October 2003
Wines of the
Moment: Faustino VII Rioja 4 euro 40 cents a
bottle, Vina Sol 3 euro 50 cents
Beer: San Miguel
4.5% 95 cents per litre, Dorada 1 euro 50 per
litre and Mahon 95 cents per litre
Temperature 30 –
32C
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Thursday 2nd
Bill and Joyce, Bev’s parents, have come to stay with us on the boat for two
weeks. As usual they kindly arrive laden with tons of post for us (mainly
bills !) and items we cant get in the UK like Branston Pickle
J.
Best item by far was the mini hand held vacuum cleaner – so much better than
unsuccessfully chasing crumbs round the boat with a dustpan and brush.
Today is Bill’s 65th Birthday. For the first time we broke out the
code flags to dress Bagpuss and tied up balloons to help mark his special day.
It was quite an emotional but exciting time for Bill retiring from work, but
he is sure to have fun with the new bike and snorkelling gear that he got as a
present.
We spent the morning at a fantastic swimming pool – Parque Maritimo Cezar
Manrique (15 minutes walk away from the Marina) designed and named after the
famous Lanzarote Artist. It comprises some very large lagoon type pools with
little natural rock islands and palm trees. It was almost empty and mostly
frequented by locals. There isn’t a lot of shade but there is a spectacular
view of the new Santa Cruz Opera House - not as grand as the Sydney Opera
house maybe, but with a striking roof, looking like a big white horn and a
location right on the sea front. It’s the kind of modern art building the
Spanish do so well and we wish we had more of in the UK.
In the afternoon we went to Puerto De Las Cruz, a beautiful holiday resort in
the North of the Island before heading back to Santa Cruz for an Italian meal,
birthday cake and champagne
J
When we got back to the boat, it was funny to see that all the balloons had
burst in the heat. It must have been noisy - poor neighbours
L
Friday 3rd
– 31st
With the benefit of a hire car we did some touring of some old favourites like
Playa De Las Americas and Los Christianos and also managed to get to places we
had not previously been. We went to a place called Los Gigantes on the west
coast, with awesome 2000 ft high cliffs and a nice little marina. We also saw
the famous ancient Draco (Dragon) tree in the north of the Island and visited
Candelaria with its beautiful square and church and statues lined up along the
sea wall. Candelaria is famous for its statue of the Virgin Mary (the Black
Virgin Mary) which was discovered here by the early Spanish invaders and was
previously worshipped by the local “Guaches” . It occurred to us that this
might have been a Spanish interpretation of a quite different original deity.
We went up Teide, the highest mountain in Spain, 3 times higher than Ben
Nevis. A most amazing trip through ever changing countryside with spectacular
and unusual views. A real must see for anyone visiting Tenerife.
Everything in Tenerife takes time. “Manâna” translates as tomorrow but more
likely means sometime next week. In the end we decided to get more of the jobs
done in Tenerife rather than move on to Gran Canaria and compete with all the
other Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) boats who would need assistance from
local services before the start of the crossing.
We made contact with a chap called Miguel to make us some cushions for the
cockpit. It wasn’t easy too get across exactly what we wanted because he
didn’t speak any English. Allan resorted to lots of arm waving, and
surprisingly the work came out all right in the end. It was quite a difficult
job to make the cushions because of all the compound curves in the cockpit and
as a result the cushions were a bit more expensive than we envisaged.
The new Dahon Helios bikes have proven to be a great success. We eventually
managed to get the right parts sent from the UK so we can use the aluminium
forks instead of the steel but have not fitted them yet. Allan learned another
useful lesson – don’t leave the bike on the sidestand near the water !! If it
had not been for the splash we would probably have concluded that the bike had
been stolen, just a small gust of wind had rocked the pontoon and plunged it
into the marina. Unfortunately the marina diver had a cold and couldn’t
retrieve it so Allan resorted to using the dinghy grapnel anchor and much to
his relief was able to rescue the bike from some 15m of water. A whole can of
silicone spray and much swearing later and the bike seems to have survived
intact.
Another task we had been dreading is to fit a second set of navigation lights,
its one of a long list of safety requirements for joining the ARC. In the end
we decided to fit a new light cluster on top of the mast, and there was only
one person on the boat daft enough to climb 19m (60ft) about the water to do
it….
We also decided to make an early start getting the boat ready for the
crossing, Bev has been making daily trips to the Supermarkets and bulk buying
everything we need.
She returned from a trip to Carrefour a large supermarket very amused. She had
seen 4 guys provisioning for a French rally that leaves Tenerife at the end of
the month. They each had a trolley and were running round the supermarket
randomly throwing in anything that they saw that looked appetising – they
would certainly have had food to eat but whether they could create meals out
of it would be another thing !!
Allan has been making a daily pilgrimage to each of the chandleries,
electronic, electrical and hardware shops to get things we need for the boat.
The list of stuff to get seems never ending !
Probably the most frustrating thing this month, is it’s the first time we
haven’t had internet access on the boat. We have resorted to frequenting one
of the local internet cafes – Ciber Scout, where you can get an hours surfing
fix for about 2 euros and even plug your own laptop in if you want. Most of
the time has been spent ordering or chasing things – The solar panels, wind
generator, radio modem, iridium phone, safety equipment etc etc etc. We also
found that its incredibly cheap to phone the UK and US from these Cafes and
“Locoturia”
Finally, finally, finally the solar panels arrive. But there is a sting, well
two in the tail. Firstly although we paid 300 euros for delivery there are
another 300 euros of assorted charges to be paid, and I don’t mean customs
duty, just “other charges”. DHL can’t explain it to me, but I think they lost
the consignment and when they found it in some warehouse they have charged me
a storing and handling fee
L
The second problem is that they have sent me the wrong wind generator, their
fault, so I need to send it back, another 70 euros and wait for the right one
LL
We’ve also found a man to make us the “radar” arch for the back of the boat to
house the solar panels and wind generator. Bev took an instant dislike to him,
but although he seems to be a bit cavalier, other people in the marina tell us
he is the best available locally. He talks a good show …
The lovely Iridium 9505 phone we bought on ebay for a “bargain” 835 euros
turns out to have been stolen and is blacklisted on the network. Allan found
out that it had been stolen from an Iridium dealer in Holland and tried to
contact them to see if he could buy it again, preferably at a discount, to
save the hassle of getting another one delivered to the islands. Unfortunately
the dealer and the security department at Iridium are too thick to get this
kind of proposition, they gave us a lot of “policy statements” and recommended
that you only buy from their closed cartel of dealers. In light of this Allan
wrote to the Chairman at Iridium to ask that in future his company should
tells prospective customers there is no second hand market for the equipment
they are about to buy. It’s in the hands of the UK police now and we have
parted with an even larger amount of cash to secure another phone…
The cruise ships have also been coming in thick and fast. This month, amongst
others, we have seen the QE2 and the Oriana. We also noticed that there are
different “classes” of cruise ships. The biggest and most exclusive ships
typically have older guests who wear all their best gear when they get off to
go shopping, they also tend to wear socks with their sandals. The other boats
like the MyTravel one we have seen a couple of times are obviously older ships
with less glitz and the guests are more likely to be younger and have children
with them.
Some tall ships also visited, one was effectively a cruise ship with lots of
paying guests, the other a Russian sail training ship, with lots of
glum-faced-skin-headed young cadets onboard and the other a German sail
training ship. None of them quite had the magic of the Mexican boat we had
seen in September.
In the marina itself, we have seen a large number of multi-million pound motor
yachts stop for a day or two. Several of them have been more than 100 feet
long, professionally crewed and carry a range of high speed launches. Allan
noticed that one of them was taking on a little extra diesel – 9000 litres of
it !! The saddest of the big motor yachts though must be “Brave Goose of
Essex”, a lovely classic looking little ship, very well maintained by the
professional crew who live aboard her. We heard from someone at the marina
that Brave Goose hadn’t moved for over 4 years as its owner hadn’t had time to
visit !!
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