Sunday, January 17, 2016

January 2016

In which we explore the western isles of the Canaries.

We started 2016 at anchor off Puerto de Vueltas, La Gomera.  We had already decided that we liked the look of the island from our visit to San Sebastian and our views from offshore.  Despite no hire cars being available in the Capital, we managed to find one here and took it for a couple of days.  It being a very small island (about 15 miles in diameter) and mostly wilderness, we managed to drive just about every available road.  Since many of them run from the coast to the central plateau, about 4000 ft AMSL via many hairpin bends, we covered about 300 km.  It certainly is beautiful, with none of the high rise resorts, theme parks and MacDonalds found on the larger islands.  Our favourite village was Alajero, halfway up the slope on the southern side with fantastic views over the ocean.  A small church on a spur had been visible as we cruised along the coast and fascinated Elsie.  Close by is a dramatic four sided cliff formed by the erosion around a volcanic extrusion.  It had apparently been used as a place of refuge by the natives when Moorish pirates came raiding.


La Fortaleza

On the 3rd, we decided it was time to move on and headed North West to La Palma.  With  NE 4 on the beam, we made good time across until we got to the southern tip where the usual blanketing killed the wind and we had to motor the last 13 miles up to Tazacorte, pausing for a brief dip at anchor of Puerto Naos (confusingly, there are many places named Puerto with no vestige of a port).  Tazacorte does have a large port, built to take RoRo ferries which never arrived, but it does provide excellent shelter for a modern marina.  The old port has been converted into a bathing beach, the most sheltered that we have found on either La Palma or Gomera.  Looking ahead, there would be a sailing wind on the Tuesday and Wednesday, then nothing for a week so we decided, rather than explore now, we would sail round the top of the island to the capital, Santa Cruz.  The first 15 miles were a motor into wind but we then had a fine, if wet, sail round for the final 25.  The NE trade wind brought in a damp airflow to give us our first proper rain in over 2 months.  We thought of asking for sympathy from our friends back in Aberdeenshire but as they were suffering the worst floods in 150 years, decided not.  Santa Cruz is reputed to be very pleasant, once you get behind the initial row of tourist hotels but, as it was still raining, we did not venture out of the marina past the new MacD’s.  We had thoughts of sailing on to El Hiero on Wednesday, but there was no clear prospect of returning on the forecast wind so instead we continued on our clockwise circuit of la Palma.  A NE’ly F4-5 gave us a fantastic sail broad reaching down the east coast, although I enjoyed it more than Elsie, who was rather tight lipped after I rejected her suggestion of a second reef, shortly before hitting our peak speed of 10.5 knots.  She was consoled a little by the largest pod of dolphins we have ever seen.  There must have been over a hundred, racing along and leaping clear of the water.  An uplifting sight.  Round the southern tip of the island, the wind again died but, this time, then changed to a usable SW’ly to take us back up to Tazacorte.  This was the 12th day of Christmas, 3 Kings Day in Spain so, as there would be no staff on duty at the marina, we tried the unofficial anchorage at the entrance.  This proved very comfortable but, with a few local boats moored, space is limited.



 We re-entered the marina next morning and made enquiries for car hire.  The only local provider was closed and the nearest available was a bus ride away and had a minimum hire period of 3 days.  We wanted to explore and took the only car available, a VW Polo automatic.  I have always been wary of small automatics but this one, with a 1.4 engine and a 7 speed ‘box, proved the ideal vehicle for the tortuous mountain roads, this time going up to 8000 ft AMSL.  There are many micro-climates on the island, making it difficult for a visitor to work out where it will be sunny and where there will be thick cloud / fog but we managed to guess right most of the time with just the exception of a damp lunch at Puerto Vueltas on the 3rd day.  More spectacular views than can be listed, especially around the huge volcanic caldera that dominates the north of the island.  On the northern lip of this is an observatory, taking advantage of the high altitude and dark skies.  Amongst many optical telescopes, hidden in their domes, are a pair of Gamma Ray ‘scopes, with polished mirrors parked down-sun during the day.  Most ‘interesting’ drive was the 14 kilometers, climbing 2500 ft along a tiny, winding road up to Los Brecitos, with precipitous drops and no barriers, enlivened by the oncoming taxis and one 30 seater bus coming the other way.  If we visit again, we will take one of the taxis and follow the footpath down.  Better for the heart in at least 2 ways.


MAGIC telescope

We wanted to ‘complete the set’ of Canarian islands and saw our opportunity, with winds forecast to be SE’ly on the 12th – 15th.  So, after a lazy day on the 11th we made an 0430 start towards El Hierro.  Light winds, in the lee of La Palma, meant that we had to motor the first 13 miles but, as soon as we passed the southern tip, we had fine sailing winds on the beam all the way.  El Hierro has no usable anchorages and only 2 ports.  La Estaca is the commercial port, used by the high speed ferry from Lanzarote.  The inner harbour was completely filled with local moorings, with visitors having to tie up to the concrete wall.  The southern port of Restinga has recently been equipped with pontoons so we headed there, partly for easier mooring but also to push as far South as we could (27 38 N).  I had tried on a couple of previous occasions to contact the harbour master, without success, but tried again.  He spoke no English but a helpful German, visiting his office translated that the pontoons were full, there was room on the wall and it had been much improved to make it yacht friendly.  So we continued down and arrived prepared with fender boards, long lines, etc.  We were a little disappointed that we were offered no assistance to tie up but were managing when we noticed a security guard waving at us from the pontoon.  There was a space for us after all (albeit with nasty metal protrusions which required careful fendering).  No car locally but we managed, the next day to catch the bus into the capital and take a round trip on another which past Puerto de la Estaca.  As we came down the hill, blow me, there were beautiful new pontoons, with plenty of spaces.

Having seen as much of El Hierro as we could easily achieve, we set off at dawn on the 14th back to La Gomera.  The forecast was for a SE’ly F3, which would give us a gentle beam reach, but it never developed so we had to motor practically all the way.  We had noticed brightly coloured bubbles on the surface.  A larger one looked like a child's toy, made of clear plastic with red and blue decoration.  We stopped and backed up slowly to it and realised that it was a Portuguese Man-of-War jellyfish.  Gulp.  Must be a bit circumspect with our daily swims. Also saw more pilot whales.


Portuguese Man O'War

As we manoeuvred to anchor off Vueltas, the engine suddenly started belching white smoke and the high temperature alarm sounded.  As the windlass only works with the engine running, there was a quick lower of first 10 meters of chain, stop engine, then drop the rest of the chain on the brake.  This was a bit sticky so, obviously, time for a little maintenance there as well.  Replacing the raw water impeller on the engine (though existing one had 5 of 6 vanes still attached) produced a healthy flow of cooling water and has hopefully solved this problem. Checking round in the night, we saw another freak of nature – thousands of green pipe fish, about 40 cm long just swimming slowly around on the surface and occasionally jumping.  Were we in a spawning ground?  They surrounded us for several hours but were gone in the morning.  To test the engine, we headed out and South in the morning.  Tried sailing for a bit but the wind died so we motored most of the way back to the anchorage near Santiago, this time performing a running moor – dropped kedge anchor; motored ahead; dropped main anchor and heaved kedge in tight.  Worked reasonably well for a first attempt, but managed to foul the kedge with the tripping line, so that it did not set properly and had to be re-laid.  Second time – perfect!


Wall to wall sun on Saturday so a lazy day of light maintenance swimming and sunbathing.  An easy start to Sunday then, after picking up 2 anchors, motor up the coast to San Sabastian, where Elsie was to stay with Ruby while Lionel caught the ferry to Lanzarote and flight to Scotland for routine heath checks.

 On return, there were a couple of maintenance tasks to complete, including a look at the headsail furling system, which had been harder than usual to operate on the last leg.  Another trip up the mast revealed that the top bearing was missing.  A phone call to the U.K. agent confirmed that the parts were available and that we should be able to fit them without removing the system from the forestay, which would be a major job.  Since we would have to wait for the parts, it was back to the old dilemma of having to be in a certain place at a certain time.  We could have just waited i n San Sebastian but we felt that we were becoming a fixture.  Plan 'A' was to go back to La Palma, have a proper look at Santa Cruz, and then return to Tazacorte - a perfect place for lotus eating.  The weather forecast, however, suggested that we might again find rain in Santa Cruz so decided to head east to Tenerife instead.  As soon as we confirmed this with the parts supplier, the forecast changed, but we continued anyway.  In theory, we should have had a good beam reach across to the bottom of Lanzarote, followed by a beat into 15 knots up to Montana Rojo.  Instead, we had a light airs crossing, with more motoring than sailing, followed by a motor into a 25 - 30 knot headwind.  We made it to the anchorage and spend a reasonably comfortable couple of days as the wind increased to a full gale which only abated on the evening of the 31st.

Monthly stats:
logged: 289   
over ground284

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