The Big Voyage of the next Velvet Elvis

Lanzarote, Canary Islands

April 14, 2024

We spent several days visiting Lanzarote, which is one of the Canary Islands.

I don't really know how to describe it. It's unlike anywhere else I've visited. A little bit Mediterranean feeling, but then something else, with it's white plaster buildings and brown volcano-rock landscape. Really, it felt like another planet.

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We visited a spot where the ocean had carved a huge blue pool out of the volcanic rock, which shared space with a volcano museum. It was great, but I had assumed we would get to swim. We didn't. But props to the people who found a giant cave with a beautiful blue pool as a backdrop and decided to build a bar.

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Then, we visited this cool house that had been built into the rock. It would be a cool place to stay. Apparently, actor Omar Sherif bought it when he was on the island to film a movie, and then he lost it in a bet over a bridge game the very next day.

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Now, we're off and on our way to Cape Verde. It's about 900+ miles from where we shoved off. This should be the longest stretch of our trip at sea, with the exception of the one where we cross the bulk of the Atlantic. We probably won't see land again until the end of the week. The forecast was for no wind at all, but so far, we've been able to sail or motor sail quite a bit. That's a good thing, because it was a borderline proposition whether we had enough fuel to motor all the way there or not.