Sailing to Las Palmas Gran Canaria

Leaving Morro Jable   

We left Puerto de Morro Jable at 0800 on 24 October for the 60-mile passage planned to get us across to Gran Canaria, about three times longer than any of our passages with Alex and Lucy. We’d been watching the weather for several days and Tuesday had always seemed to be the day with the more favourable wind. That was, of course, until Tuesday arrived! The updated forecast suggested that we would be better waiting a day for the sail across to Gran Canaria but by now we had one eye on making sure that we got Alex and Lucy to the island well in time for them to get their flight home at the end of their holiday with us. So we set off under engine hoping that as we cleared the lee of Fuerteventura we’d still get a good reach west across to Gran Canaria.

South coast of Fuerteventura   

As we worked our way west along the south coast of Fuerteventura the sandy beaches of Morro Jable were replaced by the more rocky shoreline that we had been used to. Inland, the scenery was still interesting to look at and kept us entertained.

Punta Jandia   

The most westerly tip of Fuerteventura is Punta Jandia. Here a long narrow spit of volcanic rock extends southwest off the island creating some very disturbed water. We initially set our course to pass about half a mile clear but as we got closer and saw the breakers rolling in over the shallow water we adjusted to pass quite a bit further offshore. From there we continued west towards the traffic separation scheme that runs between Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria and then on to Las Palmas.

Alex was delighted to have some success fishing. He hooked up a mackerel when we were just south of Fuerteventura….

Alex getting top tips on being a rubbish fisherman   

…. and got very excited when, almost immediately, the line started running out again. However, this proved to be a false alarm and ended up with accusations of him being a rubbish fisherman; it all sounded very familiar!!!

Fortunately, a little further on in the passage his hunter gatherer status was once again restored when he reeled in a slightly larger Spanish mackerel. Sadly, no massive tuna were snared but what he did catch we cooked for dinner when we got into port.

Gran Canaria   

It was quite hazy and so it took a while for Gran Canaria to appear, which was surprising because the island has volcanic peaks rising up to nearly 2000 metres. And we never did get our good wind to sail properly; instead we motorsailed. It was a shame but it did mean that we got on towards Las Palmas and kept the holiday schedule on track.

Approaching Las Palmas when things had settled down   

The traffic separation scheme between Gran Canaria and Fueteventura was not particularly busy but as we approached Las Palmas we found lots of new ships appearing that all seemed to want to get in our way. A few miles off the entrance to the harbour we had 5 large ships manoeuvring towards to the port and a couple coming out. We checked in on the radio with the port controllers as per the regulations but they really weren’t interested in talking to us. So, we just adjusted our track to keep well out of the way of the big stuff. We were somewhat distracted and so I didn’t get any photos but Las Palmas harbour and the offlying anchorage was full of oil drilling platforms and support ships. As we negotiated our way past bunkering ships we concluded that the rigs were probably from the West African oilfields but were being serviced here.

Off the marina entrance (L) and the adjacent anchorage   

Las Palmas has become one of the busiest ports in the Canary Islands and is the fourth most important port in Spain. With over 14 kilometres of wharfs it is not surprising that the approaches were busy with ships. Tucked in on the western side of the harbour is the Canary Islands’ largest marina (1250 berths) which acts as the start point for the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (~250 yachts) and the ARC+ (~70 yachts). Yachts from both rallies already filled the visitors’ spaces in the marina and some long-term residents and visitors had been moved out to moorings outside, so it was no real surprise when a call to the marina confirmed that there was no space for us inside and that we would need to use the anchorage just to the north.

The view of the anchorage from the beach with some of the oil drilling platforms visible in the distance   

The anchorage was also very busy and it took a while to find a place we thought large enough for us to anchor. Our pilot book warns that the anchorage can get very busy at ARC and ARC+ times with up to 25 yachts filling it. When we had finally settled in the anchorage at 1800 hrs, I counted 60 yachts at anchor there!

Having thought that we had got our anchor in the right place, a change of wind a couple of hours later had everyone swinging around stretching out their anchor chains in a new direction. We were now too close to a yellow catamaran for them to be comfortable and so, rather than be accused of ‘anchoring like a Frenchman’, we repositioned a bit further out. This gave slightly less protection from the southeasterly wind now blowing into the harbour but at least we weren’t at risk of hitting anything. After a long day, we stayed on board but planned to go ashore first thing in the morning. If nothing else we needed to check in with the marina office. They administer the anchorage and make a small charge for yachts staying there.

Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands