Our departure from Santa Cruz was delayed due to a problem with the propulsion system. After a few hours of attempting to restart the engine, we were told that a specialist from France was flying in and would join the ship in Arrecife to troubleshoot the computer. We were kept informed by the captain throughout the night and we limped into Arrecife on one engine, arriving 4 hours late.

We decided to make this a beach day and headed to the gorgeous Puerto Del Carmen beach. This public beach had scores of loungers for rent for 5.25EUR per day and the place was very clean. There was a mixture of Europeans and locals, and a few topless bathers too. Despite the air and water temps being only about 67F, I swam and soaked up the sun with our friends Karen and Michael Bieger. Marsh was a little less adventurous and just enjoyed “the view” from his lounger.

When we’d had enough sun, we strolled the shops, restaurants and bars behind the beach before settling on one for lunch. While the food was not anything special, we did enjoy a nice bottle of white wine produced on Lanzarote.

Arrecife is a lovely port town, with trim white houses and sparce greenery due to the mere 6 inches of rainfall they get yearly. Of the 160,000 population on Lanzarote, 60,000 live in Arrecife. As with Tenerife, tourism is Lanzarote’s primary industry. It is the fourth largest of the Canary Islands at 326 sq miles.

By the time we got back to the ship from the beach, the propulsion problem had been resolved and we headed off for our next port: Agadir, Morocco.