It was one of those stunningly blue mornings with blue sea and blue sky. We waited for the ferry in Ozsola (pronounced Ursula) in Northern Lanzarote with the sun warming our backs and a light breeze…..a real ‘good to be alive’ day. Black coffee and sugary doughnuts (the ones that just dissolve in your mouth) never tasted better. It felt even more special because we were nearly at the end of our three month trip around the Canaries. We were about to visit La Graciosa, our eight and final island.

During the thirty-minutes ferry ride across the Strait of El Rio, the Bueno Vista Social Club played through the speakers on deck and the sea shimmered in time to the music. Caleta del Sebo, the only town on the tiny island gleamed white against the yellow of the sand and the tan of the hills. Seagulls circled over the small fishing boats which all seemed to be painted blue. We wondered if Cesar Manrique’s decree on colour extended to the boats on aesthetic grounds😀. The town was spread out, long and low, all the houses painted the obligatory white and blue. Most people on the boat were day trippers and were soon sucked into the many cafes, beaches and bike rentals places. We dragged our suitcases (the 10kgs plane cases) along the sand to our beachfront apartment, which was gorgeous, decorated in soft greys with a splash of yellow, and at €80 a night was significantly more expensive than our usual budget. We hiked to the south of the island, walking along blond beaches and rock pools teeming with life to swim in cool turquoise waters and watch clouds float by. The joy of retirement☺

Most visitors came off the ferries and hired bikes to tour around the island and most didn’t realise what they were letting themselves in for…us included. Paved roads were non-existent anywhere on La Graciosa so vehicles were limited to a few dusty jeeps- really charming- but the rough surfaces also made cycling quite challenging. The island had an arid beauty with no trees in the interior but that meant no shade or shelter. But we were gobsmacked by the beauty – the surfing beach of Las Conchas, the basalt arches of Arco de Los Caletones and the area around Pedro Barba with its summer houses. The sun was intermittent with spotty rain on a strong crosswind and mists rolled down over the hills of Lanzarote so we didn’t have to deal with the intensity of strong sunshine. We cycled through soft sand in sections or shuddered on very rough terrain in others. It was tough going although we considered ourselves reasonably fit. On our return loop, we had sympathy for the sweating people starting out who were already struggling on the easy bits. But it was worth it!

Caleto del Sebo hums all days with the constant rhythm of hourly ferry arrivals and departures from two different ferry companies but in the evening, the island goes back to the locals with only a handful of tourists staying on. We watched children playing soccer on the beach and old men sitting on the harbour walls with their masks and their walking sticks and the local policeman chin-wagging about football. The women in the eco-tourism shop recognised us and gave us a big wave. We ate delicious seafood overlooking the sea, watching the colour of the water deepen and darken to inky blue. We visited the white-washed church with a boat and anchor on the alter. We watched a local man with a creased face and baggy trousers silently drink a tumbler of vodka in twenty seconds, walk the beach and repeat the whole process several times. We listened to the guy outside the beach bar talk incessantly to nobody and the off-key opera singer under the tree who sang his heart out until he was told by the waiter to save it for karaoke night. That’s the thing about islands – they attract and accommodate marginalised characters and make all feel at home, that conundrum where everyone is hiding something although everybody knows everything,😎 and the obvious is only the tip of the iceberg. La Graciosa is a little island off the coast of another island, a Spanish island within touching distance of Africa. It has the ‘island vibe’ in spades.

In the early mornings we strolled around and met many of the same characters queueing for the panaderia (bakery). The rhythm of the day started again with the fishermen gathering their nets and heading towards their blue boats and the ferry crews getting ready to start up and the smell of bread and diesel in the air. Later the barges came in carrying essential supplies and even a pile of Amazon packages with their tell-tale logo….so even islanders need retail therapy… and maybe more so on an island without any resources where all water has to be pumped across from Lanzarote. After three days and two nights, we felt almost local ourselves and it was a wrench to drag ourselves away from this blond island but we can hear the call of home ….. so its a ferry back to Ozsola, a bus to Arrecife (the capital of Lanzarote) a flight to Tenerife and then onwards to Dublin on May 1.

Hopefully you can join me next time when I pick out the highlights of our island hopping trip around the eight Canary islands, a trip that happened because of Covid restrictions when more far-flung destinations were off limits.

Thanks for reading😎

“Why do you stay in prison, when the door is wide open?” Rumi