Tenerife - The North is beautiful, avoid the South!

We spent four days in the North of Tenerife, staying with Sam's uncle in his beautiful little cottage up the side of mount Teide. Having been to Tenerife once when I was 16 for an all inclusive stay at Playa de las Americas for a couple of hundred quid, my expectations were pretty low. However, the North of Tenerife is greener, prettier, less developed and much more Spanish than the South and it changed my view of the island. We spent a day driving up to mount Teide (which is over 3,700m high), to get a cable car to the peak to see views across the whole island. The rest of the time was spent catching up with Sam's family and trying out my pigeon Spanish, which mostly involved nodding a lot, hand signals and saying 'muchas gracias por todo' about 20 times a day.

A few pictures from the top of mount Teide, the view from the finca, the family and a beautiful village called Masca. Next challenge - find a home...

Lanzarote - leaving Yemaya

After saying goodbye (with a big hangover) to yacht Yemaya and Kai we took the ferry from Graciosa to northern Lanzarote. Having not planned a thing due to our headaches and general tiredness, we ended up sitting in the harbour in full sun with all our bags for hours before we could work out how to get to the South. Lanzarote is a really arid place, with black soil and striped mountain ranges. Parts of it look like the moon on a sunny day. Most of the British tourists hang out in Puerto del Carmen and that place is to be avoided like the plague, unless you're looking for egg and chips. However, the South and centre of the island are much more peaceful and we managed to find a lovely guesthouse in a town called Yaiza.

So, the sailing is all over the time being - slightly sad to leave the water (especially getting up on a sunny day and having the ocean 10 steps away), but relieved to be on dry land again (no threat of seasickness). Next stop - Tenerife for four nights.

A few pictures of a great beach we found, that was so clear and blue, it was like a hot open air swimming pool and a small boat we hired for the day to test our sailing skills.

La Graciosa, Spain

A few pictures from this lovely island.

Six day sail from Lisbon to Graciosa

We spent six long days crossing the Atlantic from Lisbon to the small island of Graciosa, just off Lanzarote. No one managed to get more than 3 hours sleep per night, so we were all exhausted when we arrived. The original plan was to stop off in Madeira for two nights on route, but the Easterly winds weren´t helping and i think the skipper was secretly keen to get rid of us both. Although we were a little sad to have missed Madeira, Graciosa turned out to be a beautiful spot, with pristine beaches and turquoise seas. There´s very little tourism here, except for a few regular Spanish visitors and daytrippers from Lanzarote mainland. From here, we leave yacht Yemaya (after nearly 3 months of sailing and over 3,000 miles) and will make our way to Northern Lanzarote for a few days.

The sail from Lisbon was surprisingly smooth and we even managed to catch a tuna for dinner one evening. We got becalmed half way across the Atlantic and Sam got a chance to test the blow up fish again. Hanging onto a rope while sailing at 8 knots was also a favourite pastime in good weather, but the fun and games stopped when the skipper slipped off and we had to perform a man-over-board manoeuvre at top speed to get him back. We also lost the rudder from the wind pilot one evening, but amazingly managed to find it again in rough weather (no small feat, as its only half a metre in length and we sailed a mile away from it before realising). A few pictures from the sail..

Lisbon - the first cultural experience of the trip

Lisbon is a beautiful city, with its crowded back streets, old fashioned trams and quaint little squares. The city is crumbling apart in places, but it's kept its charm and doesn't seem to have folded to much mainstream tourism. My family came out to join us for the week, so we ended up doing some vaguely cultural things for a change. Also a good chance to be fed on real home cooking, which had been lacking a bit on the boat. Other than the churches, forts, monuments and palaces, there was still time for a day at the beach in Guicho, which is a popular surf destination on the West coast. Some pictures attached. We set sail to Madeira on Tuesday...

Algarve Nudist Beach

We hired a car from Lisbon and made the 3 hour journey to the Algarve down on the Southern coast. We asked the guesthouse to recommend a good beach nearby and they directed us towards a secluded bay. Shortly after arriving, we realised it was a nudist beach and we were surrounded by naked European geriatrics. It was a great way for Sam to spend his 31st birthday! Not to be deterred, Sam insisted on lounging in a 5ft fish shaped lilo (with beer cooler) in the sea for a few hours. And I thought the nude tourists were the embarrassing ones.

After staying the first night in a truly English resort (served English lager by a lady from Essex), we'd had enough of the Algarve experience and drove towards the West coast. We found a lovely town called Aljuzer and spent two days here surfing and enjoying good Portuguese seafood.