Atlantic · islands
Canary Islands
The Canaries, anchorages, marinas, passages and life aboard around the islands.
Publications are arranged chronologically – from the earliest to the most recent. Select a title to open the full entry.
It Blew Hard After the Calm. Across the Ocean to the Canaries
It Blew Hard After the Calm. Across the Ocean to the Canaries Previously — How We Sailed Through Gibraltar By evening, a following wind had sprung up (in Spanish, that sounds like “viento…
The Island That Doesn’t Exist. La Graciosa
The Island That Doesn’t Exist. La Graciosa Prologue... It is generally accepted that there are seven Canary Islands. Tourist websites add, with due political correctness: seven large ones…
Informalities in the Canaries
Informalities in the Canaries for those travelling by sea As we had expected, no one is particularly interested in whether sailors have visas (so far, on this side of the Atlantic). Durin…
La Graciosa. What the Canaries Have in Common with the Wild West
La Graciosa. What the Canaries Have in Common with the Wild West Our first inhabited island along the way is La Graciosa. They say around 500 people live on the island year-round. Three h…
Of the Canaries and the Gardens of Eden
Of the Canaries and the Gardens of Eden We managed to slip across from Gran Canaria to Tenerife before the storm. The marina staff actually congratulated us on it. A bloke with Alexander …
Tenerife. How Our Dinghy Went Looking for Caves
How Our Dinghy Went Looking for Caves The wind is roaming gloomily with the clouds. Nastya settled down to her schoolwork, while we set off from Masca to Los Gigantes in the dinghy (a sma…
Tenerife. Masca for the Whole Family
Masca for the Whole Family We try to avoid places overrun by tourists. But some simply have to be visited because of their wondrous beauty. Masca Gorge and the village of the same name ar…
Tenerife. Masca for the Whole Family. Continued
Masca for the Whole Family. Continued The story begins here — Masca for the Whole Family At night, a light was burning in Masca. The evening before, through the binoculars, we had spotted…
Yacht Kids
Yacht Kids In Tenerife, at the Las Galletas marina, we came across a well-lived-in cruising yacht flying the Dutch flag. Canvas awnings, vegetables and fruit in nets beneath the solar pan…
La Isla Bonita
Next stop — La Isla Bonita Up at 4 a.m., and just fifteen minutes later we weigh anchor and leave Masca for La Palma. 52 miles, and so far there is not a breath of wind. We have to round …
La Isla Bonita. Continued
La Isla Bonita. Continued The beginning — La Isla Bonita La Palma is one of the world’s highest islands in terms of height relative to area (the third, I think). Its highest mountain, Roq…
La Palma: In Search of a Quiet Haven and Life at the Bottom
La Palma: In Search of a Quiet Haven Clocking up the miles by car around La Palma , the captain and first mate never gave up hope of anchoring off the island. We drove around the south in…
We’re Sailing to the End of the Earth
We’re Sailing to the End of the Earth We set sail tonight for El Hierro, the end of the earth in the pre-Columbian era. For their farewell promenade around La Palma, the crew of Lady Mary…
El Hierro. Arrival at the Edge of the Earth
To the edge of the earth At 1:45 on 9 April, Lady Mary cast off from the marina on La Palma and, with a steady light beam wind, set a course for the island of El Hierro—the very edge of t…
Setting the Sun by Hand, or Why Sailors Need an Anchor Windlass
Why Sailors Need an Anchor Windlass The art of travelling is the art of changing plans. In the morning, as is customary in the Canary Islands, the wind abruptly shifted to the opposite di…
El Hierro. Europe’s Westernmost Lighthouse
El Hierro. Europe’s Westernmost Lighthouse Beyond it lies only the ocean. Before Columbus, people believed that this lighthouse stood on the boundary between the known and the unknown wor…
Places Like This Are Shown in the Movies
Places Like This Are Shown in the Movies The northern coast of El Hierro. Punta Grande Hotel When we pulled up to a small, austere building made of volcanic stone, we had no idea that thi…
Where Have the Canary Islands’ Indigenous People Gone?
Where Have the Canary Islands’ Indigenous People Gone? The Guinea Ecomuseum on El Hierro Having taken an interest in the history of the Canary Islands a long time ago, we read a little ab…
How We Got Fresh Water. Illegally
How We Got Fresh Water After spending five days at anchor near the town of Mogán in the south of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, we decided to top up our water in the marina. Well, w…
Mum Was Right: Lying Is Wrong. The Sequel to Yesterday’s Story
Mum Was Right: Lying Is Wrong. The Sequel to Yesterday’s Story The story began here — Why Mum Taught Us to Tell the Truth Even at the Ends of the Earth. It’s a Small World When we arrived…
Why Mum Taught Us to Tell the Truth Even at the Ends of the Earth. It’s a Small World
Why Mum Taught Us to Tell the Truth Even at the Ends of the Earth — ...And what are we going to tell her? — We’ll say we lost something. — What, are we all going in to look for it togethe…
Informalities: Leaving the Canary Islands Without Visas
Leaving the Canary Islands without visas. The departure procedure from Spain’s island territories deserves a story of its own. Over the past week, we left the Canary Islands and made it t…
Wind, Wind, You Are Mighty! How the Captain and Lady Mary Sailed from Morocco to the Canaries.
Wind, Wind, You Are Mighty! The Storm Begins At dawn we set out from Agadir ( Morocco ). Ahead lay 340 miles of Ocean. I mean, 340 miles is how far we have to go—the Ocean itself is bound…
She Runs Along Through the Waves, on... Sails Reefed Down as Far as They’ll Go :). How the Captain and Lady Mary Sailed from Morocco to the Canaries.
She Runs Along Through the Waves Part 2. (Part One — Wind, Wind, Mighty and Strong ) By morning it eases off; thirty knots already feels like a light breeze, and I unfurl the genoa halfwa…
Past Buyan Island, into the Realm of the Glorious... How the Captain and Lady Mary Sailed from Morocco to the Canaries
Past Buyan Island Part 3, the final part (Part 1 — Wind, Wind, Mighty Are You , Part 2 — On It Runs amid the Waves ) There’s something nerve-racking about approaching land after an offsho…
The Canaries Without a Visa: Continuing the Story
The Canaries Without a Visa: Continuing the Story. Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. The other day, like a respectable newly arrived citizen, I went to register my arrival at the port immigration…
Lanzarote. How We Were Blown Out of an Anchorage
Lanzarote. How We Were Blown Out of an Anchorage First Mate’s Diary, 10 May 2015 We had heard rumours that the southernmost marina on the island of Lanzarote was terribly expensive. The r…
Preparing for Life Aboard
Summer is over, and so is its sultry bliss... Everyone else’s sailing season is drawing to a close. With us, everything is back to front. We’re getting ready. We spent the holidays at hom…
Around Gran Canaria. A Captain’s Travel Notes
Around Gran Canaria The passage from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to Puerto de Mogán, around Gran Canaria, was hot and almost windless. Only the head sea left by two weeks of southerly wind…
The Tale of a True Captain
The Tale of a True Captain. The whole truth from the first mate 🙂 I’ll skip the usual “despite the distance, we’re always together” and “always stay as wonderful as you are” (though of c…
Ready, Steady, Go! — A Race Across the Atlantic
A Race Across the Atlantic. The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC-2015) is due to start from Gran Canaria on 22 November. The maxi yachts will cover the 2,700 miles to the Caribbean island…
Marinas and Anchorages of the Canary Islands
Reference Information Canary Islands. Marinas and anchorages we visited between February 2015 and March 2016. Prices are per day for a 40-foot yacht. Information updated. Tenerife — marin…
Creating a Vegetable Garden on a Sailing Yacht
Creating a vegetable garden on a sailing yacht. And what are we going to eat out in the ocean? Besides tinned food, we’ll eat our own home-grown produce (well, “eat” may be a bit of a str…
Drying the Oars for Christmas
Drying the Oars for Christmas Sanding and painting, and electrical problems on the eve of Christmas Eve From the captain’s letter El Hierro. When I hauled the yacht out for sanding and pa…
Christmas with the International Yachting Crowd
Christmas with the international yachting crowd. Who are all these people, and where have they come from on their yachts—the ones who roasted a ram on a spit on Christmas night in La Rest…
Silly Pictures and a Sewing Workshop Aboard the Yacht. A Potpourri :)
Silly Pictures and a Sewing Workshop Aboard the Yacht Preparing for the Move My daughters and I are busily packing for our move aboard the yacht to join the captain, and getting our Altai…
10 Observations from Four Days of Moving Back onto the Yacht. On Friends
10 Observations from Four Days of Moving Back onto the Yacht The Crew Lady Mary Is Back on the Yacht I’ve somehow been incredibly lucky with my friends. I have no idea why they do it, but…
On Borscht Aboard a Yacht and Looking Dashing and Slightly Idiotic ))
On Borscht Aboard a Yacht Moving aboard the yacht, stocking up on provisions, and preparing to sail This week is devoted to packing, rearranging and drying out the lockers, sorting throug…
Canary Carnival. 4 Facts and Lots of Photos
Canary Carnival. Tenerife The main event of the Canary Carnival caught up with us on the island of Tenerife. During Carnival, it is better to travel by bus to the capital in the north-eas…
Waiting for the Storm
Waiting for the Storm The weather forecast promised winds strengthening to gale force. At times like this, it is important not to leave the yacht unattended at anchor and to be ready eith…
How We Saved Our Clothes, and Then Got Rescued Ourselves
How We Saved Our Clothes Strong winds in the Canary Islands are nothing unusual. When you live aboard a sailing yacht with children, something is bound to get blown into the sea. It’s fin…
An Encounter with Whales in the Atlantic and Other Tales of Life Aboard a Yacht
An encounter with whales. How, before our voyage to Africa, we spent a month practising self-sufficient life aboard the yacht, played with whales between the Canary Islands, and revelled …