After the crossing, we landed on Graciosa. Graciosa has beautiful beaches and a very pretty village. What? Oops. I guess I forgot to mention Graciosa is a Canary Island. Did you know the Canary Islands are entirely made by volcanoes? You can see that because there are black rocks full of bubbles everywhere. One more thing about Graciosa. Well, three really: First, we went swimming and we saw beautiful fishes. Two, we climbed a volcano and got lots of scratches, but the view was amazing so we did not mind. And three,... the french fries are delicious. You think I am joking, right? Well, I am not. Just thinking about them makes my, well our mouths watery.

Then we went to Lanzarote... Lanzarote looks more like an island formed by volcanos than Graciosa.It is very dry, which is perfect for growing cactuses and aloes vera. Aloe vera is known for centuries for its properties, which are used in medicine, for instance.

In Lanzarote, there is a restaurant where one cooks food with the heat of a volcano! The hot air comes out of a deep hole, and the food cooks like that! I don't know if this sounds pretty awesome for you, but for us not so much anymore... because we saw it ;-).

Beside that, there are three experiments: the first one consists of a 10m long pipe going into the ground near the volcano. When the ranger in charge of the experiment pours the content of a bucket into the pipe, you've got two seconds before the water comes back out with enormous pressure. If you're in the way, either you get splashed with very hot water or you go a bit deaf because of the canon-like sound it makes.

The second experiment is that a ranger gives you a handful of gravel from the surface of the ground. The gravel is so hot that you can't hold it long in your hand. The third experiment consists of a pit in which the ranger puts barley with a spear against the pit sides and, after a few seconds, the barley catches fire. If you fall in the pit, you probably get burned to death. All of this is due to a so-called geothermal anomaly, left after the last eruption. There was also a simulation of a volcano eruption. So we heard for about half a minute what Lanzarote people heard for six years! We get a headache just thinking about it.

We left Lanzarote for Gran Canaria. We sailed into Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and stayed there for three weeks. This was less funny as there was little to do, except for dad who worked a lot during that time. We met 4 other families who were also working on their boats. Because the harbour was so huge, to speak to each other we had to make appointments through the radio. We rented a car for three days, two with the family alone, and one with three other sailors, one of them is a headmaster! He is sailing in a very little boat (6.5m) and, since then, he has crossed the ocean on it! Even if it is very, very small, we still managed to fit all of us (6 plus him) in it!

We saw that the climate is changing very much depending on where you are on the island. The higher you are, the more humidity there is, the lower you are, the warmer an the drier it is. We also noticed that the climate is very different on the northern part of the island and on the southern part of the island. This is because the top of the island is so high that the humid air coming from the ocean has to go up over the mountain and gets colder and colder. The condensation becomes more intense, a cloud appears, and when the cloud cannot hold any more water, it rains. Once the air gets back down on the southern part of the island, it is much warmer and drier.

That's why you find the beaches and the holiday resorts on the southern part of the islands, and the fields and banana trees on the northern part of the islands. On the high tops, you feel like you find yourself in the display of Aragorg's home (the giant spider of Harry Potter).

We also visited a museum that was built around the remnants of a Guanche village. The Guanche were ancient Canarians. At the heart of the village, there is a cave decorated with paintings dating from the pre-hispanic period. The archeologists are still at work on the site, and you can admire what they found recently. The more recent discoveries were dating from the week before our visit!

The houses were round, with a flat rooftop, and were made basically of any kind of material they could find. The interior was organised around the fireplace. The beds were made of stones on which they put furs so as to sleep more comfortably, and in case it was cold, they could put more furs on themselves.

Some of them were also living in houses built directly in the cliffs. Actually, some Canarians still do!

Once we moved from Las Palmas for going to the south of the island, we finally managed to catch a fish! And a real one: We could have three whole meals for us all, including the new years' eve dinner!

In Tenerife, we first met our granparents, who had taken the plane to visit us. With them, with went to the Teide, the highest moutain in Spain, and unfortunately found out that it was closed, due to heavy snow falls the days before! It is incredible: under the clouds it was soaking hot, and on the Teide, there was actually snow! Snow! We managed to play in the snow and make a snowman. It will actually be the only time we will see snow this year.

During another roadtrip, we stopped in the mountains to pick some cactus fruits. These are delicious, but full of tiny needles on the outer skin, and if you don't pay attention, you get tons of tiny needles in you hands and on your clothes, and they stay there until you remove them one by one!

Soizic scubadived for the first time in her life, and saw plenty of coulourful fishes!

It is also there that mum went twice to the hospital to check everything was ok with the baby. Oh! Did we forget to mention it? Yes, the family is going to extend to seven members (including the parents, of course)!!! For this, we had to anchor close to a long beach full of sunbathers, altough, since the sun was so powerful, you did not get your skin tanned, but you got it burned!

The last island we could visit was La Gomera. La Gomera is the greenest Canary Island we have visited. There was a beach with black sand and enormous waves. We could swim in it, but we needed to be very careful, as you could loose your balance very easily when the waves retreated. There was another beach with a secret hideout we could use and with plenty of canary crabs that are blue and red which, when they see you, hide in the water or between the rocks. There the sea was much calmer, and the sand was also black.

We also did a surfboard race with children from two other boats, one of the boats was from France, and the other one from Germany. With them, we also made some sandballs and used them in the hideout to make a seat.

After we played at the beach, we rented a car – again – and went exploring the island. There was a place that looked like a paradise with one palm tree and plants all around it. Then we went to a banana cultivation garden. It was pretty weird, as we found an avocado tree in the middle of banana trees!

There it was possible to buy some palm sirup, which is made from palmtree sap. After that reposing pause, we decided to go up the mountain and in the clouds, and have a walk into one of the very last rainforest of Europe! This forest is indeed one of the only ones that has never been damaged! It is so rare that it has been elected as World Heritage!

Do you know what feeling it gave us? It made us feel cold and wet! We were soaked and freezed! The background was pretty awesome, though, because it looked like a movie set, or even a painting. The colours were all ancient, with dark green, gray and black all mixed together, and the trees were curved and covered with moss, and the dead trees were left rotting on the ground.

In another part of the forest, there had been a fire that completely destroyed that part of the forest. Some of the trees were still standing, but were all black and had holes in them. As they were standing in the fog, the picture was really strange!

After we had made several sailing trips between La Gomera, Tenerife and Gran Canaria, because of mum's pregnancy and the replacement of the generator (this is an engine that produces electricity) we were ready to cast the lines for Cape Verde!