The first weeks of our stay on Lanzarote, we familiarize ourselves with the surroundings around the Rubicon Marina all the way to Faro Punta Pechiguera in the west. We also make several short sailing excursions to the beaches east of Rubicon.

Playa Blanca

For charter tourists, Play Blanca is probably better known than Rubicon. Playa Blanca is about a kilometer west of the marina where we have the boat and there is a nice walk along the water to get there. There are some well-arranged sandy beaches with white sand. There are a lot of people and it means there are a lot of restaurants and bars in the surroundings. So this is where we usually go when we want some change from what is offered in Rubicon.

Faro Punta Pechiguera

Even further west is Faro Punta Pechiguera with the large lighthouse we sailed past on the way to the Rubicon. There is a beach walking almost all the way out to the lighthouse. Since we were cycling there, we had to find our way along the usual roads after Playa de Moñtana Roja, past an almost completely abandoned residential area out by the lighthouse. There were a few almost finished houses that looked inhabited, but the rest were just frames for imagined homes in the sun. It is a fairly common sight with unfinished homes in these latitudes, so there is probably one or more persons who has lost their stake in their life’s dream.

The beaches east of the Rubicon

East of the Rubicon are several fine sandy beaches, Playa Mujeres, Playa del Pozo, Playa de La Cera and Playa de Papagayo. You can reach them either by hiking a few kilometers over slightly hilly and rocky terrain, by car on a hugely bumpy road, or by boat.

We sailed (hmm…or was it by motor 😉) from the marina out to the beaches several times during our time there, it only took 20-30 minutes. It was easy to see all the way to the beaches from the marina, and on the days when there were few boats anchored there and the weather was nice, we went out to anchor there for a few days. It was around 24 degrees in the water and sunny with 25 degrees in the air during the day. Great break from life in the marina.
We thought that Playa del Pozo was the best place to anchor. It was a slightly better since it was easier to find sand to put the anchor in. Otherwise, Playa de Papagayo, at the far end of the cape, is probably the most famous and considered the finest. It is located in a slightly deeper bay and is more protected from swells with its large rocks on both sides of the beach.

Between La Cera and Papagayo beach is a small restaurant, Casa el Barba Papagayo, which is open during the day. They had a very good Mojito that that we enjoyed, while we watched the sun disappear below the horizon. A memory for life.

The bottom outside the beaches consists of sand with protruding rocks where the anchor chain easily gets stuck when the boat swings around with the wind. As long as you anchor at a maximum depth of 10-12 m, you can see the anchor chain on the bottom and maneuver the boat and untangle the chain from the rocks it is stuck under.

When we anchored off the beaches we had lovely evenings with a sun setting into the sea and some evenings the flash of green light appeared just as the last part of the sun had set behind the horizon.

I think the when sunlight travls through the water, it takes on a green iridescent color. For that to happen, there must be no clouds or land blocking the sunlight behind the horizon. We have never managed to capture the flash of green light on video, despite we have filmed the sunset several times.

Next evening it’s time again, do you think there will be a flash of green light tonight?

Up next

There is more to experience in Lanzarote and in the next story we explore the rest of Lanzarote using the car we rented. We visit, among other things, the national park Timanfaya, an area made up of a single large lava field from an eruption at the beginning of the 18th century.