapped around them and then committed them to the bin on our return to Funchal!

Beautiful views into Nuns Valley

After a few days in the anchorage the wind changed direction and brought with it an Atlantic swell. We rolled about on the anchor for a few days which was really uncomfortable and made doing anything really difficult. Getting in and out of the dinghy to go ashore almost seemed like an acrobatic act jumping at the right moment and hoping not to land in the sea (although it is nice and warm now so not such a frightening prospect).

Rapau rolling in the atlantic swell in the achorage

We were introduced to a restaurant which did 3 courses and coffee for 8 euros (and cheap wine by the litre) by Chris and Barbara from another boat so we then had to visit it again just so we could introduce more people to it! Then my sister Jill had a little baby boy and so we had to go again to wet the baby’s head (all forced upon us you see).

Graciosa (Canary Islands)

We crossed from Madeira to the Canaries in 2½ days which was quite quick, we had a mixture of some wind, then not enough and had to motor, then a good wind on the beam doing 7½ knots for most of the last 24 hours. Sleeping was like being on a bucking bronco though and I had some weird dreams in my 2 hour down time!

Rapau in the cheap marina at Graciosa (only 8 euros a night)


Graciosa is a tiny island 6km by 3km at the north end of Lanzarote. It is like a cross between the Wild West and a moonscape. There are no real made up roads and all the flat topped white houses are just in sandy type of streets, there are beach bars and then behind the only little ‘town’ is a series of volcanic cones surrounded by sand and shrub. The residents seem to consist of drop outs and run around in old Land Rovers.

Looking at Graciosa from the marina

The desert streets of Graciosa


But it was really nice and relaxed and far from the maddening tourist crowds of the Canaries. We more or less just chilled out there and I went for a couple of runs along the Land Rover tracks feeling as if I was running on the moon (not that I have ever run on the moon of course).

My running ground 'on the moon'

Unfortunately our trip towards Teneriffe (which is our destination by the middle of the month to pick up Pete) now seems to be prevented from being a series of ‘leisurely hops’ as the weather is coming bad at the weekend so we made a decision to head for Arrecife in Lanzarote as there is a good safe harbour in which to ‘hide’ from the weather for a few days. That will mean though that we will probably have to make the thirty odd hour trip to Teneriffe from Arrecife next week missing out any other places we may have visited to break our journey.

Arrecife (Lanzarote)

We arrived in the safe harbour at Arrecife only to find that anchoring room was in short supply. There was this Spanish guy living on what looked like an old catamaran with a huge slavering Doberman type dog, tied up to another old catamaran. He was doing a roaring trade in letting out the moorings around (the Spanish guy not the dog). He had let one out to Kate and Caspar just before we arrived, so we spoke to him and after some haggling as to the price, he found us a mooring and then he snorkelled in his Y fronts down to the huge mooring anchor! We later saw him with a French yacht doing the same thing. We have no idea if he is anything to do with these moorings or just making a quick buck! Still as long as we are safely tucked up during the bad weather we don’t mind (he assured us we would be OK as his catamaran (home) is directly behind us so it is in his interest we are well secured!) We still stayed with the boat when the wind was howling. We later saw the Spanish guy taking his dog ashore on a surf board! That’s what I would call a sea dog! Then he jumped into a rubber dinghy and went ashore (not on his own).

The 'sea' dog!

The predicted winds have been blowing with a vengeance (25-35 knots with higher gusts) for 3 days now and no sign of a let up until Wednesday (2 days away). It is making getting ashore a very difficult and wet event in the dinghy! Hoping it may drop off slightly this afternoon so we can make a run for it to collect stores and get this blog posted. We had hoped to make for Teneriffe on Tuesday (10th Nov) 160 miles away, but it is looking like we will have to wait till later on Wednesday now as we don’t want to leave in these conditions if we don’t have to.

Watching the large tuna being unloaded from a fishing vessel

We went for a walk to the top of one of the volcanoes with Caspar and Kate (they are here on a catamaran and we went waking with them in Madeira also), it was a good hard walk but looking into the crater of the volcano and eating our lunch looking over the vast lava fields was fantastic and well worth the walk.