Olà! (English)

We left Madera on Thursday, October 14th to head for the island of Graciosa in the Canary's archipelagos and we arrived the next saturday at 21h local time. The crossing was somewhat quiet with South westerly winds at about 15 knots. We started . The morning after our arrival, we found out that the marina was full so we stayed anchored in the bay next to it. Apparently that area is protected and we are only suppose to anchor in the next bay over called the Frenchman's bay. However, that one was already full of boats so we took the risk of being kicked out. It's not possible to do any of the formalities in Graciosa so we were only planning on staying a couple of days anyway. The day after our arrival, Bruno, Elise and their guest, Edward from the boat Lakatoa joined us in the bay and introduced us to Loïc and Axèle fromShipibo. That covered our diner dates for the next few days since weexchanged turns on welcoming everybody on our boats. They got to taste Gaston's bananas flambé in rum and maple syrup. They literally licked the plates! In Graciosa, we could fish, swim, walk or sit on a terrace. That is about all there is to do. Gaston caught his first fish. The city is very small, the streets are in sand, no internet access and the islands is a desert. It's very quiet and the perfect place to take it easy.
We then left Graciosa to go to Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote. We are tied up to a mooring in the port that is next to the commercial port. Not many moorings are available and I had to dive 20 feet under the water to get the rope because the floater that was attached to it was gone. Some of the cement blocks are safer than others so it's a good idea to go check what you are tied to. It would be very difficult to use an anchor here since the bottom is all in rock. The good news are that it's free, it's well protected from the dominant winds, the water is clean and we are very close to the city. The bad news is that we have no access to fresh water, electricity or Internet. Since there hasn't been much wind since we arrived our batteries are too low for me to work on any picture montages and if I could, I couldn't send them anyway. If you are waiting for a reply to an email, you will have to be patient for a few more days. Bruno, Elise and Edward moved to Arrecife at the same time as us so we are keeping our diner dates. We have also crossed paths with Wolfgang again who is a German we met in Porto Santo. We went to do the entry formalities to realize that there really isn't any in this place. At the Policia National, a group assembled around our passports scratching their heads wondering what they should do. Finally, a woman came back and after handing us the documents told us that since we had an entry stamps for Portugal, we had no need for any other formalities while in the Canaries. If we really wanted a stamp, we could alway go see the maritime police. Wow! Quite a change from Portugal! Although the formalities where not very complicated in those Islands, we had to do them on each one. Now we are free to rom as we wish! So we have put away our Portuguese and taken out the Spanish one. So far, the Spanish don't speak French or English as much as the Portuguese do buy if they speak in Spanish slowly, they are much easier to understand. They are very friendly. In fact, on our first try at eating tapas for lunch, the owner of the restaurant payed us a round of drinks. In Arrecife, we are back in city life and surrounded by stores of the "Duty free" type since there is no tax here. It might take the opportunity to find a inexpensive camera that would take underwater pictures...