Canary Islands Deep Dive: ARC and Beyond
Every November the Canary Islands feel like a city preparing for a festival. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria fills with the provisioning trawls and rigging check-lists of the ARC fleet; Puerto Calero on Lanzarote becomes a place of quiet focus and last-minute weather routing; and across the archipelago, marina berths fill with boats from Scandinavia, Germany, France, and the British Isles, all pausing before the long downwind run to the Caribbean. The Canaries are, for much of the sailing world, the last landfall of Europe. But the islands themselves reward far more than a three-day pit stop.
The Archipelago: Seven Islands, Seven Personalities
The Canaries consist of seven main islands and several smaller islets, strung from Lanzarote in the northeast to El Hierro in the southwest. Each has a distinct character. Lanzarote is volcanic desert, dark and stark, shaped by eruptions as recent as 1730–1736 that buried dozens of villages and created the Timanfaya National Park. Gran Canaria rises to 1,956-metre Pico de las Nieves and has both the most densely populated coast (the tourist south) and the most spectacular interior. Tenerife, with Teide at 3,718 metres — the highest peak in Spain — is the largest island and the one that most disrupts trade wind patterns in the archipelago. Fuerteventura is sand dunes and flat beaches, Gomera is forested ridges and deep ravines, and La Palma — the greenest island — has the Caldera de Taburiente, a 9-kilometre volcanic caldera that rivals the Azorean calderas.
Las Palmas: ARC Headquarters
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria hosts the ARC fleet departure every late November and has done so since the rally's founding in 1986. The Real Club Náutico de Las Palmas, with around 800 berths, is the hub. The mole outside the marina accommodates overflow during the ARC week. The city has the best provisioning in the Canaries: a covered market in the Vegueta quarter, multiple chandleries within 10 minutes of the marina, a sail loft, marine electronics specialists, and a substantial supermarket infrastructure.
The ARC start line is set off the Playa de las Canteras; watching the fleet disappear over the horizon on departure day is one of the great spectacles of the offshore sailing world.
Puerto Calero and Lanzarote
Puerto Calero, 10 kilometres south of Arrecife on Lanzarote's east coast, is the most complete modern marina in the Canaries outside Las Palmas. It was purpose-built in the late 1990s with generous berths, a well-equipped chandlery, good travel lift, and a location that puts it close to the best sailing in the eastern Canaries. The anchorage at Bahía de las Coloradas, just south of the marina, is often used by boats waiting for a weather window. Lanzarote's northwest coast, particularly the area around Jameos del Agua and the Jameos del Viento caves, is navigable in settled conditions and provides some of the most dramatic coastal sailing in the Atlantic.
Island Hopping in the Canaries
The inter-island distances are manageable: Las Palmas to Arrecife is 80 miles; Arrecife to Fuerteventura 60 miles; Gran Canaria to Tenerife 55 miles; Tenerife to Gomera 20 miles; Gomera to La Palma 40 miles; La Palma to El Hierro 65 miles. A circumnavigation of the archipelago — making all seven islands — takes two to three weeks at a comfortable pace.
The trade winds create a consistent beam-reaching opportunity on legs where you travel with the islands to windward. The acceleration zones south of each island, particularly between Tenerife and Gran Canaria and in the Bocayna Strait between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, compress the trades and produce gusts significantly above the ambient wind strength. The Bocayna is consistently the windiest inter-island passage in the eastern group.
Tenerife: The Wind Shadow and Beyond
Tenerife's Teide creates a massive lee on the southwest side of the island. The trades deflect around the peak and a calm zone extending 100 kilometres southwest of the island is a navigational consideration on passages from the eastern islands to Gomera or La Palma. The Los Gigantes cliffs on Tenerife's northwest coast — basalt walls rising 600 metres directly from the sea — are one of the most impressive coastal features in the Atlantic world and the anchorage at the foot of the cliffs is manageable in settled weather.
The Best Anchorages
Bahía de Gando on Gran Canaria's east coast has excellent holding in 5–10 metres and is sheltered from the dominant northeast swell by a low headland. Caleta del Sebo on Graciosa, the small island north of Lanzarote, is an unspoilt anchorage in a natural harbour with a white sand beach and a fishing village of unpaved streets. La Restinga on El Hierro, the westernmost Canary Island, sits at the edge of a marine reserve and the clarity of the water here is extraordinary — visibility underwater to 30 metres is common.
Trade Winds and Sailing Conditions
The northeast trade winds blow across the Canaries between October and June at average strengths of 15–25 knots. In summer they weaken and from July to September the trade wind belt retreats north and the Canaries experience calmer, more variable conditions. The best sailing is October to December, when the trades are building toward their winter strength and the sea temperature is still warm enough for comfortable offshore work.
The northern sides of the islands are windier and rougher; the southern and eastern coasts are sheltered. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, being the flattest islands, have the least disrupted trade wind regime and are consequently the windiest — 25 to 35 knots on the Bocayna in a winter swell is not unusual.
Explore on the map
All seven Canary Islands — marinas, anchorages, inter-island passages, and the trade wind departure corridor toward Cape Verde — are mapped on our interactive map. Zoom into the Canary Islands on the map to plan your island-hopping route, identify the best anchorages for your draft, and visualise the full picture from Lanzarote to El Hierro.