Canary Islands Cruise Review: Sailing on Sea Cloud Spirit

At the discretion of the Cruise Director, your voyage with Sea Cloud will include evening entertainment from the resident DJ, local performers or musicians and singers, and you may be able to enjoy quizzes, crafts and hands-on classes on board too. During the day, various lectures about the destination, ports and regions take place by the knowledgeable guide, who will sometimes accompany non-German speaking guests as a translator on shore excursions.

Sea Cloud have real focus on wellness, and Sea Cloud Spirit offers a large spa with Finnish sauna, steam bath, foot bath, relaxation and treatment rooms, a swim platform off the side of the yacht, and the most elegant looking gym I've seen at sea! Sitting centrally on the Sun Deck with 180-degree views of the sails, sea and surrounded by ropes, this unique gym was understandably popular and when possible, fitness instructors host yoga classes outside on deck beneath the glorious spectacle of Sea Cloud Spirit's 28 sails.

The open-bridge policy on board (between 8am and 9pm) allows guests to converse with the captain and first officers on the ins and outs of operating a traditional sailing yacht, and the opportunity to venture down into the engine room (with complimentary ear plugs) is fascinating - best enjoyed during calm seas.

Our first port of call was to the second smallest island in the Canaries, La Gomera. We visited the outstanding UNESCO World Heritage Garajonay National Park and loved walking through the laurel forest with trees adorned in moss and lichen; the air so pure we couldn't breathe in fast enough! Our enchanted trip through this fairy-tale forest ended with a demonstration of whistling. The language of whistling is often found in mountainous or dense areas where communication over distance is challenging, and in La Gomera they've introduced Silbo Gomero in schools to ensure the Castilians are fully developed in this language - a very interesting experience.

On the smallest Canary Island of El Hierro, Sea Cloud provided guests with excursions through El Golfo Valley with hikes or e-bikes. As Puerto de la Estaca is a tiny port, my husband and I took a leisurely stroll along the serene coast to the black sandy beach of Valverde as a relaxing alternative.

Adventures began again in the northern part of La Palma at the Mirador de la Cumbrecita to see one of the largest eroded craters in the world with rock walls over 2,000 metres high, before descending to the Cumbre Vieja volcano that erupted in 2021, spewing ash and molten rock for three months. A viewpoint from the church showed us the remains of the black lava flow that the Spanish have been adapting to ever since, and the sheer destruction this eruption caused was astonishing.

Our sea days in the Atlantic to and from Madeira were windy and choppy. One of the main attractions to sailing with Sea Cloud is the opportunity for guests to climb the rigging themselves. For this, you must be able to stand on one foot and hang from a bar for 10 seconds and pass a blood pressure test with the yacht's doctor to ensure your fitness is suitable for the climb. Watching the crew navigate each mast and edge out across the sails in a tight-rope fashion was one of the most impressive things I've seen! The pull-power takes place on deck 4, with ropes, chords and knots poised across the deck in an elegant fashion. In the right weather conditions, Sea Cloud raise all sails and provide guests with the opportunity to hop in a Zodiac to circle the yacht for the perfect full-sail picture at sea; sadly, our conditions meant that we didn't get that opportunity.

Having never been to Funchal before, we booked Sea Cloud's highlights tour of the city which took us to the fresh fish, fruit and flower market (displayed in all their glory), up in the cable car for panoramic views of the city, and back down in THE historic toboggan, which is so fun, fast and scary all at the same time. We then went across to the beautiful botanical gardens, ending with free time in town for lunch and further exploration along the promenade, past the questionable resemblance statue of Cristiano Ronaldo and into the lizard-inhabited park of Santa Catarina. This visit certainly left us wanting to come back to this wonderful island again.

A real highlight of our cruise was Lanzarote, our last port of call. Docking in Arrecife, which had quickly recovered from the flash flooding, we headed straight into the rugged, barren and fascinating landscape of Timanfaya National Park. To know that this park was formed from constant volcanic eruptions in the 1800s and has remained predominantly untouched, enabling you to see ripples of settled molten lava, collapsed lava tunnels, colours of iron and silhouettes of volcanos against the clear blue skies as you meander on the most well-designed road was simply incredible! We watched geyser-style demonstrations, as cold water was poured into vents dug deep beneath the surface and boiling up to spout out steam, as well as throwing branches into a deep pit, burning instantly into a powerful campfire at 200 plus degree temperatures - it felt like a movie scene from Dantes Peak.

On our way back to the yacht, Sea Cloud took us through the equally impressive La Geria wine valley. This vast expanse of settled volcanic ash has been developed into vineyards where your eyes draw to rows upon rows of semi-circular stone walls that encase the vines and have been specially designed to allow heat to escape and water to penetrate deep into the soil to reach the roots - a spectacle of what looks like basic engineering. Another island we'd love to go back to!

Anyone with a keen interest in sailing will be in their element on a voyage with Sea Cloud Cruises, and if you're looking to switch off, disconnect and relax with a good book whilst bobbing along to each destination in style and tradition, then look no further than sailing aboard Sea Cloud Spirit, Sea Cloud or Sea Cloud II.