Tourists in and Greyrocks out!

La Provincia says first intake of tourists underwhelms

June comes to an end and Greyrocks is finally packing for the getaway! Casual observation over the ten days since rules were relaxed suggests that Corralejo is seeing a good flow of day-trippers from Lanzarote and other parts of our island, but they are not spending much money! On the other hand there seem to be visitors from the Peninsula and we have seen that the few hotels that are open have guests. Ruth's emergent ear for Spanish has recognised - she thinks - some Madrid and Andalucia accents.

This past weekend saw the first flights from the rest of Europe. A Wizz Air from Luton to Gran Can was the first that would have brought Brits directly to the Canaries. There are certainly now German and Dutch speaking holidaymakers in town in relatively small numbers. As semi-residents who have been on the island for a protracted period Greyrocks is not alone! Rumours have been doing the rounds about flights to UK which are then cancelled, and of the planes coming out empty.

Stunning views on Lobos

Hopes that worthy businesses will  be saved by July and August tourist numbers are tempered by fears that this will result in importation of the virus and ecological set-back. Within the last week numerous small craft or water-taxis have been doing the run over to the islet of Lobos, even though authorised tourist trips have not yet resumed, and the result is that it now resembles a vertedero (rubbish dump). Clearly not on the scale of Bournemouth beach on the South coast of England, but bad enough, and adds fuel to the debate about acceptable day-tripper numbers when the season is under way!


Our final couple of weeks have been dominated by sensible jobs, physio sessions and planning, but we have experienced some new things: Ruth has twice been to Rogues' Gallery to play Scrabble with Anne and Mel, just across the road we have a real find: - an Argentinian steak place to rival La Bolada which has not re-opened, and two other eateries: one an Andalucian tapas bar, and the other an Italian seafood bistro.

But now we are focused on a scary three days of travel. Whilst Greece is not accepting flights from UK our from Madrid should be fine, but we have had to complete online the new Greek PLF and have some concern that we may be tested in Athens owing to our age, meaning some sort of isolation.Three flights, airports, hotels... Watch this space!!

Approaching (the new) Normality

... and the best laid plans.....

(Press photo)

For just a few hours the Canary Islands and much of the rest of Spain has been out of Phase 3 and in the "new normal", so Greyrocks is driven to recording how we fared during the two weeks of that phase. It's in the nature of a "state of alarm" that we didn't do much, but the quality of life has been steadily improving, and certainty about our onward migration  has been fluctuating!



As June started we were still in Phase 2 and the weather was beautiful. Blue Rock opened with great attention to the rules in force and joined a small number of bars and small restaurants which we patronised. One could walk on the beach, but not enter the sea, so the beach bars such as Anno 2011 and Galera Beach were attractive spots, and we began to use Cantante (with its harbour view) - particularly during its wine happy hours! Ruth's birthday happened at this time. This was only the second time it had been celebrated on the island:- the other being 2008!  The maximum table occupancy in Phase 2 was fifteen so we planned a lunch party with tapas for that number at "Anno". It was a very sunny day, the activity we observed below us on the beach was jolly, Natalie and team did us proud on the food front and everyone went away pleased. Unfortunately and typically both of us fell asleep at the table, and stayed beyond a reasonable hour. Bob poured Ruth into a taxi (our first since lockdown) and repeated the sleeping in part on the balcony!

Early March

When Phase 3 started the maximum table size was increased to twenty and we were on one such at Anno for their barbecue with many of the same crew. That event moved on to Blue Rock for the rest of the evening.

Swimming in the sea became legal, but Greyrocks has not yet ventured in:- largely as the beach experience is not very comfortable with all "furniture" and accessories other than a towel forbidden. The town's youth, however,  have taken full advantage of the freedom and each day a crowd assembles to jump from the little jetty at the "town beach".

Initial building work

In Phase 3 we have been free of time constraints for walks and have been watching the resumed building work at La Lonja, at the marina. this has been taken over by Eddie of Playita and Anzuelo. Just before we were due to leave the island we had been for a drink and tapas and were not given a bill! The waiter said it was "his treat" as the place would be closing for a change of ownership and re-fit. It would not be re-opening until June. We resigned ourselves to not visiting again until the autumn, and worried that the simple style of the place would be changed. Soon the stripping out began, and then it all had to stop, and we couldn't legally walk there anyway! Recently each day has seen new mural painting, and it's good!

We still won't get to see the finished product until the Autumn as Greyrocks has finally got an "exit strategy"! It has become a very time-consuming roller-coaster of a planning exercise, but we are now fairly confident that we will be leaving the island on 3rd July!
The plan is Version 5, with Version 1 having been due to start on 12th April!

That one - involving flying to Barcelona and then driving through France to UK and thence flying to Chania from Bristol obviously fell by the wayside. versions 2 to 4 were planned to start after 1st July, and have been with Vueling through Barcelona in various configurations, and had needed to start including Athens. Yesterday we settled down to book to discover that the key flight Barcelona-Athens would cost over EUR 450 each! Back to the drawing board! By late lunchtime we had found and booked with Iberia through Madrid and Athens for a much more sensible price, but were nervous wrecks!

Including those for Chloë's aborted trip to us for Easter we now have a spreadsheet of nine flights requiring a refund!

Watch this space! We are off now to get a sense of what the place will be like with incomers from the Peninsula, followed very soon by German holidaymakers.The island became clear of all Covid cases for about a week, but migrants travelling from the African coast in very small craft have re-introduced it. Predictably this has brought out the racism among the Brits. Time to move on!

Celebration and Mourning: Two Flags

Yesterday was the annual "Day of the Canaries" and in theory a regional holiday and celebration of local culture! This is not Greyrocks' time of year so we have - in 28 years of visits and residence - never witnessed it. But, of course, 2020 was not the best year to do so! If you blinked you would miss it! Apart from the supermarket closing at 2 pm the only two notable features were Bob being given a chocolate bar as a gift in the pharmacy, and Gloria the cleaner sending a WhatsApp message to Ruth with a clip as shown here!

It is the pandemic that did it for the special day. Not only would assemblies not be permitted under our current Phase 2 regulations, but the nation as a whole is in the midst of a ten day period of mourning for its victims, and nothing celebratory is appropriate.
We daily inspect the statistics for Spain, followed by the Canaries and then Fuerteventura, and compare them to UK, France and Italy.
Yesterday the pertinent news item was of a passenger knowingly flying from Madrid to Lanzarote having been with his dying and infected mother and at her funeral. On arrival he was put into quarantine along with thirteen innocents who had been seated near him! This wrecked that island's record of 20 days without new cases and only two existing. It also raises fears that some other idiot will perform similarly for our island! It's a picture to cherish:- here are today's stats:

  

Now the island is "Covid-free"

Yet further good news on our island is that on Wednesday the last remaining patient was discharged from Intensive Care and declared clear of the virus, so that there are no active cases!
This hasn't unfortunately helped our personal planning, as another island that has fared very well is Crete,but Greece is proceeding cautiously with letting in the much-needed tourists for the summer season (or what is likely to be left of it!)
The UK - whose passports and nationalities Greyrocks hold - and Spain - whence we will travel - are excluded from its list of "welcome" nations. Optimistically we have booked a flight for 3rd July! "Watch this space" means more than usual this time!
In the meantime we remain on Phase 2 - (although a tentative  case was made to join the little islands moving on tomorrow). It has meant we can now eat inside at restaurants - and did during the week. We also attended a birthday party on next door's roof terrace with 9 of the 10 permitted guests. whilst still on Phase 2, but more of this to follow!

Racing through the Phases

We suffered a bit of a glitch with the "safety measures" between the last posting and the onset of Phase 1. Our washing machine - which lives in the bathroom  - so up two flights of stairs from the complex entrance - has been under-performing for most of its short life and becoming very noisy. We ordered a new one from the superstore in Puerto and its delivery would be on 9th, but we had not been warned of the Co-vid 19 regulations in place and the masked guys delivering it would do no more than get it up the external stairs and just inside the front door. We spent that weekend with a washing machine in the living room, and on that Monday morning engaged the janitor and oppo to wrestle it up the stairs.

Most welcome after fifty days!

That apart Phase 1 began very well on the Monday (11th). Bob was the first client since lockdown at the opticians and Ruth dropped by at the newly-reopened physiotherapist's eventually securing an appointment for the Wednesday and our cleaner Gloria rang to say she too was back in action and would come early on Wednesday. But the most welcome de-escalation for Greyrocks was the highly-regulated opening of bars with terraces. We agreed that Anno 2011 would be a likely place - given its large beach-side terrace and not too tourist-dominated clientèle. Ruth arrived to find  Bob already well into his first caña and seated with five other British locals we know. It seems that Natalie had - unknown to refusniks - publicised the opening on Facebook and it was about as full as it was allowed to be in Phase 1, with some of the well-spaced tables at full ten-person capacity. we spent several hours there, during which there was a visit by a Guardia Civil vehicle. The occupants found nothing amiss and after doing the turn went away with a wave. Predictably there was a huge cheer! The sun was shining and the atmosphere friendly and gentle.

Not so - we learnt some time later - at all bars that opened! A very popular (surfers') bar was "raided" and closed later that day for several breaches of the rules! These are quite tough and a number of bars have chosen not to open - either because they need the tourist trade - or their outdoor space is insufficient (or both!).

First Thurs Club meal out: Tapas Oscar

After a day of abstinence and rest we decided to resume eating out! Until Phase 2 this would mean on a terrace and so the range was limited to those for whom it was deemed worth opening, and also thinking about eating early as the evenings are still a bit chilly! So during this phase the "Thursday Club" had a great feast at Oscar's starting at 4 pm, we went as a couple for a late lunch at Marquesina and and a second trip to Oscar's on our way home from somewhere , and the said club met on Wednesday evening at Domingo's resorting to fleeces as time passed! When the wind direction changed Greyrocks also made trips to the bar-restaurant at La Galera Beach, where the weather was glorious. The eateries are not permitted to have menus on tables (or anything else) so boards are used with some cutback on what is available, but it is still a delight to have this freedom.

Even during the two weeks of Phase 1 there were amendments to the rules. As recorded before the surfers had been incensed by the restrictions on when and where they could take to the waves, so midway these were relaxed considerably, and larger shops which were not due to open until today found ways round this. Everyone has been waiting for places like the Chinese "sell everything" markets to open their doors. Greyrocks' own deprivations were printing paper and a doorbell, neighbours needed a toilet seat, but it could have been so many household items! Midweek our nearest such shop re-opened early by cordoning off sections to meet a maximum floor area of 400 square metres. Clever move, that! Sports fishing has been added and finally - and less welcome - was the national ruling on face masks which came int force on Thursday. So far we are not aware of anyone being found wanting over this, and the street patrols seem much less prevalent!

The move to "the new normal" here feels entirely timely with our continuing good health record. There have been no new cases of the virus on the island for ten days, and at some stage in the last few days the home-based case became a recovery with little fuss meaning we have only the very extended stay in ICU for our only case!

There will be more on travel in and out in a coming post - including Greyrocks' "escape plan", but for now here is a new promotional video for the island aimed at visitors from other islands and the Peninsula when Phase 3 arrives and makes this possible. Meanwhile it's "Welcome to Phase 2"

"Strange times, indeed!" - Phasing for dummies!

There were six days during which the town's children were allowed out on the streets for an hour's exercise with one adult. but otherwise it was just the solo shopping trip. Then - on Saturday 2nd May - a form of liberty came into force with the national phase 0 for all! The rules were certainly much simpler than the arcane Canarias proposal that had been widely publicised but fell on stony ground! The practical difficulties with this one were first that a kilometre doesn't get you very far, and enforcement was going to be nigh-on impossible. This seems to have been overcome by having little or no enforcement! Second - and crucial for Greyrocks and friends - is what to do if you are a mixed couple in terms of the 70 years-old boundary. Those with children have been complaining that the specified hours for their release from home coincide with the hottest part of the day.

Others, though, would be happy to be out and about at that time, for the "surfistas" (unless over 70 - as per Jimmy Buffet!) have to stop by 10 am! As they are not supposed to drive to their chosen spot they have been visible in large numbers from our balcony, and this video shows up to 800 enjoying themselves on the first Saturday from Las Canteras beach in Las Palmas!

"Off you go!"

By 10.10 am on that Saturday we had met four other British neighbour couples with at least one "oldie" triumphantly promenading round town, and seen many others of various nationalities. The "out of range" partner is nominally the carer, which has irony in some cases! Bob has had some long bike rides on his "new" one, and Ruth is working up to another attempt to get in the saddle! Alongside this new freedom to roam came the news that four turtles had been found on the beach near Corralejo and were helped back to the open sea by conservationists from the  south of the island!
Phase 0 has also included the limited opening of hairdressers and some other very small shops, and -to our great relief - takeaway food services. This latter has meant a let-up in home cooking, whereby Ruth has never been so active in the superbly designed kitchen, and has been self-actualising and Googling aplenty - resulting in a burgeoning freezer! But with so many good restaurants and tapas bars the attraction has been diminishing! A cooked chicken from Fuerte Pollo covering numerous meals for two, and a Chinese from Lemon Tree delivered to the Thursday Club have been very welcome!

Lest it seems that Greyrocks is celebrating the end of the strictest lockdown without regard to its health benefits we can also report that the infection data - which we peruse intently each morning -  show just how "safe" is the island! Today there is just one active case! The patient is in the UMI (ICU) of the hospital. Bizarrely at one stage this week it looked as if absence of sufficient UMI beds would prevent us moving to the next stage of deescalation, but an exception has been made and we are due to do so on Monday!

We await a Canarias version of the exercise timetable - due to be issued today! Watch this space for news of Phase 1, which 51 percent of Spanish residents can enjoy from Monday.

"You aint goin' nowhere!"

Last Friday there was great excitement in the Greyrocks home as details were published in the press of the proposal for deescalation for the autonomous region of Canarias! It was a complicated four stage process, which, it was said could - if approved on Sunday - start next day with provision for"exercise" and for the over-65's to be "let out" everyday from 11 to 1, and other adults fairly free movement but on alternate days based on house number. It came with messages about Madrid's acceptance of our special circumstances, and Ruth spent hours - despite her post-Thursday hangover - translating, summarising and forwarding it. However there was a particular discrepancy with regard to children throughout Spain, who were to be allowed to go out - with specific conditions from Sunday. Sunday came and went with that being the most notable development. We would hear about the overall plan on Tuesday, apparently!

We saw a few children with adults from our balcony and when Ruth popped to the supermarket she passed a woman accompanying two girls with bikes and she greeted them with a jolly "Por fin!" (at last) which was returned with a smile! Throughout the day we saw many such groups and it all seemed gentle, with no evident policing but in line with the "rules". However we have since heard that on our nearby promenade there was a lot of rule-bending!


After that the "hour per day" for under-14's has become the norm, and it also seems that the troops have left for somewhere less "cushy"! News snippets indicated that the Canarian proposal was not being warmly welcomed. and this morning the details of the national plan emerged with just a couple of minor concessions over timing for the major islands (treated separately) and a considerable acceleration for La Gomera, El Hierro and La Graciosa. Ruth had a go at processing the press report. It is here in all its contorted glory. (to follow) Let's see how it goes, but the sense is emerging that movement off the island is going to be a long way off! Watch this space, but we are pondering where  to go for that first meal out - on May 11th, after consuming a take-away Chinese on May 4th!

Good News, Bad News!

Pretty self-explanatory, and sourced from El Diario!

Almost six weeks of lockdown now, and the good news is that the island continues its status as minimally touched by the Covid-19 infection itself. The Canaries vies with the Balearics and Murcia in league tables of the state of spread, and our island of Fuerteventura continues to be clear of all associated deaths. The number of "active" cases has fluctuated this week between an all-time low of 11 and today stands at 13 Greyrocks' home "municipio" has just 1! This hasn't stopped it having the most active policing - to the point of official complaint. We have managed to dodge it on most of our individual trips to the supermarket, and in the last few days there has been a much lower presence. This is perhaps because car journeys have greatly increased since Monday when construction and manufacturing could resume. cars may only have a maximum of two occupants - with any passenger being in the back. So good news:- we are most unlikely to pick up the virus here, and the heavy policing is easing along with the regulations.

The bad news is that the restrictions on adults getting some exercise remain in place. From Sunday children can be taken out for an hour with a few other limitations but the childless and dog-less are still required to stay at home. Many representations are being made from the Canaries for early lifting of the lockdown, and it is possible that the three barely- affected islands might lead the way. (Graciosa. La Gomera and El Hierro)

But when??????

 However there is an irony here in that it  is very bad news for migratory species such as Greyrocks! With tourism being so crucial to the economy but risky in terms of importing infection the resumption of inward flights needs to be very tightly regulated, so our leaders have asked that we be the last region to be opened up. Hence we have no idea when we might be able to fly out and start the summer!





Meanwhile

..this is where are!