Canary Island Cacti

October 27, 2021October 28, 2021 / flyingfishsail / 20 Comments

^{The Mother-in-Law’s Cushion cactus, Echinocactus grusonii, grows to an immense size and would certainly make for an uncomfortable seat. © Jeffrey Cardenas}

An irony of Canary Island cacti is that, despite being a ubiquitous part of this island’s landscape, not a single variety of cactus originated here. Nearly all of them came from the Americas. They are travelers, like me. They want to be here. When the Spaniards brought the plants to the Canaries from the New World, it was as if the cacti said to this scorched earth, “Where have you been all of my life?” The climate is perfect for Cactaceae. It is arid and windy with hot sun and cool night air, and the black volcanic soil is an ideal medium for a cactus. In addition to grapevines and date palms, cacti are nearly the only other natural thing on the island of Lanzarote colored green. And the cacti are not just green; they also show hues of red, purple, pink, and yellow. Volcanoes turned much of this island into shades of burned toast. The cacti arrived in a rainbow of color.

Cacti are sustainable visitors. They don’t consume resources (irrigation). They literally squeeze water from stone and then hold it during long periods of drought with brilliant biology that includes a wax-like skin layer and water-retaining cell membrane. And what use is a cactus, you ask? Aside from being a beautiful plant (see below), their fruit–the prickly pear–is a delicious and important food source in the Canary Islands. (You haven’t lived until you have eaten a freshly grilled red snapper on the beach served with prickly pear salsa.) More importantly, the Opuntia variety of cacti produces a commodity to Lanzarote that was once equal to the value of gold and silver. Inconceivably, it originated in the form of a wingless female parasite called cochineal.^[1]

“…one of the most precious products to come out of the West Indies is the cochineal, a commodity equal to gold and silver.”
–King Felipe III, 1620

Like an aphid or mealybug, the cochineal insect buries its proboscis into the fleshy leaves of the prickly pear cactus and satiates itself on the plant’s moisture and nutrients. As the parasite grows, it absorbs a red pigment that, when processed, becomes carmine. Carmine dye was used by Aztecs and Mayans as early as the second century BC. Cities conquered by Montezuma in the 15th century paid their yearly tributes in bags of cochineal dye.^[2] After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, cochineal was exported to Spain, and by the 17th century, it was a commodity traded around the world. Cochineal dye became Mexico’s second-most valued export after silver.^[3] Dye pigments produced from the cochineal insect gave the Catholic cardinals their vibrant robes and the English “Redcoats” their distinctive uniforms. The dried bugs parts were so highly prized that cochineal was regularly quoted on the London and Amsterdam Commodity Exchanges. Large-scale production of cochineal emerged, especially in Latin America and the Canary Islands.^[4]

*Mexican Indian Collecting Cochineal with a Deer Tail* by José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, 1777 © Public Domain

Today, dry cochineal powder is currently selling online for as much as $500 per kilo. It takes about 80,000 to 100,000 insects to make one kilogram of cochineal dye, and the Canary Islands produces some 20 tons per year.^[5] The carmine dye from Lanzarote’s plants and elsewhere is primarily used as a colorant in cosmetics and food. The water-soluble form of cochineal is included in the ingredients of a wide variety of products, including processed meats, ketchup, alcoholic drinks, juice beverages, candies, and dairy products. There was a brouhaha 10 years ago when customers discovered that Starbucks was using cochineal insect dye to make their Strawberry and Creme Frappuccino. After the inevitable headlines, Starbucks reconsidered its recipe and announced it no longer colors its coffee drinks with bugs.

I had my first taste of cactus at Lanzarote’s stunningly beautiful Jardín de Cactus in the northeastern village of Guatiza. The café there specializes in green prickly pear burgers (from locally-grown cactus) served in a carmine-red sesame seed bun with a glass of freshly-squeezed cactus juice. Yum! The Lanzarote Cactus Garden is a botanical wonderland in an abandoned picon (volcanic soil) mine at the heart of the island’s prickly pear plantations. The garden has over 4,500 specimens of cactus and other succulents, including 450 different species originating from five continents. The creation of Jardín de Cactus was the final inspiration of Lanzarote’s favorite son, environmental artist César Manrique, who died shortly after the garden was inaugurated. The garden and its integration of artistic creativity into the environment was an essential part of Lanzarote being named a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993.

The images below were made from the Jardín de Cactus and other locations on Lanzarote. For you botanists in the crowd, several photos show Euphorbaicea instead of Cactaceae (can you pick them out?) because, like many things in nature, these plants are too beautiful to be ignored.

Click on any thumbnail photo below to be directed to a carousel of high-resolution, full-frame images that include data and camera settings.

All images: © Jeffrey Cardenas

^{A layer of black volcanic} ^{sand provides protection from the sun for these cacti in the garden of the El Grifo winery on Lanzarote. © Jeffrey Cardenas}

REFERENCES

^[1] Lanzarote Catus Garden, A Gardener’s Notes, Guillermo Benigno Perdomo Perdomo, 2018

^[2]Timeline of Fabrics, Threads In Tyme, LTD, 2005

^[3] The Bug that Changed History, J. Behan, 2006.

^[4] A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire, Amy Butler Greenfield, 2005

^[5] Canary Islands Cochineal Producers, https://web.archive.org/web/20050624075803/http://www.arrakis.es/~rpdeblas/cochinea.htm 1998 and Tropical Commodities and their Markets, Foodnet, 2012

Special thanks: Antonio Manuel Martín Santos, Lanzarote Jardín de Cactus, for help with plant identification

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places where Flying Fish carries me, and the flora, fauna, and people I encounter along the way.

Please click “Follow” at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and please consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments, and I will always respond when I have an Internet connection. I will never share your personal information.

You can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish, boat speed (or lack thereof), and current weather as I sail into the Atlantic by clicking this satellite uplink: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish. A Bonus: Click the “Legends and Blogs” box on the right side of the tracking page for passage notes while I am sailing offshore.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives – Fr. John Baker}

The Green Lagoon

October 17, 2021November 16, 2021 / flyingfishsail / 2 Comments

Charco de los Clicos, Lanzarote — If only I had been here 57 years ago… I might have seen Raquel Welch emerging from this green lagoon, her breasts spilling out of a fur bikini, only to be snatched from the beach by a carnivorous Pteranodon and flown to its nearby nest where the distraught “Loana the Fair One” was to be fed to the pterosaur’s offspring.

Ah, well, timing is everything.

Much of the 1966 cinematic fantasy, One Million Years B.C., was filmed in Lanzarote, including the epic green lagoon scene. The location director deserved an Oscar for choosing this island. If I blinked today and saw a 200-pound flying reptile swoop down out of the volcanic rocks to carry away a tourist climbing out of a tour bus, it would all seem perfectly normal. A million years and this place is still prehistoric.

The island of Lanzarote bubbled up from a hot spot in the ocean 15 million years ago as plate tectonics transformed the earth. It has been nearly three centuries since the last major volcanic eruption and much of the island is unchanged. A dry climate and lack of erosion–and the protection of the spectacular Timanfaya National Park–have left the landscape pristine (translation: burnt to a crisp). NASA used this otherworldly topography to train the Apollo 17 crew.

Despite the current and severe volcanic activity on the Canary Island of La Palma 200 miles to the west, Lanzarote is known as the “Island of Volcanoes.” There are over 100 volcanic craters on this island that measures only 37 miles north to south. During the eruptions here in the 1730s, which lasted six years, the island grew by several square miles. Flames were visible 130 miles away and smoke hung in the air while lava and ash covered large areas of the island. Lives were lost, homes destroyed, and residents were plunged into years of darkness.^[1]

The Green Lagoon is one of the volcanic craters that formed during these powerful eruptions. The Atlantic Ocean eroded the western side of the cone flooding the crater with seawater. A berm of black volcanic rock and coarse sand now separates the lagoon from the ocean. Ancient lava tubes and underground fissures circulate the water. Charco de los Clicos was once home to a thriving colony of shellfish known locally as clicos (thus the name) until someone put a pair of turtles into the lagoon, and they devoured every last clico. Now the lagoon is inhabited by phytoplankton, microscopic marine algae, which gives the water its distinctive emerald green hue.

The Charco de los Clicos is a Natural Reserve bordering Timanfaya National Park. Regulations forbid swimming… unless, of course, you are Loana the Fair One and you come attired in a fur bikini.

^{The film production poster of Raquel Welch, in One Million Years B.C., an image that fueled the fantasies of 12-year-old boys everywhere.} ^{© 1966 Hammer Film Productions Ltd.}

References:

^[1] Alwyn Scarth, Volcanoes: An Introduction (Taylor & Francis, 2004)

^[2] Hammer Film Productions Ltd. 1966

Official Trailer One Million Years B.C.: https://vimeo.com/125826115

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places where Flying Fish carries me.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives – Fr. John Baker}

Gibraltar & the Barbary Apes

September 17, 2021September 20, 2021 / flyingfishsail / 14 Comments

^{The Rock of Gibraltar is home to Europe’s only wild primate, macaque monkeys, locally known as Barbary Apes. © Jeffrey Cardenas}

Aboard Flying Fish, I sense the Rock before I even see it. Gibraltar remains hidden by dense fog until Flying Fish is just a few hundred meters offshore. Then, the Rock appears like a specter off the starboard bow. Huge and close. I have frequently felt the presence of places I have visited on this voyage, but few affect me as powerfully as seeing this monolith emerging from the foggy Mediterranean Sea. A Gibraltar landfall is a rite of passage for many ocean sailors.

Neanderthals walked here, as did the Cro-Magnons. Arriving later were the Phoenicians, Goths, Moors, Romans, and centuries of European powers. Overlapping many of those civilizations, one group of survivors remained established on the Rock–Gibraltar’s Barbary Ape.

The “Ape” is an Old World monkey species, a Barbary macaque, originating in the Atlas and Rif Mountains of Morocco and Algeria, 20 kilometers across the Strait of Gibraltar. Some scientists speculate that the monkeys may also be related to macaques that migrated 5 million years ago across southern Europe. Regardless of their lineage, Gibraltar’s Barbary macaques are iconic to the Rock. Wrote historian Alonso Hernanández del Portillo of Gibraltar in the early 1600s: “There are monkeys, who may be called the true owners, with possession from time immemorial.”^[1]

I cannot sail past the Rock of Gibraltar without reacquainting myself with this wild band of free-roaming monkeys I first met some 45 years ago. Much has changed, but the Barbary macaques are still the main attraction in Gibraltar.

A popular belief holds that as long as the macaques exist on Gibraltar, the territory will remain under British rule.^[2] In 1942, after the macaque population dwindled to just seven monkeys, Winston Churchill ordered their numbers be replenished from North Africa (in the midst of World War II and Rommel’s Afrika Korps). The monkeys became so important to Gibraltar’s interests that until 1991 their care was entrusted to the British Army, and later, the Gibraltar Regiment. A “Keeper of the Apes” maintained up-to-date records for each macaque, listing births and names and supervising their diet. The War Office in 1944 gave the macaques a food budget of £4 a month for fruit, vegetables, and nuts. Each macaque was issued a serial number with its name. The Gibraltar Chronicle would announce births: “Rock Apes. Births: To Phyllis, wife of Tony, at the Upper Rock, on 30th June 1942— a child. Both doing well.” The names would often be associated with someone of stature in British society, like Elizabeth, named for the Queen, or Winston, for Churchill. If Elizabeth or Winston, or any ill or injured monkey needed surgery or medical attention they were taken to Royal Naval Hospital in Gibraltar, where they received the same treatment as an enlisted serviceman.^[3] Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, along with Prince Charles and Princess Anne, met the Barbary Apes while visiting Gibraltar in 1954. A photograph shows the Queen and royal family happily feeding the macaques.

^{Click on any photo for a slideshow of high-resolution images with captions showing the many personalities of Gibraltar’s Barbary Apes. All photographs © Jeffrey Cardenas}

About 250 macaques remain on the Rock. Although the human population of Gibraltar numbers only 34,000 people, this tiny territory of 6.8 square kilometers recorded 11 million visitors in 2019 (pre-COVID). It is one of the highest tourist-to-resident ratios in the world, and many of those visitors come to co-mingle with the free-roaming Barbary Apes. These days if the Queen fed a macaque in Gibraltar, she (or anyone else) could be fined £4,000. That penalty, however, doesn’t stop tourists from acting badly.

Early one morning, I pack a bag of cameras and climb to the top of the Rock at Prince Philips Arch, where I hope to see a troop of Barbary macaques. When I arrive, there is already a gridlock of taxi vans disgorging a mob of tourists insistent on capturing selfies with a monkey. Prince Philips Arch is in the Gibraltar Upper Rock Nature Reserve, an official feeding station for the macaques, and it is stocked today with carrots, corn, and watermelon. The monkeys, however, are more focused on the bags of snack food, candy bars, and surreptitious peanuts in the possession of the tourists. There are squeals of delight every time a macaque jumps on somebody’s head or unzips a backpack. Two young men speaking Russian tease the macaques with a peanut butter sandwich. The men are shirtless and sunburned, and possibly drunk because one man slaps the open face of his sandwich onto the bare back of his buddy, and they howl with laughter as the macaques go berserk and chase them.

Tourism reached its peak in Gibraltar in 1985, when, after years of hostilities with Spain, the border finally reopened. A flood of visitors poured onto the Rock. Some 45,000 people entered Gibraltar within the first week, increasing to over 10,000 per day. Within six months, a million people had visited. By 1986, five million visitors a year were arriving in Gibraltar. Nearly everyone who came wanted to see the Barbary Apes. To make room for visitors’ cars on Gibraltar’s crowded roads, 1,000 old vehicles were rounded up in Gibraltar and pushed off the cliffs into the sea at Europa Point on the southern tip of the territory.^[4] The number of macaques rapidly increased as a result of illegal feeding by tourists. It also led to an increase in aggressive behavior as the monkeys associated humans with junk food. The problem culminated in 2008 with the Government of Gibraltar ordering the culling of a rogue troop of monkeys that was breaking into hotel rooms and scavenging garbage cans. Researchers and animal rights activists protested the cull, but the Government justified it because overly aggressive monkeys would frighten tourists and damage the economy.^[5]

More recently, the Government of Gibraltar says it is making efforts to crack down on human interactions with the macaques, including daily patrols and microchips in the monkeys. In addition to fines for feeding the macaques, a new law was passed last year, making it an offense to touch or interfere in any way with the monkeys. In the 20 hours over several days that I recently spent among the monkeys in Gibraltar’s Upper Rock Nature Reserve, I saw many tourists feeding, touching, and interfering with the macaques. Not once did I see any official presence or enforcement of the tourist misbehavior.

Later, I hike to an isolated promontory above Europa Point, between what the Athenian philosopher Plato called the “Two Pillars of Hercules”–the Atlas Mountains of Africa to the south and the Rock of Gibraltar to the north. I think of the prehistoric description of this piece of land by Gibraltar Museum evolutionary biologist Clive Finlayson: “While the rest of Europe was cooling, the area around Gibraltar back then resembled a European Serengeti. Leopards, hyenas, lynxes, wolves and bears lived among wild cattle, horses, deer, ibexes, oryxes and rhinos – all surrounded by olive trees and stone pines, with partridges and ducks overhead, tortoises in the underbrush and mussels, limpets and other shellfish in the waters.”

Gibraltar’s Barbary Apes are survivors in a rapidly changing world. Among the dense pines above Europa Point, I watch a troop of macaques interact, away from the melee of tourists. They forage naturally and groom each other, a sign of reduced stress. I watch a female macaque nurse an infant while a male moves close to gently participate in the parenting. This idyllic scene has me questioning whether my presence among the macaques also makes me part of the problem. I may not torment the monkeys with peanut butter, but I am, along with millions of other visitors, encroaching upon the space of a wild thing that was here first. I wonder: How can humans learn to interact with less impact and more equitably share this natural world?

^{In an 1887 satire by Jules Verne, the Spaniard Gil Braltar invades the Rock with a macaque troop after disguising himself as one of them. Drawn by George Roux. Credit: Public Domain}

^References:

^{[1] “Historia de la Muy Noble y Más Leal Ciudad de Gibraltar,” Alonso Hernanández del Portillo} ^(1605-1610)

^{[2] “The Curious Case} ^{of the Last ‘Wild’ Monkeys in Europe,” Atlas Obscura, Dan Nosowitz, 2019}

^{[3] “Gib Monkeys,” Internet Archive, 2011, Wikipedia}

^{[4] “Gibraltar: British or Spanish?” Peter Gold 2012, Wikipedia}

^{[5] “Tourism Management: An Introduction,” Clare Inkson, Lynn Minnaert, 2012, Wikipedia}

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places where Flying Fish carries me.

Please click Follow at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and please consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments. I will always respond when I have an Internet connection. And I will never share your personal information.

You can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish, boat speed (or lack thereof), and current weather as I sail into the Mediterranean by clicking this satellite uplink: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish. Click the “Legends and Blogs” box on the right side of the tracking page for en route Passage Notes.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

Flamingos of Las Salinas

August 25, 2021August 26, 2021 / flyingfishsail / 15 Comments

The earth’s Prime Meridian transits the salt flats of Calpe, where Flying Fish lays at rest after a passage from Ibiza. In a sense, this line of longitude is where time begins and ends each day. Time modifies and reorders the natural world: adaptation or extinction. These random thoughts occupy my mind as I share space on the salt flats with one of the world’s most iconic bird species. The greater flamingo has adapted and survived thousands of years of extraordinary change along Spain’s Costa Blanca.

The salt flats of Las Salinas were first utilized during the great Roman era of the 2nd century AD. Now, a busy marina and a European holiday center surround the edges of these ancient alluvial deposits. The greater flamingo continues to thrive here despite the high-rise apartments, Jet Skis, and música electrónica that have changed the shadow and sound of its environment. These flamingos are wild birds. Their wings are not clipped. They are not fenced in or fed. That they choose to return to Las Salinas, in the middle of this urban setting, is a testament to how nature adapts.

The salt flats and the city of Calpe are at the base of the massive rock Peñón de Ifach, a 1,000-foot massif of limestone rising from the Mediterranean Sea. Ifach is an important homing beacon for birds. Some 173 species, both nesting and migrating, have been recorded here, including black-winged stilts, avocets, the black wheatear, and the white wagtail. There is some ornithological tourism in Calpe, but most tourists come instead for a different variety of wagtail, and to get sunburned and drink sangria.

Tourists sharing Calpe with the birds date back at least two millennia. Across the sandbar delineating the salt flats and the edge of the sea, archeologists excavated the “Baños de la Reina.” Ancient Roman engineers designed a thermal complex including pools of different temperatures, a sophisticated heating system, and a piscinae for sunken gardens and the farming of live fish. But for whom this ultimate vacation villa was constructed is still unknown. Archeologists know that hidden tunnels allowed private access to the Baths of the Queen, but they do not know who the queen was. Whoever merited this elaborate architecture of marble and mosaics was most certainly “a person with a high purchasing power.”^[1] Marcus Aurelius is famously quoted saying, “Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” Perhaps Marcus Aurelius kept a mistress at the salt flats of Calpe.

The history that has shaped the landscape of Las Salinas has also helped maintain its natural habit and biodiversity. Salt was a necessity for fish preservation, which Calpe used to market its catch. Eventually, salt from these lagoons supplied fishing industries in over 40 Spanish municipalities. At the end of the 18th century, Salt production declined when Las Salinas was thought to harbor yellow fever. In 1993, Spain declared Las Salinas a protected maritime-terrestrial zone.

^{Click on each photograph for a full-frame high-resolution version.}
^{Two generations of greater flamingos. Flamingos suck water through their bills to filter feed. A mature and a subadult greater flamingo feed together. All images © Jeffrey Cardenas}

While many species make up the Las Salinas habitat, the population of flamingos generates the most attention. The coloration of all flamingos comes from the carotenoid pigments in the organisms that live in their feeding grounds. The greater flamingo, one of four distinct species, is less flashy than some of its genetic relatives like the hot-pink American flamingo. That doesn’t prevent them from wanting to look good. Secretions of their uropygial “preening” gland contain carotenoids–red pigments. During the breeding season, greater flamingos preen to spread these uropygial secretions over their feathers, enhancing their color. Ornithologists have described this cosmetic use of uropygial secretions by greater flamingos as “applying make-up.”^[2]

The greater flamingo is an enthusiastic eater. It feeds with its head down; its upper jaw is movable and not rigidly fixed to its skull.^[3] Using its feet, the bird stirs up mud, then sucks the slurry through its bill to filter small shrimp, seeds, blue-green algae, microscopic organisms, and mollusks. It is a healthy diet. Wild greater flamingos have an average lifespan of 30 – 40 years. The oldest known greater flamingo, named Greater, (duh) lived in an Adelaide, Australia zoo for between 85-93 years.^[4] The bird’s exact age is unknown; he was already a mature adult when he arrived in Adelaide in 1933. Greater was euthanized in January 2014 due to “complications of old age.”

It is zero hundred hours, at zero degrees longitude. A full moon has risen in direct alignment with Jupiter and Saturn. Flying Fish is secure nearby at her mooring. Somewhere in the ruins of a partially submerged palace, the legacy of an unknown queen waits to be discovered. And on the salt flats of Las Salinas, flamingos secrete pigment over their feathers. Some days I, too, feel the complications of aging, but I’m not ready to be euthanized yet. There is still so much to see and so much to know.

###

^References:

^{[1] “The Baths of the Queen, a Roman Palace,” The World (2012)}

^{2] “Greater flamingos Phoenicopterus roseus use uropygial secretions as make-up,” . Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, J.A., Rendón, J Garrido-Fernández, A Garrido, M, Rendón-Martos, and A Pérez-Gálvez. (2011).}

^{[3] Flamingo, Wikipedia}

^{[4] “Flamingos at Adelaide Zoo,” Vaughan Wilson; at Conservation Ark / Zoos South Australia 2008}

^{Ornithologists have described the cosmetic use of secretions on the feathers of greater flamingos as “applying make-up.” Photograph: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which Flying Fish carries me.

Please click Follow at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and please consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments. I will always respond to your comment when I have an Internet connection. And I will never share your personal information.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

Posidonia

August 16, 2021August 17, 2021 / flyingfishsail / 14 Comments

The Spanish Posidonia Police came calling on Flying Fish today. I was happy to see them.

Posidonia is a seagrass species that is endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. Like the turtlegrass of the subtropic Americas and the Caribbean, Posidonia forms large underwater meadows vital to the ecosystem. The aquatic grass has a high carbon absorption capacity. It is said to soak up 15 times more carbon dioxide every year than a similar-sized piece of the Amazon rainforest.¹ In 2006, a vast colony of Posidonia was discovered south of Ibiza and is estimated at around 100,000 years old. It may be one of the largest and oldest clonal colonies on Earth.²

Posidonia grows best in clean waters, and its presence is a marker for lack of pollution. It is found only in the Mediterranean Sea, where it is in decline. The UNESCO world heritage site around the Balearic Islands includes about 140,000 acres of Posidonia, which has global significance because of the amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs. The meadows are being threatened by rising temperatures, slowing its growth, as well as damage from anchors.³ The Posidonia meadows of Ibiza are fiercely protected. Drop an anchor on Posidonia, and you are breaking the law.

This is why it astonished me when I watched the superyacht Chuck Taylor drop its anchor in a bed of Posidonia at an anchorage on Mallorca that we were sharing. (I don’t know that it was the shoe guy Chuck Taylor; who would name a boat after themselves?) Nonetheless, I wish the Posidonia Police had been in the bay that day. When Chuck Taylor departed, an entire square yard of the living colony was impaled on the tines of its anchor.

Granted, anchoring in the Balearic Islands in July and August–especially during this post-lockdown year–is a challenge. Nowhere in the world have I seen so many boats, and so many inconsiderate boat operators, as I have here during the past two months. Because anchorage space is limited, boats battle for every square foot of sea bottom available without Posidonia. Many boats anchor regardless of the protected areas. Bays are so tightly packed that adequate anchor scope for holding is frequently compromised. Two nights ago, at 03:00, katabatic winds ripped through my anchorage at Benirràs, Ibiza, and tore the fleet apart. One sailboat dragging an anchor collided with two other sailboats, pulling their anchors from the bottom and sending them adrift. A boat ended up against a ragged rock wall. Two large powerboats also dragged and collided in the wind. In the darkness, shouts and curses in foreign languages echoed across the anchorage. Flying Fish somehow escaped the carnage, but the Posidonia meadow at Benirràs was most certainly plowed into oblivion by the dragging anchors.

^{The Posidonia Police encounter a repeat offender in the Illa Sa Conillera marine park who insisted that it was his “right” to drop an anchor anywhere he wanted. Photograph: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

The Posidonia meadows are carefully identified on every chart. This morning over coffee, in the lovely anchorage of the Illa Sa Conillera marine park, I was startled by a heated argument coming from two boats. The Posidonia Police had arrived and warned a visiting sailboat owner (for the second time) that he anchored on the protected grass. His anchor was crushing the habitat of plants, fish, and juvenile crustaceans. The sailboat captain maintained it was his “right” to anchor where he wanted. The park ranger explained otherwise. The argument increased in volume and acrimony, and continued for 30 minutes. Then the guilty sailor pointed at me. I was anchored nearby.

The Posidonia Police motored up to Flying Fish with an underwater viewing scope. I passed the inspection; my anchor was embedded in a pocket of sand, where I had carefully placed it when I arrived.

“May I take your photograph,” I asked?

“¿Por qué?” was the reply.

“Because,” I said, “I think what you are doing is important.”

###

^{Park rangers inspect the placement of the anchor of Flying Fish at Illa Sa Conillera, Ibiza. Photograph: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

References:

Ibiza’s Monster Marine Plant, Ibiza Spotlight, 28 May 2006
Oldest living thing on earth’ discovered, Jonathan Pearlman, The Telegraph. 7 February 2012
Posidonia oceanica, Wikipedia

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which this boat takes me.

Please click Follow at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and please consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments. I will always respond to your comment when I have an Internet connection. And I will never share your personal information.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}