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Redwings Round the World Winding Down in Lanzarote 12 - 19 July 2000 |
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Anyway, we quickly relapsed into a deep sleep until 4 p.m. We then decided to bike into town, a few miles away. Honestly, the biggest work out I've ever had on a bike! Uphill, against the wind all the way. I felt like a ran a marathon by the time we arrived 40 minutes later. After riding and walking around for over an hour, we finally found an internet cafe in Puerto Carmern (ticky tacky tourist town filled with English and Germans on low budget holidays) only 10 minutes before it closed for the evening. Thank god the bike ride home was all downhill, with the wind.... 12 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - Today was the key day to set everything in motion for the week to come. Last night we sent an e-mail to Brian and Marie at MAST, a boat maintenance service that our friends on Idunn used when they left the boat in Lanzarote last year. One of MAST's staff came down the dock at around 10 and we went up to their office. Marie helped us find a travel agent, let us up-load e-mails, pointed us towards the laundry, and arranged for Brian to come to the boat tomorrow to go over some of jobs we want to get done while the boat is here. Their core business is actually marine electronics sales and service, but they look after boats as a side business. They were really helpful and provided us with information on where to find everything we might need on the island. Anyone pulling into PC (or planning to) in need of any services should contact them (they have relationships with mechanics, painters, stainless people etc. and can refer you to the right person and or oversee and coordinate all jobs to make sure they are done right and on time). E-mail them at mastmarine@jet.es Lanzarote, from what we have seen if it, looks to be just a big wind-blown volcanic rock. Ok ok we are sailors and we like wind, but the constant howl with no let up even at night, and the red volcanic dust that is constantly finding its way into the boat, really makes me feel like we are in a Red Sea marsa. At the moment, the Portuguese trades are blowing 30 from the NE and whipping across the island, picking up dust, and funneling down on us in the marine. When the wind blows the other way (South or East) the island gets the benefit of the dust from the African Sahara which is less than 100 miles away..... Cruisers Notebook: Apart from the dust Puerto Calero seems to be a good place to keep the boat. Friendly helpful staff let us do e-mail for free from the control tower. We signed a three month contract at US$15 per day. Although ARC participants are supposed to get a discount, apparently, everyone gets this same "discounted " prices so the ARC discount is not really worth anything in this case. We considered putting the boat on the hard, but this cost is about two times the price of keeping the boat in the marina. 13 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - I had hoped it would not be necessary to take off all of the running rigging (which we did in Spain) but with all of the dust in the marina I guess we'd better. We also found out that there are no flights available to Thailand until the 19th so we'll have time to put a couple of coats of varnish on - its easier if all of the lines are off. So we spent most of the day de-rigging, cleaning lines, cleaning the boat, and generally getting organized. 14 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - We picked up a rental car at 0900 and set off to explore the island and hit the supermarcados and chandlaries of Arrecife, Lanzarote's main city. Arrecife is a major fishing port (tho saw a few cruisers anchored in the harbor) and there was huge depth in the chandlery department. Usually I am the one to go hog wild in these places, but Colleen was on a mission to get everything and anything we could possibly need and kept hounding me with questions like "Do you have everything you might possibly need for all of the jobs we need to complete before we put the boat to bed?" No but I soon will. "Are you sure we have enough varnish?" Yeah, yeah, yeah. I bought a bunch of random stuff, but I was pretty confident the large inventory of varnish, sandpaper, and brushes I bought before putting on three coats in Barcelona last summer would be plenty for a couple of quick coats without adding to our inventories. After blowing a packet in the chandleries, we headed up towards the Northern coast. This is one weird place. You drive along, road just cutting a snaking path through lava rock, and all of a sudden there is a huge white hotel a full couple of miles from the beach! Buses out front. I can only imagine that tourists come on a "Canary IslandPackage Tour" and land here after seeing the other islands for a few days to see the sites and fry on the beach. I cannot imagine anyone specifically coming here. The only substantial vegetation we have seen so far is the "Cactus Farm" which is one of the major "tourist attractions". Ah,... yeah.... right. After finally finding one of the three gas stations on the island (Colleen was worried we'd end up dying in the lava desert like some standard Far Side stragglers), we pulled into a small "local" seaside fishing village for lunch at a recommended seafood restaurant. This I can get into. Sitting overlooking the small harbor, bleached white houses marching down to the azure sea against the red-brown lava hills. They don't take credit cards and I'm out of cash "be right back - let me go find an ATM". "No, non, non, non.... you eat first! Then you can go get money. Or pay me tomorrow." Fantastic food. After lunch, we drove along the coast and up into the mountains and things started getting a little greener as vineyards sprouted up on either side of the road. Apparently, the volcanic nature of the soil gives the grapes grown on Lanzarote a distinct flavor. Well, why not stop and test the theory? We pulled over I hopped out, jumped over a small rock wall, and picked a bunch of grapes and started stuffing my face - just as a cop car rose up over the hill in front of me! Caught red (green runny) handed! Like a kid palming candies at the drug store about to get busted, I dropped the booty at my feet and tried to look "cool". Fortunately, these officers were apparently not on grape patrol and carried right on past the crime scene. I grabbed my grapes and hopped back in the car. Mmmmm they were actually pretty good. Grape Smuggler
Better test the wine! We pulled into a small winery and Colleen bought a few bottles of the sweet Lanzarote Local. Its not quite a desert wine, but almost. The other big "se vende" (for sale) is cactus liqueur. Tastes like sweet, thick tequila. Ok what's next on the recommended tourist circuit: why its the "Mirador del Rio" (view of the river). Ok whatever lets check it out. "They" have obviously spent a lot of money trying to make something out of whatever this is. Huge semi-circle rock wall parking area and impressive entry way to...... what? Everyone was arriving and trying to figure out what it was they were supposed to be paying to see. The bus gang was getting herded in though the stone door though which some sort of pottery exhibit could be seen on the inside. We asked a Spanish lady coming out what the "attraction" was and she said "I don't know" - apparently its just a hole through the top of the hill and a view down on to the small island off the tip of Lanzarote and the water between the two islands is "The River". Ohhhhhhh... Ahhhhhhhhh. Like a lot of other people, we opted to drive down the road, pull over, and look at the view for free. Gotta give em credit for trying though. A drive though the middle of the island through small towns full of white houses with greed doors. Distinctly Mediterranean feel. And on to the next attraction the "Montanes del Fuego" (mountains of fire). The whole Southwest part of the island is completely lunar. Apparently, there were 20-30 years of major eruptions in the late 1700's in this area which completely devastated the local economy. Before the eruptions, the island had enough vegetation to support heard animals and "regular" farming.
Enough. We drove back in time to prepare the boat for a big day of varnishing tomorrow. Interesting place and glad I saw it, but frankly I'm amazed they are able to keep the tourist industry going as well as they apparently are. 15 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - Work day. In the morning, Colleen taped up the brightwork ahead of a major varnishing session and I tackled sealing up the mast partners (where the mast enters the cabin via the coach house). In Hong Kong, we put in a a groovy Spar Tite synthetic partners seal which is supposed to fill the space perfectly between mast and partners providing a water tight seal and good mast support. For the past three years, it has, but since we left Barcelona we have noticed an increasing amount of leaking around the mast into the cabin. I took the ceiling down, gouged out some of the gooey putty that was originally used as a mold for the Spar Tite, and sure enough, it seems water is leaking in this way. I guess we've got our 100 bucks worth out of this thing, but I'm kind of surprised it started breaking down after just three years. It seems the materials softens and the working of the mast has resulted in some slight separation. Solution: Sikaflex and a bunch of self-amalgamating tape. Solved? No - now leaking more than before. How is that possible? Ok, forget it for this round and deal with it when we return. Strange. Don't see where or how the water could be getting in.... As soon as the brightwork dried after sanding and rinsing, we started varnishing and the wind kicked in with a special vengeance and seemed to be carrying more dust than usual. As we hurried to get the varnish on, conditions worsened to a full blown sand storm - our varnish job was turned into a non-skid job! How depressing. Not only that, we had taken the doors to the cabin out to varnish them on the dock and the dust infiltrated everything in the cabin with all surfaces having a thin layer of red dust. We hung wet towels in the companionways to try to minimize the damage, ate and, mildly depressed, went to bed. 16 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - Fortunately, the wind and dust took a break today and yesterday's varnish disaster did not turn out to be so bad after all. I was, however, put in the dog house as it became apparent that in fact we did not have enough varnish or sandpaper to finish the job (after claiming adamantly that we did when we were in the inexpensive chandlaries of Arrecife). The "extra sandpaper" turned out to be 100 grade (we need 220 for varnishing) and the "extra varnish" turned out to be interior varnish. Luckily using scrubby pads and water and rubbing hard we were able to remove most of the dust stuck in the varnish and were able to re-use yesterday's sandpaper (and the limited remaining supply of new stuff we had) to get a decent preparation job done. We mixed the remaining exterior varnish with the interior varnish 50/50 and got a good coat on. It does not look great, but this should protect the wood over the next few months and we can put on a couple of finish coats with new varnish when we get back. After we finished, Colleen suggested we go for a swim on the rocks near the entrance to the marina. It was hot and that sounded like a good idea - too good to wait - so I jumped in right there. "My glasses!" They came off and slipped through my fingers as I tried to grab them while they fluttered like a falling gold leaf out of sight towards the bottom. Colleen dug my scuba mask out and I tried to find them free-diving, but its about five meters deep here and I was just able to get down to the bottom before running out of air. Time to dig out the full scuba gear. I had not used the scuba since the Red Sea but all worked well and I was able to quickly find my glasses and also a shackle Colleen had dropped over the previous day. Yesterday we met a "Gang of Four" on British cruiser Alma. Hugh and his wife Chris are sailing Alma to South Africa via Brazil over the next six months. They arrived yesterday with their friends Roger and Trisha on board after sailing from the Madeira island group via Isla Graciosa at the tip of Lanzarote (or "Lanzagroty" as Roger aptly calls it). We had a great time swapping stories, and winw bottles, on board Alma late into the evening. Hugh's family used to have rubber plantations in "Malaya" (Malaysia) and had also spent a lot of time in Asia in the Royal Navy and he was interested in our sailing stories from Asia. They were also keen to hear about the Red Sea. We were very interested in their many sea stories and especially in the "sinking of Alma" in a UK marina. Roger is restoring an old fishing smack in the UK. Check out Roger's Smack.
17 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - Mega busy and productive day. Colleen biked to town to get tickets and I finished missed varnish spots and tackled various jobs: fiberglass the settee lockers so water can't so easily seep in when we are healed and the water tanks leak (argh), re-wired the oil change pump, changed oil, biocided water maker.... later Colleen came back and she spent the rest of the day in between naps and brow wipes (recovering a bit still from the previous night's festivities on Alma) taking the varnishing tape off boat. Overall, the varnish look ok ands should protect the wood, but its a pretty crappy finish in some spots. Hopefully we'll have better weather and better materials when we get back and can put on a couple of good finish coats. I cleaned out the cockpit locker and was able to de-clog the exhaust drain system - that solves the water in engine mystery. I guess I just need to remember to make sure that water is coming out through this side drain whenever I turn off the engine. I think I will also put in an in-line shut off valve in the aft cabin so whenever we are down wind in a following sea we can just seal the system off. While I was in "there" (the cockpit locker) I also installed a new hose fitted to an extra thru-hull fitting that I led back to the engine room and will hook up to another electric bilge pump. We will then have three, two electric (one automatic) and one manual. Good to get this cockpit locker cleaned out and organized as well. We are getting there and are probably 50% ready for the crossing already! 18 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - Colleen bought a bunch of tarps in Arrecife with a view to covering the boat completely to keep the dust off and out and the sun off the varnish while at the same time "saving" our nice biminis from the ravages of the wind and dust of this place. I was never a supporter of this as I don't think these tarps will last a week in this wind, but was willing to give it a try. Three hours later, and on the verge of insanity and spouseacide, we gave up and cut the tarps off. I was ready to throw them out I was so frustrated, but Colleen rescued them. Forget it. 19 July - Puerto Calero Aaron - We woke up and got going early with clear heads and better attitudes. We put on the biminis and added extra lines to keep them taunt. They should be ok. MAST will keep an eye on them and make sure the lines stay taunt. Boat looks good and organized. Topped up batteries, shut down electrics, closed sea cocks, drained water, gave last minute instructions to Brian from MAST, handed over the keys and headed to the airport. Its been a great five weeks back with Redwings and we are looking forward to returning in November. Back to Previous Log / Forward to Next Log Copyright ©2000 All Rights Reserved by Aaron Henderson and Colleen Duggan |
