Boy and the Begining

May 9th, in the Atlantic, in route to Isla Graciosa, Canary Islands.

Harry's first real journey by body bubble was fascinating for Harry. He traveled roughly 50 feet under the surface of the water, bobbing towards the surface every 15 minutes or so to make sure he was going in the right direction before diving back down.

The sights he witnessed during his underwater jaunt soon made traveling by underwater his second favorite means of travel, purely for the unique sightseeing perks.

The waters were a stunning vibrant blue that took his breath away. It was so clear, like being inside a jewel. There were shoals of silvery blue fish that swan in schools around jagged flattish topped rocky outcroppings, and fish with yellow tails and fins that briefly fled in his passage.

Harry saw sharks that circled his bubble briefly for a heart stopping moment, before seeming to move on to better, less confusing, prey.

He spied Rays, a sea creature that made him think of olive coloured doilies, like the kind that his Aunt Petunia favored for the living room, though with eyes that stuck up from their flattish bodies and observed his passage as they lounged on rocks and fascinated him when he watched them flow through the water when they moved.

He saw long slender eels that he paused in his travel long enough to see if they could understand snake tongue, only to be disappointed when they swam off regally without a word given or acknowledged.

Harry was delighted when he spotted a large marine turtle going about its endless seeming travel. It had mostly an off white colouring with grayish sections on its shell and a slight smattering of brown along the edges, flippers, and spots on its head. The turtle even swam alongside Harry's bubble for a bit, before veering away. Harry felt oddly humbled by the experience.

At one point, Harry even saw fields of strange spiny balls of black that were occasionally being picked off by star fish, beautiful coral, and pale underwater dunes of sand and silt.

By the time night had fallen, Harry had carefully rose out of the water near the shallows of a beach at his destination.

As Harry went about setting up camp -in yet another cave he found third of the way to the top of the island's center most mountain- he had decided that he would perhaps do more underwater explorations in the future, that had definitely been fun!

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Harry found Graciosa to be extremely arid and entirely made up of bushes and dry soil but had a surprisingly pleasing tempered climate to go with its beautiful sandy volcanic coasts.

There was also, he soon discovered, no natural fresh water sources, so he would have to restock his water supplies in one of the two sparsely populated communities on the island. This meant that this visit, he would be concentrating his attentions on the two settlements which he would do the next day, before he moved onto his next stop.

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Caleta del Sebo, Garciosa.

Caleta del Sebo was the main settlement or capital on the Island, and probably the smallest capital that Harry had ever visited, as the entire island, according his guidebook, had a populous of between 600-700 locals. The bulk of the people that were on the island appeared to be tourists, and much of the island seemed catered to this as well (1).

Harry lifted a case of water from a supermarket during the night along with a bit of food stuff here and there, but once his water situation was handled, Harry set out to more thoroughly explore the settlement.

From what he could find, the settlement contained a lyceum (he learned that a lyceum was a type of school), a post office, supermarkets, a port, beaches where many golden or sunburned foreigners were worshiping the almighty tan, the only bank in the island, and a square plaza where bikes could be hired for lazy rides along the coast line (1).

Harry did try the bikes, to his credit, but he found the endeavor to be somewhat boring, and the biking exhausting. He mused worriedly, that he had perhaps utilizing his magic a bit to much lately, and made a mental note to be more physically active.

Fishing, much to Harry's delight was also a big deal here as well, and Harry spent a day joining both tourists and locals at the ports or in boat with fishing lines in the water as the island held a fishing contest. Fortunately for Harry, children didn't have to pay an entrance fee with just a fishing limit of six fish of adult average weight.

It was a pleasant afternoon, and Harry even won second place in the children's division with his rather large snapper and his 2 parrot fish. Bass, bream, and tuna were also common catches during the competition, and when the competitors delivered their fish after the judging to the kiosks filled with grills, Harry was able to enjoy sampling the various seafoods at picnic tables along with the other tourists and locals for free.

It was an excellent end to his day, and Harry, who much as Rhubarb warned, did crave a diet larger in fish, was definitely satisfied by the Canary Islands pallet wise.

Harry spent an extra few days exploring and fishing and earning a bit of cash drawing portraits of tourists before he decided that it was time to go onto the next island.

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Lanzarote Island...

The trip to Lanzarote was short enough in distance (being less than a little over a mile across the strait of El Río) so Harry took a short flight in his usual cover of darkness. (2)

Harry settled on cave that was one of many that dotted the raged cliffs of Playa Papagayo, which was also a popular beach area amongst the tourists and locals making it easy for him to appear and disappear as he pleased. Lanzarote is the fourth largest of the islands and has 132 mi of coastline, of which only 6 mi are sand, and only 10 mi are beach, with the bulk decidedly rocky, giving Harry excellent hiding places if he wanted to practice his abilities while being in a populated place.

Its landscape includes the mountain ranges of Famara in the north and Ajaches to the south, which Harry explored either on his own or snuck in with tourist groups. South of the Famara is the El Jable dessert which separates Famara and Montañas del Fuego. Harry had never seen a dessert before and was somewhat awed by the stark bareness, that still was somehow beautiful, despite the harsh landscape.

The highest peak of Peñas del Chache, rising some 670 metres, Harry made his goal to perch atop it while eating a sandwich, which he did, and even had enough time to sketch the view before he had to dive out of site of a helicopter tour.

Harry certainly got a lesson in volcanic geology as he soon came to learn that Lanzorote was born through fiery eruptions and as such had an abundance of amazing solidified lava streams as well as extravagant rock formations, which awed Harry in that they represented to him the sheer power that nature possessed and gave him the odd combined feelings of humbleness and excitement.

He couldn't help collecting a few rocks from those old streams as tokens of the experience.

After spending some time exploring nature, Harry also spent time in Aricife, the islands capital.

One of the first things that stood out to Harry about this particular place was the abundance of White.

White square buildings and white cars were pervasive throughout the city, though Harry suspected that it was mainly to combat the heat of the sun when it got hot. Arricife was named after the large amount of reefs that surrounded the nearby beach, and boasted a coat of arms with a bird carrying a fish in its talons, which Harry could appreciate.

The population was certainly more prominent then the previous island he had visited, was primarily Spanish though there were was evidence of locals from other European countries such as Britain, Germany, Irish, and lots of delicious new foods that Harry could try out with some of his earnings without being lost communication wise if he needed to talk with someone (3).

Harry spent a few days in the city taking the sights, as usual. During his time there he got a chance to watch a music video being made, watched a group of people haggle over a camel, and got a cook book to add to his cooking repertoire and taught himself how to make Traditional caldo de papas, an aromatic potato soup with coriander, as well as Legume dishes such as a very popular ropa vieja, and a dish of chickpeas and meat known as garbanzascompuestas and lentils.

The only real disappointment he had was "Tunnel of Atlantis," the largest underwater volcanic tunnel in the world, and was in fact, not an actual tunnel to Atlantis. Despite that disappointment, it was still fascinating to explore in and of itself anyway so it wasn't a complete loss. There had also been an incident with a camel that had tried to eat Harry's glasses in the desert, and the island gained one penguin to add to its repertoire (which he left with the camel's rather confused owner), but otherwise no hiccups during his vacation.

Yes, over all, his first three islands had afforded him both amazing, delicious, and educational experiences and he was looking forward to the next stops in his tour of the Canary Islands.