Canary Islands

29 October – 31 December 2010

We left Funchal on the 29 October and, apart from 12 hours motoring when there was little wind, had a good sail to the Canaries.  We arrived at Isla Graciosa – a tiny island just off the northern point of Lanzarote - on on the 31st and had intended going into the small marina at Caleta del Sabo, but there was a very strong cross wind and little room to manoeuvre so we thought better of it and anchored off for the night.

The next morning the wind had abated a little so we moved into the marina and moored in difficult conditions, but were most thankful for the assistance from other cruisers already in there. That morning we were told about a (not unexpected) death in the family and decided this was a good place to leave the boat whilst we returned to England a week later for the funeral.

The island is very barren and Caleta del Sabo is a very pretty place with low-rise buildings, mainly white with the details picked out in bright colours. From the marina to get to the main part of the village we walked along the beach when the tide was out, but the streets are also sandy, the only paving being around the waterfront where the ferries dock. There are 3 mini supermarkets, a small butcher, a baker, a pharmacy, a surprising good hardware store, and a few restaurants and bars. Very quiet, very relaxed and completely charming.
By contrast, when we arrived in England it was cold, grey, wet and miserable, and midway through the week Anne developed what we thought was a bad cold.  On our return to Isla Graciosa she went to bed for the next few days – turned out to be a bad dose of Bronchitis. It was a couple of weeks before she was well enough to sail.

We eventually sailed on the 27th November, but once clear of the channel between Graciosa and Lanzarote the wind died and we had to motor the rest of the way to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.

We anchored for a couple of nights before going into the marina as we wanted to have our rigging replaced before the long trip across the Atlantic.

We enjoyed being in the marina at Las Palmas – there are lots of cruisers, some long-term residents and others, like us, just passing through.  It’s very friendly, sociable and everyone helps each other when needed. Las Palmas is a busy, commercial city with lots going on in the time we were there.

Jim’s sister, Margaret, came out to stay with us for 10 days in December. It was great fun having her around and we took the opportunity to visit the Vegueta area (old town) of Las Palmas around the Cathedral and the Triana area with its Art Nouveau buildings and very large Christmas crib arranged as a circle around a tree, and stayed to see the lovely Christmas lights in the evening. We also enjoyed an excellent folk singing/dancing display, click here for video, had a day out by bus visiting an attractive village in the north-west part of the island, and Anne and Margaret had some fun shopping trips together.

At Christmas the cruisers organised a gathering for the evening - bring-a-dish to share and your own BBQ meat and drink. About 50 people turned up of all nationalities – it was a really nice Christmas. At New Year’s Eve our pontoon had a bring-a-dish pontoon party, we provided the music with our Ipod and mini speakers, and people wandered in and out – again, great fun.

For more photos please click here

Madeira

8 – 28 October 2009

We finally got a good weather forecast of north-easterly winds and at the very last minute changed our minds and decided to go to Maderia before the Canaries.

Our first 24 hours were excellent and we made over 120 miles. The next 3 days were slower, and we motor-sailed the last few hours in light winds in order to arrive in daylight. We made landfall at Porto Santo, the smaller inhabited island of the Madeira group, 4 days and 4 hours after we left Portugal – a very good trip and our longest so far.

The island is small, dry and barren, but the scenery is very dramatic with a classic volcano. The north coast and the off-lying small islands have dramatic cliffs, but along the south coast is a very long beach of golden sand. The main town is lovely, mainly white painted buildings with terracotta roofs.

We stayed for 5 days (instead of the originally planned 2 days) then motored (there was no wind) to Funchal on Madeira and anchored off the town.

We were surprised to find Madeira so completely different from Porto Santo – cooler, wetter and with very lush vegetation. Funchal itself is very busy and its old town is particularly attractive. There’s very little flat land so bus rides were along hair-raising roads up the sides of mountains, along narrow ridges and bridges across valleys. In many places the roof of one house would be level with the floor of the next.

The island is famous for its levada walks along the maintenance paths of the water courses which were constructed along the side of the mountains, some of them dating from as far back as the 15th century. The walks are of varying levels of difficulty and through different types of scenery – we did 3 of the easy ones and really enjoyed them. There were fantastic views, especially from the walk to Cabo Girao – the 2nd highest sea cliffs in the world. Many houses are only accessed from these levadas and numbered along them; and it must be quite a feat to get supplies, furniture etc to the properties.

For more photos please click here

Portugal

1 Sep – 7 Oct 2009

After a long motor in very little wind we received a very friendly welcome in Viana do Costelo, our first port of call in Portugal. The town is lovely – the older part of very narrow streets and the newer (18th-19th century) part of very elegant buildings lining wide roads and squares. We took a ride on the funicular up to the Basilica de Santa Luzia which has a fantastic location high on the hill overlooking the whole river valley and coast, and has a quite awesome interior.

Our trip down the coast of Portugal consisted mainly of long motors with very little sailing, interspersed with periods of fog (apparently the weather is rather better earlier in July and August). The Portuguese are generally very friendly and helpful, and fortunately many speak good English as we find the pronunciation of the Portuguese language extremely difficult, although we can now manage some of the basics.

The places we visited were:

Povoa de Varzim – a pleasant town from where we took the Metro line into Porto. We were very surprised and impressed at the long aqueduct we saw from the train on the way. We had a marvellous day in Porto walking around the old town and over the bridge to see the boats which carry port down the river.

Leixoes – a suburb of Porto where we intended to stop only 1 night, but extended the stay for our liferaft to be serviced and were then fogbound. This did give us the opportunity to visit Porto for another day.

After anchoring for a night in the lagoon near Aveiro we moored in Nazare for a few days, a marina run by a very helpful and friendly English couple. From here we took the funicular up to the charming old town of Sitio. We also visited by bus the Batalha Monastery – an enormous and spectacular church where Henry the Navigator is buried, an extensive monastery complex with two cloisters, and an extension of 7 unfinished chapels.

Our next stop was Cascais where we were able to anchor in the bay. Cascais is a very popular and noisy holiday town full of hotels, restaurants and bars, but is very convenient for visiting Lisbon, only 12 miles away. We had a couple of days out to Lisbon, the first walking around the centre and the old town. On our second visit we were lucky to find it was a free day on public transport, so we hopped on and off the old trams, buses and a funicular to the parts further from the centre, including the Belem Monastery and Belem Tower. We also visited Sintra – a small village in a spectacular location with a moorish castle, palaces and gardens, but worth a visit in spite of the number of tourists.

After waiting a week for the wind to change to take us to the Canaries, we decided to motor to Sines which turned out to be a very attractive small town, and where we caught up with our Dutch friends, Louis and Karyn on Rita, who we met last winter in La Rochelle.

For more photos please click here

Ria de Pontevedra, Ria de Arousa, Baiona

July – end August

We sailed round to the Ria de Pontevedra and anchored off the beach at Sanxenxo.  It was quite rolly overnight so, after a trip ashore to see Porto Nova and Sanxenxo, we sailed to the anchorage off Combarro where Frank and Judy (Shalini) organised a BBQ on their boat as Phil (Olli) and Dave (Heymede) had both caught a number of mackerel on the sail up the ria.

The old part of Combarro is very attractive with narrow winding streets and still has a very large number of the granaries.  We also visited Pontevedra – a long and very wet dinghy ride away – again, very attractive and wished we had longer there.

After the others had gone south, we anchored off Bueu for a night then returned to the Ria de Arousa as we were flying back to England for Rob (Jim’s son) and Christine’s wedding at the end of July.  The wedding was wonderful, and it was lovely to meet Christine’s family and see all our family and friends.

On our return Anne for ill for a week with constant headaches and weakness (swine flu?) so we stayed in the Ria de Arousa as Sharyn (Jim’s daughter) and her family were coming out to stay with us.  We had a marvellous few days with them – lots of fun with the dinghies, the beaches, fiestas in both Pobra do Caraminal and Vilagarcia, and a magnificent firework display at midnight.  We were both very sad when they had to go home.

We then sailed down to Baiona for a few days.  Again a lovely and historic town.  This was where Christopher Columbus landed on his return from discovering America.  There is a replica of his ship, the Pinto, in the harbour – much smaller than we had imagined.  In the square outside the town hall was a stage and seating with a free summer programme of entertainment – we enjoyed an orchestral concert of film music one night, and watched some folk dancing for a time another night.  It was very popular with all seats taken and the audience standing all around the edges.

For more photos please click here

Ribadeo to Ria de Arosa

10 May – end June 2009

For the remainder of May we made our way slowly along the north coast of Spain. The weather has been generally quite bad this year with a lot of rain, strong winds and high swell, interspersed with short periods of good weather when we took the opportunity to sail on to our next port of call. We had some excellent sails, but also some long periods of motoring due to a lack of wind.

The coast in this part of Spain is incredibly beautiful – tree covered mountains with flooded river valleys between (rias). It’s marvellous to be able to anchor in the rias as it is so beautiful and peaceful.

There are many English people sailing in this area – everyone is very friendly, we invite each other for coffee, drinks etc on each other’s boats, and we all help each other out with advice, jobs and passing on information.

We have also found that the Spanish people we meet are very friendly and helpful – even the woman in the bread shop tries to teach us the names of the different Spanish loaves!

Ports of call:

Ribadeo – a small town on a hill with some interesting buildings.

Viveiro – very attractive old town with many narrow streets where we first saw the enclosed balconies which were fashionable in the 18th-19th centuries and are very common in this region.

Cedeira – at the top of the ria, the old town built on the side of a hill.

Sada marina – from here we had an interesting visit to La Coruna on a grey day, and the historic town of Betanzos which also has an amazing garden, built by a Victorian philanthropist for education and entertainment with grottos, statues, winding flights of steps, and features such as historic scenes on painted panels, scenes from different countries in relief, clock faces with times from around the World, etc.

Corme – a convenient stop to break up a long journey where we anchored for a couple of nights.

Ria de Camerinas – particularly beautiful scenery where we had a lovely walk in the woods.

We rounded Finisterre in a flat calm on 1 July and arrived in the Rias Baixos; there are 4 main rias here with only very short distances between them – a marvellous cruising ground where we intend to stay until the end of August.

Ria de Muros – anchored off Muros then visited Portosin marina briefly to fill up with water, anchored off Punta Aguieria for lunch then returned to Muros for a few days which is a very charming small town with lots of old stone buildings arcaded streets and narrow alleys.

Ria de Arosa – the largest ria in Spain with large areas of mussel farms between which you sail. We caught up with most of our friends from La Rochelle here and have been enjoying their company again. We have been anchored off the beaches at Pobra de Caraminal and Rianxo and were delighted that our new anchor held firm even in a gale.

We’ve now spent a couple of weeks in the marina at Vilagarcia, initially to celebrate a friend’s birthday and our wedding anniversary with a meal out with our friends from La Rochelle. We then stayed for a fiesta; a group of us went out and had a marvellous evening which ended with a bonfire and fireworks. We also decided to take advantage of a friend’s welding skill to have a modification made to the solar panel fixing so that both panels could be permanently mounted above the bimini. This has now been done and we are about to sail around to the next ria for a week or so.

For more photos click here

Isle d’Oleron, Gijon

2 – 8 May

We finally left La Rochelle on the 2nd May for a short motor (no wind) over to St Denis on the Isle d’Oleron. On the trip over we tested out the steering, checked the compass and generally checked over the boat, ensuring everything was ready for the long trip to Spain the next day.

Departed from France on Sunday 3rd May and set sail for Spain. The first half of the trip was fairly windy and we had a good sail, although Anne especially was suffering from nausea and lack of sleep. We had to motor for around 9 hours when the wind dropped, but sailed for the last few hours, arriving in Gijon around 11.00 am on 5th May – a trip of 46 hours.

Gijon is a large town, mostly having been rebuilt having been destroyed in the Spanish civil war, much of it in the original early 20th century style, with only a small older area remaining from before that time.

First impressions - the Spanish are generally very friendly and helpful. We are only just beginning to learn the language, but many speak some English and those that don’t are tolerant of our lack of Spanish and help us with attempts at speaking it and the pronunciation. Also, Spanish women are generally dressed very stylishly – Anne definitely feels she needs new clothes!!

Whilst in Gijon we had a very enjoyable day out to Oviedo, the capital of Asturias. A lovely city with much early 20th century architecture in the new town and an old quarter full of historic and attractive buildings as well as a large and bustling market.

For more photos please click here

La Rochelle - Winter 2008-09

25 September 2008 – 1 May 2009

We settled down and soon met a number of other liveaboards who were also staying in La Rochelle over the winter. We started swapping books, joining each other for tea/coffee and drinks, and helping each other with advice and assistance on a wide variety of problems and jobs on the boats.

We were encouraged by the others to make the repairs to our pedestal ourselves, with parts manufactured and welded by a local machine shop. With a great deal of assistance (by Frank on Shalini) we went ahead with the repair. The machine shop did a fantastic job on manufacturing new parts and welding; the pedestal has been reassembled by Frank & Jim, the paint system applied by Anne and allowed to harden for a couple of weeks, and the steering was reinstalled by Jim and is now in good working order.

In December we spent a couple of days in Paris with Frank & Judy – a day walking around enjoying Paris and the Christmas lights, and a day at the Paris Boat Show.

During the winter (November and January) we had a couple of visits to England to see family and friends – fortunately missing all the snow and ice.

At the end of March we visited Roger and Val (who we had met in South Brittany) at their home in Saintes. They made us very welcome and we had a lovely time. They showed us both Saintes and a nearby walled town called Brouage, both of which are very attractive and interesting places.

At the end of April we had a couple of days out – to Rochefort and St Martin on the Isle de Re. Both very enjoyable but quite different. Rochefort is a typical French town with a naval dockyard full of historic buildings; St Martin is a very picturesque walled island town with many tourists even this early in the year.

For more pictures please click here