Gran Canaria to Tenerife

Wednesday 27th September 06

Pete…….

Happy Birthday Uncle Peter! We have received your last correspondence and will give consideration to the teething issues you have highlighted after our full consideration. My first thoughts are of malevolent sabotage and we will be sending our “contacts” to fully investigate.

Fliss…….

Gran Canaria looks interesting but with our limited timescales (we’ve got to be in Tenerife by Thursday evening to meet Stewart & Julie early Saturday morning) we really haven’t had a lot of time to explore but we’ll do it when we come back to meet mum, Ash & Naomi.

Pete has managed to find a guy who is going to replace all our guard rails and have them ready when we come back in a weeks time.

The marina is self is totally kitted out for the ARC, three chandlers, boat repair facilities and a Jonnie Walker whisky bar, everything a sailor could want! There’s some ARC boats already in.

They say that the Canary Islands are having major problems with the Africans trying to get in but we were never stopped or questioned. We stopped and tried to find immigration at Isla Gracioa, sailed down Lanzarote & Fuertaventura and nobody came out, mind you there are constant warnings on Navtex about boats adrift and this morning there must have been 4-5 search and rescue helicopters flying about.

This morning there was a tap on the hull at about 9am and a scruffy (I’m used to scruffy) slightly eccentric old man in his dinghy, he said that he couldn’t see our anchor buoy (it was there last night) he was worried that it had got wrapped around his propeller. I woke Pete up (he’s got the beginning of a cold) and after a second cup of coffee we started to investigate.

Plan 1 - We reversed hard on the anchor to see where the chain was and it was dead ahead, so nothing wrong there.

So plan 2 came into affect but……Whilst rowing over to our anchor our mate Colin came over and said “It’ll be him as he’s as mad as a box of frogs, clinically mad! he goes around shouting at no-one angrily in German”

Plan 2 – Snorkel at the ready Pete rowed over whilst I had my head in the slightly murky harbour water, no sign of it!

Eventually Pete spotted the floating yellow rope, which had been cut! And our anchor buoy was no-where to be seen!! So we went over to the mad German and said that the line had been cut, he asked us to check that his propeller hadn’t done it and there was no line caught, guess what? Highly unlikely that there would be a problem as he has a folding prop. He must have known that, but anyway “Nowt strange as folk” It’s a bizarre world but it makes us think that now we have to move everything that can be stolen from the cockpit at night, Danbouy, horseshoe life ring, etc…..

Tomorrow morning at 3am we’ll leave for Tenerife as we have a slight problem that the marina we were going to is closed due to storm damage so we’ll have to travel onto Los Cristianos, it’s only another 8 miles but further from the airport, best laid plans of mice & men! Thursday I’ll investigate ways of getting to the airport and if the anchorage is dodgy I’ll go in early by taxi and leave Pete on the boat.

Thursday 28th September 06

As planned we got up for our sail to Tenerife at 3am, it’s always a novelty when all you have to put on a light shirt as it’s never that cold in the early or late hours of the day.

The trip didn’t start that well as the halyard got caught around the mast steps and it was difficult to see where it was caught in the dark, no wind at all & Pete must have accidentally switched off Charlie the autopilot when he clipped his harness to the safety line on the deck, I said to Pete “I’m not sure we should be heading directly at the rocks and shallows” so tiller hard over we headed safely back out to sea. With the new sails on I find it hard to raise them so I do the cockpit work and Pete crews.

At around 8am we had two pilot whales playing with the bow wave, we think they were pilot whales as they were different to dolphins. They were brown & white and the skin looked like they were covered in scars but they weren’t, they had stub noses, they were slower and more graceful, they were much bigger than dolphins and their fin was bigger and curved over more. They stayed with us for about 10 minutes. It’s always a treat when the marine life comes to play.

10am the wind picked up considerably and main sail alone we were cracking along at 6-7 knots. The sea was quite bumpy and we did roll a bit but it was a fantastic sail. We’re not looking forward to bumping into it on the way back to Gran Canaria.

Pete spotted Mount Teide looming above the clouds, it really is a sight from the sea! According to our chart Mount Teide is 3717 metres high and we’ll hire a car to go and see it.

Tenerife is a mass of high pointed peaks and very barren but it is an interesting coastline.

As we got closer to the acceleration zone Pete & I decided to put two reefs in the main and keep the jib out, unbelievable really but as soon as we hit the acceleration zone the wind completely died and we were becalmed, luckily we only had about five miles to go to get to Los Christianos. Does it really exist???

Friday 29th September 06

Stewart & Jules arrive early tomorrow morning (3:30am) so our main task was to book a taxi to the airport. A friendly tourist trip organiser gave us the telephone number. Pete called them & hopefully it’ll turn up but the Chinese lady he spoke to didn’t install much confidence. So early night & alarm set for 1am.

Los Christianos is absolutely a northern Brit holiday resort. Telteys beer advertised everywhere! Shame really as Pete doesn’t like Tetleys. The whole resort is restaurants, bars & souvenir shops and of course typical local delicacy of McDonalds & Burger King.

It isn’t a pretty place but I’m really enjoying it here, as the wild life is fascinating! Big ones, little ones, youngsters obviously suffering from the last night excesses and it’s great to see how others holiday. Fabulous place!!!!!!!!!!!

Again surprising that we are the only Brit in the anchorage. The lack of marine life is surprising as there are hardly any fishes to look at whilst snorkelling.

Pete……….

Before setting sail, we had the job of putting the old guardrails back on the boat. We had removed them to be measured for a new set that the riggers in Las Palmas are going to make because they all look tatty and one had come apart. We ordered these and also bought a new battery charger, a spare solar shower, replacement anchor buoy, (with rope and accoutrements), a new battery charger to replace the one that went up in smoke (oh, and also black deck caulking to fix the leaky stuff in the cockpit floor). The chandler was very happy and I now have a lot of jobs to do after Stewart and Julie have left.

The sail over to Tenerife started very slowly, the sails slatted and, as usual, the boom had to be tied-back to stop it flopping all over and slamming. In England, you tend to get flat seas along with the light winds but here the ocean swell never really abates and the Nadezhda rolls and bucks without the wind. We suffered this for a few hours doing about 2 knots until we finally relented and turned the engine on. Suddenly, the wind picked-up, engine off, and we were doing over 6 knots with mainsail alone – relief!

As Fliss said, this area of Tenerife is Touristville, full of Brits with Northern accents and English Breakfasts, Pie and Chips, Irish Pubs, Tetley and John Smiths beer. We spent half of the day ashore and feel like we have seen all there is to see in this resort. What do people do when they are here for a full week?? Still, it makes a change and is quite entertaining.

Tomorrow we head the 20 miles to La Gomera island which is said to be quite scenic in the interior and has some interesting anchorages that are supposed to be good for snorkelling.