Magic

A bridge to nowhere on La Gomera

Traditional costumes in the San Sebastian Day parade

After 45 days and one last fiesta (San Sebastian's name day) we finally managed to tear ourselves away from Gomera. Islanders partying the night through doesn't make for a good night's sleep, but we had to go sometime. We chose to go southabout the island to avoid having to beat through the acceleration zone and had a pleasant sail around to Valle Gran Rey where we anchored for the night in only slightly rolly conditions. At 0430 next morning we hoisted our anchor and motored out from the wind shadow of the island on a beautiful starry night. Destination: Tazacorte, on the west side of La Palma, about 55 NM away. The wind was a brisk Force 5 to begin with but soon moderated. How nice to have good sailing conditions at last! Alas, as soon as we rounded the lighthouse on the southern tip of La Palma the wind was blocked by the high island, like switching off a fan, and we had to motor the rest of the way.

The anchorage at Valle Gran Rey

Tazacorte, with the slightly bizarre slogan 'the last and peaceful European marina', turns out not quite so peaceful after all. A recently built sea wall is being demolished. Drilling starts at 8 am and continues, with seemingly random intermissions, until dusk. Other than that, it's a nice place and quite a few of the gang from Gomera have appeared here as well. Yesterday we escaped the construction noise by hiring a car with Alois and Daniela of Galloper and Ludo of Siddhi and explored the beautiful northwest of La Palma.

It's the almond blossom season

From the banana plantations near Tazacorte, we quickly passed through a wine-growing region and almond orchards just coming into bloom to pine forests at higher altitude. This is when smoke began to pour from the engine of the rental car. Luckily, unlike the rest of us (oops), Daniela had her mobile on her and after a short tea break we were presented with an identical car, albeit with less fuel. We only noticed this halfway up the mountain to the 2400 odd metre Roque de los Muchachos and kept our fingers crossed that the fuel was enough to make it there and back down to the nearest petrol station.

The MAGIC telescope

Roque de los Muchachos is the site of numerous telescopes, including the very cool-looking and impressively acronymed MAGIC telescope, which indirectly detects black holes by observing light emitted when gamma rays collide with particles in the upper atmosphere. La Palma has a special law forbidding the use of upwards-pointing lamps to keep light pollution to a minimum and, on the mountain, use of vehicle headlights is not allowed.

More telescopes

View over Caldeira Taburiente

The mountain top was above the tree line and above the clouds (hence the value of the site for observatories) with stunning views over the caldeira to El Teide on Tenerife and El Hierro to the southeast. A magical place.

Sailors on top of the world

Deluxe caves at Puerto de Puntagorda

On the way down we expended the last of the fuel on the final hill before the closest petrol station and rolled into it, breathing a sigh of relief. We then stopped at the cove of Puerto de Puntagorda where locals have converted caves into summer cabins and hewn a natural swimming pool from the rocks. A bottle of Palmeran white wine on a terrace overlooking the sea at sunset rounded off a super day. The western side of the island is definitely the more beautiful and we are glad we came back for it.

Mystery leak revealed

Burns Supper on board Fettler.
Thanks to Robin for the tinned haggis and whiskey!

On the passage over we again had a little bit of water coming in at the same place as the old mystery leak, thought to have been remedied in the Azores. Jim decided to take the angle grinder to the area and revealed some old damage which had not been repaired properly. Eight layers of glass later, this should not give us any further trouble.

Fiesta!

While storms and gales rage back home in Edinburgh, we have slowed to winter-in-the-Canaries pace and savoured the unfamiliar sensations of celebrating Christmas and Hogmanay in shorts and tee-shirt. Sonja's folks left us on the 16th of December and, though our original intention was to return to Las Palmas for the festive season, the gentle charms of La Gomera convinced us to stick around and enjoy.

The charms of La Gomera: Playa de la Guancha,

Views of El Teide and

Los Roques

San Sebastian is a real cat town, with its main park a haven for moggies. There are several dozen of them, fed and looked after by cat-loving locals. Nearly all of them have been neutered (and have a clipped ear to make it obvious) and look fit and healthy, but they do make themselves scarce when there are small children about, suggesting some unfortunate experiences. The marina has two cute felines, too.

The marina cats (Photo: Andy Scott)

Wildlife in the park

Half Ear, the friendliest of the park felines

It may not be the cheapest of marinas, but San Sebastian is very pleasant and well stocked with cruising boats and cruisers of our type - small and unpretentious, fun to spend time and share ideas with. We keep learning at every encounter and feel privileged to be part of this distinct community existing on the margins of society, moving on the oceans and meeting on the fringes of the lands. Unsurprisingly most are retired and not facing the prospect of having to return to work or the fear of running out of funds, but there is a substantial minority of younger folk either taking a year or two out, working and sailing in bursts or living by some alternative means that we've yet to discover.

These islands are staunchly Catholic, so Christmas is a big deal. There was a lot going on during the evenings previous, including the Nativity play put on by the community - Belen Viviente (Living Bethlehem). Perhaps a hundred people of all ages were involved in the production (plus goats and ducks) and it was watched by most of the rest of the town.

Hanging out on Pajaro (Photo: Andy Scott)

Christmas Eve is the main focus of the celebrations, but it took us some time to figure out what was going on. We went out with our Spanish friend Fernando (who sails a 1963 Pearson Triton, Pajaro, uses hank-on headsails and a similar paraffin stove to ours) at about 11 in the evening to look for a beer. The streets were almost completely deserted, the only sign of life being the sounds of family celebrations drifting out from the windows above. It was almost uncanny, a ghost town. A dark figure approached and Fernando stopped to ask him what was happening. The chap was very friendly and obliging but unfortunately and, somehow aptly, mute. He whipped out a note pad and wrote down, "It's Christmas Eve. Everybody is at home celebrating with their families." Fernando further enquired if things would pick up again later and the written reply assured us they would. We stopped in at the church and listened to a little of the midnight mass before returning to the boat for a whisky.

When we re-emerged the party was getting started. Bars opened up, sound systems began pumping. Hundreds of very smartly dressed people poured into the streets, dancing, drinking and flirting. The noisiest bars, as ever, were right next to the marina so there really wasn't much point in going home to bed and we stayed the course, keeping an eye on proceedings until it all started to wind down at around 0600.

Some of the Christmas BBQ crowd (Photo: Andy Scott)

We were back up again in good time to join the big cruisers' Christmas BBQ on the pier which, extraordinarily, Canarian Television sent a crew to cover. Sure it was a splendid event, attended by sailors from all over, but it must have been a slow news day. The BBQ was a potluck affair with everyone bringing along some meat, salad, drink or sweet. Beautiful.

Hogmanay was celebrated in similar style, with a big sailors' BBQ and then on to the town party which commenced at midnight with a very good dance band playing. The locals didn't really get going until 0200, which was about the time Sonja and I turned in. We slept surprisingly well, given the incredibly loud music that went on non-stop (a disco taking up where the band left off) until around noon the following day. Serious party people, these Latins!