In Las Palmas

We arrived yesterday evening after a fairly testing 55 mile sail in a Force 6 ( a close reach so we reefed down and bounced around in the swell). We posted ourselves into the tightest spot available in the marina and took on the new-to-us challenge of the 'slime line'; there are no finger pontoons off the main pontoon here so instead you pick up a wet and weedy mooring line that has an anchor 20m from the pontoon. You then work the boat in between neighbouring yachts and use the slime line to keep the bow from hitting the main pontoon (we elected to go 'bow-in' to keep the boat pointing into wind and to give the cockpit some privacy). The downside is that we have to climb aboard over the high bow so have rigged a step (a Fox's blue tub from Graham's first job in a biscuit factory in Batley) and a rope to make things easier.

The place is amazing and there are lots of seminars and parties so we must prioritise which we attend. As ever, there are boat jobs to do but we're working through them steadily and we met up with a few crews, including Stormvogel, Ooh-Jah and Indulgence, for a cheeky beer last night. Photos to follow!

Shopping!

The culture shock from sleepy Garachico to the city of Santa Cruz is fairly extreme. Di announced that Garachico was probably her favourite place so far; the old town was enchanting and the garden in its centre really beautiful

Whilst we've been in the big city we did the Big Shop - a fun afternoon around Carrefour and El Cortes Ingles. The obliging taxi driver dropped us right at the top of the walkway down to the boat and so this morning's task was to remove excess packaging (remembering to mark items with indelible pen!) and load them into our 8 large plastic crates, whilst updating our stores list at the same time. We've tried our best to group products together so that we don't have to open every box each time we want to cook:

 The sorting process under way

 Items loaded into numbered boxes

Miraculously they all fit under the starboard pilothouse seat 

- and don't make the boat list too much to starboard!

The rest of the fresh food we'll buy in Las Palmas at the very last minute. We'll set off from here early in the morning - it's a 55 mile passage and we'd like to be there before dusk as finding our allocated space will be tricky and there could well be a queue of boats waiting to check in.

Santa Cruz, Tenerife

The sail round the north west corner of Tenerife yesterday was dramatic in terms of scenery and weather. We had blue sky to the north and big black menacing rain clouds following us along the rugged, mountainous coast. Luckily we crossed wakes with a lovely 62ft French ketch called Frida; she was completing a 4 day passage from the mainland so we took some photos of her and one of her crew reciprocated. We've ended up in the same marina and this morning the photographer called round to Maunie with a memory-stick of his pictures so we were able to swap them with ours. Here are three that really give a good idea of the scene:

Today, by contrast, has been a shore-based, chore-based one. This morning we managed to bag one of the two washing machines to clean clothes and bedding; the washing was pegged out on a triangular washing line strung from the forestay to the forward shrouds and, with a combination of sun (at last!) and a good breeze, was dry in about any hour. Meanwhile we were able to give the boat a good airing and ourselves a bit of a spruce-up as well.

In the afternoon we walked into the city on a recce mission.There is a huge Carrefour here (a bit like a Tesco Extra) and a Cortes Ingles (a very large Waitrose) so we visited both to see what each offered. There are similar stores in Las Palmas but we think we'll try and do the big shop for non-chilled items here tomorrow rather than joining queues of yachties at the checkouts there.

We aim to arrive in Las Palmas on Monday. Fergus and Richard arrive a week later so by then the boat should be pretty much prepared and we should have worked out the geography of the huge (800 boat) marina. 270 or so of these boats will set sail on the 25th November so the atmosphere with be interesting in the days leading up to the off. We look forward to catching up with a few boats we've met on our way here, especially our friends in Stormvogel. Peter's blog makes interesting reading - they have continued to spend huge amounts of time, effort and money to resolve various issues with the boat but it sounds as though they are nearly through the process so we'll share some beers with them not doubt.

Sitting out the rain in Garachico

The forecast promised another healthy dose of rain today and sure enough we got it! Plans to sail on to Santa Cruz were shelved so instead we spent a very productive morning updating our stowage plans, working through our recipes and doing a bit of useful revision on the medical skills.

 

By  the time you read this we'll have walked back into town for a coffee and wifi access, updated the forecasts and, al being well, will be set for an early morning departure. The first thirty miles will be beating to windward so we hope that the swell isn't too unfriendly!

 

Incidentally, we've discovered that a big harbour isn't anything really new here. In the 15th century a port was established here which became the biggest  trading centre on Tenerife, with the British holding a rather unpopular monopoly on wine exports. The big volcanic irruptions of 1706 destroyed it and the current town is built on the lava flows.

From La Gomera to a very new marina in Tenerife

The jungle drums in the sailing community work very effectively around here. We've heard more reports of the 'no anchoring' rule being applied with enthusiasm by the authorities (and met one yacht who had been called by the coastguard for a ticking-off after they anchored for a night) but a another story began to emerge of a brand new marina on the north coast of Tenerife at a place called Garachico. Yachts could stay, so the rumour went, but the place wasn't finished so there was no mooring charge.

So we set off yesterday morning with 'Rafiki' (crew Emily and James, above) and had a very pleasant couple of hours with the Parasailor set then switched back to white sails and finally motored for the last couple of hours. We found this mysterious new harbour in frankly a fairly exposed and rocky stretch of coast where the swell was crashing ashore reasonably spectacularly at times. Sure enough, though, we turned in past the huge new breakwater to find a brand new harbour, with expensive pontoons and perhaps 8 yachts plus some local boats.

 The sign at the entrance proclaims this to be another 'last of the cash' EC project - 33 million Euros no less! The project started in 2008 and was due for completion in September last year; apparently there was a grand opening ceremony a few months ago. However, whilst there are pontoons,  complete with water and electricity, park benches and even wooden planters with cactus plants in them, there is no office, no showers and no toilets. So we were welcomed by a young security guard who noted the boat name on a crumpled bit of paper and we've watched a bloke with  a petrol-powered leaf-blower blow dust from  one end of the gleaming concrete to the other but there is no other sign of life!

Because of its unfinished state there is no charge for using the marina. Crazy! After all that cash investment, you'd think they'd install a portacabin for facilities and start broadcasting their wonderful new marina to everyone to get some income back in return. But no, this is Spain, so they are donating electricity to foreign  yachties who would be quite happy to pay for it and they employ a bloke to blow dust about.

In spite of the millions, it's not quite a perfect harbour, though; in spite of the huge breakwater construction of meter-cubed blocks designed to absorb the waves, there is a bit of a surge in the pontoons so we had a disturbed night until we adjusted our lines.

The town is about 1km from here - Graham (feeling particularly under-exercised) went for a run and a recce there before breakfast, then swam under the boat to give the hull a clean. Di went for a run slightly later (and found it suddenly very hot) so breakfast was late; we'll walk into town this afternoon, hopefully to find a cafe with wifi to check the forecast and catch up on emails. We'll have another night here then go round to Santa Cruz, the main port in Tenerife, to refuel and stock up on long-life ingredients for the Atlantic crossing before picking our moment to head to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria. The encouraging news is that the more normal northerly winds look as though they are about to arrive at last!

So what is going on with the weather, exactly?

It seems slightly churlish to moan about the weather when the Caribbean and New York have suffered so badly with Hurricane Sandy but, bloody hell, we've had some rain here in the past 36 hours! The water in the marina, which was crystal clear (and full of fish), turned a muddy brown yesterday as all the rain washed sediment down from the mountains and there were a lot of frustrated yachties, trapped below decks by the weather. At least on Maunie our pilothouse saloon lets us look out (past the rain streaming down the windows) rather than upwards through narrow windows slots that are the norm in most boats; the lightning flashes were pretty bright.

Clearly 2012 has been a pretty odd year for weather and it follows a series of 10 warmer-than-average years so we're either in one of the planet's natural temperature cycles or we're reaping the results of mankind's abuse of the environment (or possibly a bit of both). Personally, we're in the 'it's man-made' school of opinion and it'll be interesting to see whether the effects of Katriona and now Sandy in the States will precipitate any real change of direction when it comes to policy around the environment and climate change.

Today, at last, it has stopped raining for the moment but we are in a little low-pressure system so will have little wind and variable weather for a few days. We were planning to sail for Tenerife today but it looks as though we'd be motoring for most of the passage so have decided, instead, to renew our enthusiasm for La Gomera with a walk. Di is also threatening that we both need to buy some trainers and do some running after several days of relative inactivity! That's ok except she says she needs Graham as a running partner.

Whatever our plans, we'll head to the fresh food market this morning to stock up. Unfortunately, we've seen out first cockroaches here (hideous things) so we need to be very careful about bringing aboard unwanted visitors. We now leave shore-going shoes on deck rather than walking below in them, we remove all card packaging outside the boat (it can harbour cockroach eggs) and we're starting to wash fruit in a solution of Milton liquid before carefully drying it for storage. Unfortunately this process can shorten its storage life. Experienced tropics sailors string netting up in various places below deck to store fruit and veg so that air can circulate around it and also so that it's easy to pick our any items looking a bit mouldy. We've got the netting but haven't worked out where to rig it yet.

Must go, the sun has just come out (first sighting for about 3 days!). Hope your weather is good.

Sheltering from the rain

Yesterday's heavy rain finally cleared in the early evening and we had a lovely evening aboard the very racy J-122 'Oo Jar' with owners Peter and Chrisine and our other neighbours Peter and Penny who sail a very fine vintage Oyster. It was great to compare notes with two different boats and particularly as host Peter had sailed the ARC in 2002. Our evening was enlivened by a group of children from various boats coming round for 'Trick or Treat' ( with a nice twist - they gave us sweets!)

Today has been warm and muggy with little sun and a few sharp showers so we got on with various jobs on the list, including getting the sewing machine out to repair our blue ensign and club burgees - they were all distinctly frayed at the edges after the strong winds and one has to maintain standards. We treated ourselves to a light lunch at the yacht club and were delighted to find that a beer and a glass of wine came to 2.60 Euros.

Tomorrow threatens more heavy rain so we are planning to leave on Saturday. We'd like to spend a few nights at anchor ( it's free!) but have read various reports that the Tenerife police are moving non-Spanish yachts on, saying they can only stay in marinas. This sounds like an infringement of EC freedom of travel laws but these people carry guns so we guess you don't argue. We've tried a premptive email to the Tenerife port authority to seek permission to anchor so we'll see if that delivers a response (probably a police boat waiting for us!).