Start of An Anchor Voyage-Part 1

After 2 weeks in the marina, it felt so good hoisting the sails again and feeling the cool breeze against our faces! The sea was smooth, the sun was shining and Libra was gracefully gliding over the sea in our upwind sailing. We had a nice speed and reached our destination fairly quickly; Playa Quemada.

Playa Quemada is a beautiful beach in east side of Lanzarote. There is a tiny village with traditional white houses and a few restaurants, but the most impressive view comprises of volcanic, rocky mountains across the seashore. As soon as we anchored, another Dutch boat joined in, Tutti. Jenneke and Bart are a lovely young Dutch couple almost as crazy as we are, probably even more! They wish to cross the Atlantic with their steel boat Tutti.

The next day, November 21st another Dutch boat anchored close to us, the Wandelaar. We decided to explore the shore, so we filled up our backpack, wore our swimsuits and hopped into the dinghy. Once again, however, the dinghy ride proved much more adventurous than anyone intended! The waves were smashing on the shore and despite my best efforts on hopping out on time, a wave rushed over me, completely soaking me up! I started laughing and stripped down to my bikini. This little incident would not ruin our mood. We relaxed to the dark sandy beach for a while and watched a beautiful sunset. A little later we decided to return to the boat. This time, I tried to be as precise as possible! I managed indeed to hop in the dinghy on time, however, I did not managed to sit low and a huge wave rushed over, flipping the dinghy and me at the bottom of the sea. Luckily we were still almost ashore, but all of our belongings, books, towels, bags got soaking wet, I scraped my knee on a rock and the dinghy was full of black sand. It took us some time to clean up our stuff from all the mud and water, and this time, we timed our entry and managed to both hop in the dinghy without any further problems. On our way back, we saw that Jenneke and Bart were on board on Wandelaar and the owners of Wandelaar called us also over for a drink. We accepted, but only after we went to Libra to get ready. I was so happy to be in Libra again! We emptied all our bags and rinsed them off with fresh water, I had a quick shower on deck and after everything was clean and we were on dry, warm clothes, we went back to the dinghy to visit our new friends. Gerry and Steven are the owners of a steel, Colin Archer custom boat, the Wandelaar. Their boat is custom-made and very impressive! They are also super nice and friendly, and we actually had come across each other in other ports, such as Portimao and Cascais! They also have a similar plan to us, so we will see more of each other!

The next day we invited everyone onboard for a cup of coffee, and it was a Dutch party! It is still difficult for me to participate in a conversation when everyone is speaking Dutch, I fall and in and out of concentration, but all in all, it was a lovely morning and we had lots of fun and laughs. The rest of the day we relaxed and caught up on our reading.

November 23rd was a sunny day and we decided to hike up the mountains. Equipped with good snickers and our beloved Canon, we started our hiking. The paths were poorly defined, so we had to find our own way., truly a hike! The views were breathtaking! Hiking up volcanic cliffs brings you closer to the nature and fills you up with feelings of serenity and tranquility. We were also lucky enough to witness a spectacular double rainbow!

The following day was boat chores day, including fixing a small rip in our front sail. Jelle later continued his new favorite book, Jimmy Cornel’s “200.000 miles: A Life of Adventure”, which not only is fun to read but also gives valuable sailing tips! We also continued with our Spanish course, started the 2nd CD!

After 5 days in the same anchorage, we rolled out our jib and headed towards the south of the island. Originally, the plan was to anchor to playa papagayo or playa mujeres, however due to the strong swell, neither beaches were good anchorages. Therefore, we ended up outside marina Rubicon. At first, we almost anchored on top of a pipeline, but as soon as we realized we were too close (thank you Navionics!) we re-anchored quickly. The anchorage was pretty good, sheltered from winds and swell, except when the wind turned east. Every night we heard weird noises only to realize the last day that it was the sewage nearby, the pipeline we almost hit with our anchor the first day!

We spent 5 days in this anchorage, and within this timeframe we did a lot! Since we were so close to the marina, we were leaving the dinghy inside the marina which was awesome, as we did not risk getting wet and we were close to the town. We walked around the super touristic town, we did groceries and visited Castillo do las Coloradas and a local open-air market. Still amazed to see the majority of tourists prefer pizzerias over the local cuisine. We also did lots of swimming, and Jelle went underwater to clean the propeller and the antifouling layer.