Playa Blanca 25/4/22
Papagayo Beaches 1/5/22
A second planned flight
at the western end of Playa Blanca was quite restricted due to a sudden
gusty wind that sprang up!
Salinas de Janubio 7/5/22
It had been a bit breezy
at Janubio so I cut the flight there short and headed on to something else
I had been wanting to capture form the air,
the two roundabouts
on either side of Yaiza, the red and the green.
Playa Blanca 8/5/22
Back to Playa Blanca,
to fly from a couple of sites not far from the centre of town. The
first one was just a piece a waste ground until the last couple of years,
when it was landscaped,
with footpaths and cycleways (Playa Blanca is very good for them) tennis
courts and a play area.
Moving to the second
flying location, a large area of undeveloped land not far to the west of
the first location.
Playa Quemada 9/5/22
We went for lunch at
the little village of Playa Quemada (Burned Beach), on the south east coast
of the island where there are several seafront restaurants that serve excellent
fresh fish dishes, together with other options. I took the drone
along and after lunch flew from a couple of locations for these pictures.
Rofera de Teseguite
11/5/22
Something a bit different.
We first discovered the area by accident many years ago, where wind eroded
rocks make a strange natural display. Over the years it has become
more popular, when I shot these pictures there was even another drone in
the air. I was initially a little cautious to fly, but the pilot
was actually flying from close to where I was and once we had seen that
there were going to be two drones in the air I think we were both happy.
Playa de Famara 11/5/22
On the way back to Playa
Blanca we had a little diversion to Famara Beach to see if I could manage
a drone flight. We had been visiting a few days previously and I'd
hoped to fly then, but there were Search and Rescue operations by a helicopter
on the cliffs so I decided it was safer not to fly then.
Tenesara 14/5/22
We did a trip up to
La Santa on the west coast of the island, but on the way took a side trip
to the little settlement of Tenesara. It's quite a long way north
west of Mancha Blanca but there's a good tarmac road, mainly through a
huge lava field, almost all the way to the houses (but not quite!).
I also found some interesting stone wall enclosing areas well inside the
lava field and seemingly inaccessible which makes me wonder if they pre-dated
the eruption.
La Santa 14/5/22
After lunch in La Santa
village, we stopped just to the north for me to take some aerial photo's
at the island and lagoon, which used to be a salt works but has been converted
into a leisure facility with a sports based hotel on the northern end.
Caletta de Famara 14/5/22
Final stop on our trip
out on the 14th was to Famara village, ostensibly to buy some ice creams,
but I also managed to get in a flight when we couldn't find anywhere selling
decent ice cream. After the flight we in fact found a little
back street supermarket that had excellent soft scoop ice cream in several
flavours!
Playa Blanca 15/5/22
Not really conventional
'aerial' pictures, but taken from nearly 600 feet above sea level, standing
on the rim of Montana Roja.
La Geria 16/5/22
Although wine is produce
in many locations across the island, La Geria, north of Uga, has the biggest
concentration of Bodega's. The vines are grown on crushed black volcanic
grit, traditionally protected from the wind by semi-circular stone walls,
although other shapes are also used.
Las Nieves 16/5/22
After our fairly quick
stop in La Geria, we continued on through Teguise before taking the unsurfaced
road up to Las Nieves (The Snows) where there is a church constructed on
the top of the Famara Cliffs at only just under 2,000 ft above sea level
with some amazing views down. The pictures dodge around a bit as
cloud was forming and dissipating quite rapidly from moist air being advected
up the cliffs and I needed to keep the drone away from it.
La Pescosa
After visiting La Nieves
we dropped down the very twisty road into Haria for lunch before continuing
our trip via Maguez and again climbing up to the high ground at the top
of the Famara cliffs, but further north this time. An unsurfaced
track leads up from Maguez to the aeronautical radio beacon 'LZR' and then
onwards to the cliff tops before continuing along the Valle de Guinate
with lots of great views all the way.
The Mirador del Rio
Continuing further to
the north, following the west coast and stopping just before the Mirador.
You can pay to enter the viewpoint, converted from WW2
bunkers and with a great
view across the channel to La Graciosa island, but in all honesty the view
is the same from just down the road.
Charco de la Novia 18/5/22
The final set of aerial
pictures from this visit and somewhere I had wanted to try and capture.
Just south of Orzola on the north east coast are the amazing tidal lagoons
at Charco de la Novia, with white sands and shades of aquamarine in the
lagoons. Unfortunately it was really quite windy on the day we visited
and pushing the limits for the little Mini 2 drone, resulting in a very
short flight and no panoramas. Maybe next visit!
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