After Mark left we spent the rest of the weekend pretty stationary in the Marina. We changed to a less shaky spot and did some boat jobs. We had quite some stuff to do before we were going to leave for Cape Verde, a 5-6 day 750nm trip, a third of the atlantic crossing and a good test for us! Sunday the new crew Alex arrived and settled in.
The marina is next to a steep cliff with not much going on, except for the ferry terminal where there is free wifi.
We rented a car again and explored the island of El Hierro on Monday. It is the most southwesterly island of the Canaries and not very populated. It used to be thought of as the end of the world, and even the zero meridian used to run through the lighthouse at its most westerly point before it was moved to Greenwich in London.
A trip around the whole island was going to take 4-5 hours, so we started in the morning and were soon smitten by the place. We first drove up a steep road to get back to the main town of Valverde and then continued westward. Soon there were green lush hills with small pine forests and little grey rockwalls reminding me of Ireland. And again we experienced a massive variety of flora and fauna within a very short timeframe as we gained altitude.
Alex our newest crewmember stayed on Moira so it was just Franzi, Thomas and I today, testing our new gimbal for the camera which is supposed to help us film without shaking so much.
Again, super windy here! (We have mixed emotions about this)
After the irish hills we drove through a light pineforest with views over the dark blue sea along the coast towards the west of the island. We wanted to go and see a monastery in the mountains and then to the lighthouse at the "end of the world". The monastery was closed to visitors today but we still enjoyed the drive there. Moving further west the landscape started to look more volcanic once more.
The road started to wind down a steep cliff formed of lava down into a plain by the seaside where the waves were breaking on the red rock.
We got hungry and started to look our for a restaurant, turns out Monday is a bad day for that as most places are closed. In the first town we went to there was not much to see besides a well with magic water and some more big waves breaking on the cliffs. But soon all was well when we found a pizzeria!
Our last stop today was a viewpoint where we could overlook the whole coast we had just driven and saw lots of local plants. There was a trail to a holy tree but it got too foggy and rainy and we turned around again. Back to Valverde and a last grocery shop before heading off to Cape Verde on Tuesday!
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