To the Canary Islands

Tags: Arrecife, Atlantic, food, Lanzarote, sailing, Spain

Date: October 14, 2016

We had planned to go to Madeira after Cascais, but it didn't look like we would have suitable winds for the next week at least. We figured that a week in Cascais might be a bit much, but if we hurried up, it looked like we could get to the Canary Islands instead. We had to hurry because the wind near the islands would get stronger and turn against us after about six days and the trip would take about five.

Instead of going straight towards the islands, we went south for a while first and then southwest to get there. This would give us better winds. Here is the route:

It went really well with good wind most of the time. It is fairly calm at this sunset, but we are still moving under sail:

We had a spell of totally calm weather on the third day. As you can see, it is a tough job being a sailor:

Félicie took full advantage of the calm weather and cooked us some nice crêpes:

Later that day the wind picked up enough that we could stop the engine again. The last night the winds freshened up some more and turned more against us. But we were still able to sail straight for Lanzarote which was our target.

We arrived in Arrecife which has a huge marina. Here are a few pictures from the town: