Ajuy

This weekend we took out a little rental car and went on a few outings around Fuertevetura. One of those was to a place named Ajuy, which, I must say sounds quite shocking for a Russian ear. Especially when you say something like “I am in Ajuy” in Russian.

Anyway. Prior to this visit, I was convinced that the road to Ajuy is extremely bad; not at all sure why by now. The small road that goes to the village itself (FV-621) is not that narrow and doesn’t behave like a snake; a somewhat trickier stretch is on the bigger road FV-20 between Tuineje and Pajara; or, if you are mad enough to take FV-30 bewteen Betancuria and Pajara, that should provide you with a good adrenalin influx. Still, if your car is powerful enough, it’s not really that bad, especially with automatics.

Suzi Q by a sandpiper and other sandy things

Small local sandpipers (or are they turnstones, maybe?)  look quite amusing when caught in mid-step. This one looks like he's doing a Suzi Q. He's running around a beached jellyfish - we a have a small-scale plague of them at the moment.

First Christmas on Fuerteventura - just a few pics

Apart from being first Christmas, it was also a first time we all went on our bikes together. Mine is blue :). This is Corralejo Flag Beach again, our nearest good beach. Kids read and chatted and we engaged in accumulating a stash of userpics :)

not much to report

There's nothing much to report recently. We kept unpacking and finding places for our stuff and I am proud to say that finally all the books are on their shelves. Now it's pictures turn - and we have a lot of those.
Fish above is scrambling for a piece of bread - there was a guy on a pier yesterday who kept feeding pigeons and fish in turn. Pigeons can't swarm like fish though, that's for sure

Lilac evening - and my lens is back

Today I was reunited with my main lens. It took just over three months for it to be fixed (and involved it being sent to Barcelona), but finally it's here with me and I am a happy bunny again. Next time, though, I might want to fly to Barcelona myself, it will probably be cheaper considering the lost time. Not that cropping 21 mpx to 10 wasn't fun, but sometimes you need all of your pixels.

To celebrate, we went to the beach and took a few long exposure shots. We got there a bit too late, though, it was getting really dark. But moving water is always beautiful

неспокойно синее море

Went to make a few long-exposure shots in the evening. Waves were a bit smaller today.

Big(ish) waves today

Yesterday, all of the Canaries were put on "coastal phenomenon" alert. "Orange" alert was today for Fuerteventura. The explanation mentioned sea swell and a possibility of waves up to 5 meters high. I actually spent (or perhaps wasted) some valuable time trying to figure out if avenida Grandes Playas is likely to be affected - we take it quite often, when we go into old town, and Kirill takes it when he goes to teach his zumba lesson, dragging his musical equipment with him. I figured that probably not, and most of Corralejo is shielded by the pier and Isla de Lobos. But of course I wanted to go and check it out. Early morning weather was good, but when it was time to get out of the house, fine but dense rain started, so by the time we were by the old town we were both wet. There were no waves on town beaches, but large waves were visible further in the ocean. To see them closer, I went past the pier a bit.

A few more pics of the waves and people follow

Fiesta del Mar (queueing for)

We went towards the port of Corralejo to see what was on offer at Fiesta del Mar. We knew that it was starting at 10, but I can't bring myself to get up this early on saturday, so by the time we got there, it seems that fiesta was all about queueing (funny spelling innit).

It was not, of course, even though it did look from the distance that a mass christening was occuring on  one of the boat slides. The queues were for free watersports - normally quite expensive. We saw sea kayaking, jetski and what looked like a start of snorkeling trip. There was probably a lot more stuff happening. and of course there were freebies from sponsor - green straw hats especially noticeable

A few more wet pics follow

visitor that walked by herself

 Meet our new neighbour. She moved in, with her accompanying humans, a couple of weeks ago. Two weeks seems like a long time for a cat, but she's still confused as to which house is hers - or maybe doesn't really care. We tend to sleep with windows open, so she feels free to drop in any time.

Couple of unrelated pics follows

bright day

Another bright and sunny day today. Timur's relaxing after a swim - once he is in the ocean, it is very difficult to extract him from there.

oceans, seas, broken cars, glass pebbles

Atlantic ocean (or is it Celtic sea? Doesn't matter really, sea being part of the ocean), as seen from layby onthe road from Saunton to Croyde, somewhere halfway.

I post pics from Somerset (or Devon on this occasion) in no particular order.

We decided to take our car out for a drive couple of days after we arrived to the cottage. As soon as we drove out, it started making loud bangs somewhere under my (driver's, that is) feet. Perhaps not very wisely, I drove it all the way to Barnstaple before stopping in Homebase carpark. Kirill went inside to ask for a nearest garage. He emerged in company of a man whose name I don't recall (sorry, I was stressed by then) who offered us to follow him to a place where there were a few garages side by side, including one where he took his own car. We followed his car and soon his mechanic told us that suspension spring was broken and it can break more stuff (like piercing the tire) if not attended to. Unfortunately, garages don't stock much spare parts now, so we had to leave the car at Barnstaple and come back by bus - two buses, to be precise.


The experience was definitely useful in many ways. Next time I hear any suspicious noises, I will know to stop at the nearest place. Plus, everybody we met were very helpful, and I now know for sure that it's possible to travel in english countryside by public transport, if you don't mind a bit of walking now and then.

I feel especially thankful to the gentleman who took us to garages from homebase carpark - he even offered to drive us back to the cottage, but I felt that it'll be way too much to ask, plus, to be honest, all of us won't have fit in his car anyway :) Thank you again, and sorry I can't remember your name, but I really was stressed

Picture above was taken after we collected repaired car from the garage a couple of days later.



and this is one of the things Timur entertained himself with while in the cottage - glass pebbles painting. He would have done better if his brush was proper one, but even so I like what he has done - especially the circular design

last glow

photographing sunsets is something that everybody does, and it's extremely difficult to produce something even close original in this area. so I didn't even try.

But - I just developed an instant theory why the sunset-y photographs are almost frowned upon by photographers - well, you know, they are generally landscapes, and landscapes are supposed* to have "an interest in the foreground", right? and what sort of foreground can you have in a picture where the main subject is sunset? - well, you can have a silhouette (human, dog, horse, bird, building, boat, standing still, moving whatever), but if foreground subjects are too big or you drag them out of pure outline with a flash, sunset is not a main subject any more. So it's somewhat difficult. Still, it's even more difficult to refrain from snapping away.

Anyway. Matter of fact, there was foreground interest in the original frame, but I choose to cut it off. It's (surprise, surprise) a photographer squatting on the water edge



* - I dunno why, one on these rules.

Llandudno in SA

from time to time I dip into my "old" picture folders, to see if there is something there that I missed when doing the first processing. this pic featured almost blown flat pale blue sky, so I swapped it to something more exciting (and taken in Hunstanton, Norfolk, of all places)

llandudno beach

I love those stones.
Seems very odd that this place shares a name with llandudno in wales