The famous line "If you build it, they will come," from the movie Field of Dreams, sounds a bit far-fetched when building baseball diamonds in Iowa's dusty cornfields. But when constructing marinas and resort hotels adjacent to blue water containing goodly numbers of big blue marlin, the line rings true.
The small beach town of Playa Blanca on the southernmost end of the Canary Island of Lanzarote changed forever when the 500-slip Marina Rubicon and the five-star Hotel Gran Melia Volcan Lanzarote sprang into existence.
I was recently invited to Playa Blanca to give some seminars on how to catch oversize marlin during the Marina Rubicon Marlin Cup for Champions. This event sees a fair share of large Atlantic blue marlin, and it's a qualifying tournament for the Rolex/IGFA Offshore Championship. I also served as judge, weighmaster and acting IGFA representative for the event. The modified-release tournament is dedicated to supporting billfish conservation efforts, and if you want to hang a fish in this tourney, you better catch a big one. Minimum qualifying weights for white marlin were 40 kg (88 pounds) and 300 kg (660 pounds) for blue marlin.
The 65 boats entered in the Marlin Cup of Champions formed an eclectic fleet. Alongside the floating pontoons of the beautiful new marina I saw boats built by Bertram, Hatteras, Riviera, Striker, Wellcraft, Boston Whaler, Luhrs and Sea Ray and by European builders, such as Rodman, Faeton and Beneteau. Other trawler-style motor-yachts, as well as cruising and pleasure boats, sprouted rods and reels, often projecting over swim platforms and dinghies - a sight you'd never see in a U.S. or Bahamian competition.
Finding the Blues
Marlin fishing is notably fickle around most oceanic islands such as the Canaries, with vagaries of major oceanic currents, variations in the supply of pelagic baitfish such as mackerel, tuna and bonito and other variables affecting the bite. Several blue marlin up to an estimated 500 pounds were released during the tournament, as were a handful of whites, but the fishing on this weekend was not what organizers had hoped it would be.
My good friend Dr. Manolo Ramirez, a noted plastic surgeon with a passion for marlin fishing, runs the Hedonist, a 46-foot Bertram. His reputation as perhaps the leading fishing captain in the Canary Islands rivals his professional reputation, and he has boated marlin over 1,100 pounds in these waters. Ramirez couldn't care less about sailfish and tolerates only 200-pound tuna - forget anything smaller.
Ramirez believes that the first marlin show up among the western Canary Islands as the warmer waters begin to push in. By September, when the tournaments in Lanzarote and neighboring Fuertaventura roll around, he likes to fish east of the islands toward the African continental shelf, which lies 34 miles from Marina Rubicon.
A pair of offshore seamounts, which I surmise are geographically related to the Canaries themselves, rise thousands of meters from the ocean floor, but stop short of the surface. The closest seamount, located roughly halfway to the African 1,000-meter depth contour, can offer nonstop action at times. Ramirez once recorded 30 white marlin bites in a single day in this area, but managed only one tag-and-release during the tournament. Since no boat released more than one white, however, the Hedonist took first place in the division, winning a Furuno sounder on the basis of the time of their release.
Another old friend, Jason Pipe - a feisty, fast-talking transplanted Englishman and skipper of the 38-foot Bertram Bocinegro - raved about two separate hot blue marlin bites earlier in the year. A commercial tuna fisherman called Pipe in early June complaining about marlin disrupting their ability to catch tuna to the southwest of Lanzarote. Away on a long-term charter to the island of La Gomera, Pipe could only wait and listen to the stories of double- and tripleheader blue marlin bites when the fish finally moved east, off Puerto Calero. (Pipe's pain was eased greatly by his crew's releasing up to four blue marlin in one day when the fish turned on off La Gomera!)
All the Amenities
Lanzarote, the northeasternmost of the Canary Islands, sits just 70 miles from the African coast of Morocco. So close to the Sahara Desert, Lanzarote is a true desert island with a stark but vivid beauty. The volcanic island comes complete with active geothermal areas, caves and grottos (with resident bioluminescent glowworms) and mile upon mile of sun-drenched beaches. The majority of the countryside consists mainly of shades of reddish brown and black volcanic rock and sand, with breathtaking vistas of blue oceanic water from high windblown cliffs and ledges.
The unique agriculture coats entire fields with a deep layer of small, porous black pebbles. The high surface area of these pumicelike pebbles actually accumulates enough moisture from dew, carried on the humid sea breezes during the cool evenings, to meet the needs of crops, including tomatoes and the potatoes used in a delicious local dish called papas arrugadas.
Excellent dry white wines and a sweet, heavy dessert wine are made from grapes grown in deep cavities, resembling nothing so much as artillery-shell holes, scooped into natural fields on the sides of extinct volcanic cinder cones. These holes in the fields of black pebbles provide the grape vines with both moisture and protection from the nearly constant wind.
Lanzarote lies in the heart of the trade wind belt, where the combination of wind and sun requires frequent applications of sunblock and moisturizing creams for the ardent European sunbathers. Water temperatures range from an average of 64 degrees in January to a normal high of 84 in August. With rainy or overcast days rare, Lanzarote makes a nearly perfect year-round vacation spot for refugees from frozen Northern climates.
Getting There
Lanzarote's international airport (one of five international airports in the Canary Islands) has scheduled arrivals from the U.S. via Iberia, British Airways, Lufthansa and Condor. To get to Lanzarote, you must make connections through London, Madrid, Dusseldorf or Frankfurt. On a given day, nearly 100 international flights clear customs in Lanzarote.
I stayed in the beautifully landscaped Hotel Gran Melia Volcan Lanzarote. Set into a hillside, the hotel's five stories of luxury rooms and suites appear to be no more than two or three stories of vertical height. I lost count of the swimming pools available to guests and managed to get lost several times while trying out the many meandering pathways I could choose on the short walk from my room to the marina. Call 011-34-928-519-185 or e-mail gran.melia.volcan.lanzarote@solmelia.com. For information on fishing charters in the Canaries, contact Jason Pipe at 011-34-629-121744 or e-mail bocinegro@hotmail.com. For information about next year's tournament or a Canary Island vacation, contact Karin Rassmussen at 011-34-928-519012; fax 011-34-928-519-035 or e-mail karin@marinarubicon.com.
