Punta del Aguila Lanzarote

Our departure from Graciosa did not go as smoothly as we had hoped. Our plan had been to talk to the harbourmaster as soon as his office opened on Monday 16 Ocober both to let him know that we were departing and also to get a refund for the nights that we would not be staying there. The office never opened because, we were told by the security guard, there had been a death in his family over the weekend. As a result, we left Graciosa a little later than we had intended, at 0850, to head all the way down the eastern side of Lanzarote towards the northern end of Fuerteventura and the area in which we had arranged to meet Alex and Lucy.

Puerto Calero marina ahead   

The wind never built above 4 knots all day and so we covered the miles under engine. Three quarters of the way down Lanzarote, after we had covered 26 miles, we decided that we would take the opportunity to stop briefly at Puerto Calero marina and top up the fuel tanks.

Nicky remembered reading somewhere a warning to keep an eye out for a submarine which operated out of Puerto Calero and sure enough, as we approached, we saw something unusual depart form the marina with a small motorboat ahead of it. By the time we got closer all that there was to see was a yellow float with a blue and white ‘diver down’ flag on it, bobbing along.

Instead we concentrated on turning into the marina and mooring up on the fuel berth.

Puerto Calero marina   

Once inside and secure we got to look around whilst we filled up the tanks. It seemed to be a really nice marina and our pilot book is very complementary about it too. It would have been nice to stop but we needed to get on to the northern end of Fuerteventura.

The Puerto Calero submarine   

Just as we were untying our lines, the bright yellow submarine returned and so we got a close up look at it after all.

With fuel tanks filled to the brim we headed on down the coast. The volcanic peaks, of which there are over 300 on the island, are interesting to look at but the whole island is very brown. Periodically we saw the odd settlement of white cuboid villas but overall the southern part of the island is very sparsely populated.

That scene played out all the way down to Punta Papagayo at the southeastern tip of Lanzarote. Here we decided that we’d take a look at a couple of anchorages on the southern side of the island. We still hadn’t heard back about our request for a berth in the marina at Corralejo on Fuereventura and if we carried on to the port at this point, the marina office would be closed. If what we had seen at Caleta de Sebo in Graciosa was anything to go by, if we arrived out of hours without a booking we’d just be turned away. It seemed sensible to find another place to spend the night.

Punta del Aguila ahead   

The first anchorage that we looked at was just west of Punta Papagayo. It was full of yachts but they were all rolling wildly in the swell which was coming in from the northeast. Instead of joining the other yachts there, we continued on a mile or so and tucked ourselves into the bay under Punta del Aguila. It was still affected by swell but a fraction less we thought. We were joined there by a couple of tripper boats but once they had gone we had the place to ourselves. It wasn’t the most inspiring anchorage but it served its purpose of putting us close to Corralejo on Fuereventura where we would move to first thing in the morning, around about the time when Alex and Lucy would be boarding their flight out to meet us.

Punta del Aguila Lanzarote