Different kinds of Migrants
We left Graciosa on a blowy day , thrashing our way to windward through the straits between the island and the cliffs of Lanzarotte , before skeetering down the coast with too much sail , chasing after our new Austrian friends Edie and Claudia in their brand new cat. He was offered a reduncancy package which brought forward their adventure by 3 years. They ordered their boat , collected her and ( driven by the same weather scenario as us ) set off straight away. Their Hobgoblin is even more spiteful than ours ( a mysterious electronic short which starts the engines in the middle of the night and stops them when they are manoevering !) They call their boat their “swimming house” and I think have sold their real house and intend adventuring for a few years. It is wonderfull ; roomy , with panoramic views and sails like a witch downwind . Upwind he has two diesels ( when the Hobgoblin allows) and intends to stay in the subtropical bellt to avoid really bad weather .
We both came into a little anchorage off Arecife , the small capital of Lanzarotte. It is open to the South and populated by a different variety of migrant . They are mostly German and their boats range from sturdy steel ketches through to tiny little cockleshells, and most have been here for a few months . It is free here and quite attractive , but the holding is terrible. Everyone else is moored to vast concrete blocks and our nearest neighbour is plainly uncomfortable that we will drag and cause mayhem. So am I (!) but luckily it is also very shallow and I was able to use two anchors and dive down and manually place them in the few patches of sand between the rocks. It has been blowing 25 knots most of the days , but so far we have stayed put. The neighbour is now predicting chaos when the wind dies as “we will all lie in different directions”. To be fair the rest are less gloomy and I must do my yank act and go and talk to them and hear their stories. I suspect that they are long term sailors on a very tight budget , but I would get very bored just staying in this place for months on end.
It is now nearly two weeks since we paid any mooring fees which has helped our budget , but I think we will go into a marina in a couple of days so as to explore the island without having to worry if we are dragging. For a capital , Arrecife is not a bad place at all and we have purchased maps and a book in Spanish which suggests ( I think!) that there are some interesting walks . We will see.