The sardine is toast

Carnaval is over and peace of some sort has returned to the anchorage at Las Palmas. Though there is always something going on - an Ultimate frisbee tournament on the beach, a fleet of children in Optimist dinghies and kayaks around the boats, a pair of swimmers muttering about freezing their cojones off, or a regatta of radio-controlled model sailboats, one of which bumped into our vessel yesterday and Jim sent it on its way. Unfortunately it was out of radio control range and had to be rescued by a bloke in a kayak.

Carnaval in Las Palmas is a serious partying affair with some parade or other going on all through the evening and night for several days, with only one day of rest in between. We chose to forego the main parade as we were going hiking early the next day, but of course we couldn't escape. The floats went right along the main road next to the anchorage and from about 9pm to 4.30am we heard the music blaring across the water. Strangely, they repeated the same song over and over again, the same one that had already accompanied every fiesta in La Gomera. We must have heard it about ten times that night. Any clues to its name and artist welcome - it's the last track on this youtube video.

The carnaval theme this year was comic heroes. When we reached the bus station at 7.30am after passing a smashed bus shelter and a discarded chest-piece, we found lots of jaded, spent-looking superheroes wandering about. However, we soon left the city and its debauchery behind and reached the chilly mountain heights, where a breakfast of goat stew fortified us for a long hike led by Uli, a German printer who has lived in Gran Canaria for 14 years and knows its trails very well. We headed down the valley to some caves once inhabited by the ancient Canarios who decorated the walls with petroglyphs. There are plenty of caves on the island and some of the them are quite deluxe with doors, windows and patios.

The entrance to one of the more deluxe uninhabited caves.

The main street in pretty and inappropriately named Teror.

As we descended we found ourselves on a field of pyroclasts with some mounds stacked up in places. We had stumbled into an ancient burial site in an archaelogical park which was closed for lack of funding to run it, a common problem with projects on the island. We wandered around the beautiful site, looked at some bones (which disappointingly proved to be reconstructions) in the burial mounds and then had to find a way out over the high wall and gate at the main entrance. Apart from a cactus injury sustained by Uli, we escaped unharmed.

Old water mill, with almond blossom. 

Ancient Canario burial chambers.

Scale model of  the site, showing all the graves.

The interior of Gran Canaria is very beautiful and, at least in the north, surprisingly green. We also rented a clapped-out Seat from a resident sailor one day to explore the island. It was the day after a snowfall, but luckily the mountain roads had been reopened.  We warmed ourselves with some Canary rum from the distillery in the pretty town of Arucas before heading for the lovely village of Tejeda, where we had to wait out a torrential downpour - the first proper rainfall since coming to the Canaries. Our scenic drive concluded in the not-so-scenic environs of Lidl and with a traffic jam on the motorway back to Las Palmas.

Tejeda, pleasant mountain town.

Yo ho ho and a barrel of ____! 

A Lidl moment, the first since departing Edinburgh...

The only Carnaval event we did attend was the 'Burial of the Sardine' (though strictly speaking it was a cremation), which is the finale. This year, because of the economic crisis, Carnaval had been curtailed by four days. The burning of a sardine effigy on a raft was preceded by a parade of the Carnaval Queen, the culture minister and the Senior Carnaval Queen on floats, accompanied by lots of men (and some women) dressed up as (rather kinky) widows grieving for the sardine. While the sardine smouldered away on its raft, thousands of people on Las Canteras beach, including us, watched a fireworks bonanza above it - no sign of crisis there.

Soon after our arrival in Las Palmas Jim noticed that a weld holding the support frame for the self-steering had pulled apart. The things that can break on a boat! Luckily, one of our friends here has a welding machine and fixed this problem without us having to take off the entire structure. Jim made some little reinforcement plates so that the weld is now stronger than before.

Noooo! Could have been nasty had the other end gone at sea.

Friend Ernst and his marvellous welding kit.

Better than new. The original join was a bit flimsy.

Now we are waiting for some wind to go east, which is not so easy in the Canaries, where it blows from the northeast nearly all the time.

Birthday on board

Night sky

My birthday began shortly after midnight when Sonja woke me with the welcome news that the breeze had freshened at last, that we could raise sail again and silence the engine, whose reliable thump had propelled us since a passing rain shower had stolen the wind away a couple of hours earlier.

We had cleared the northeast cape of Tenerife and Gran Canaria was visible in the distance ahead, the light on La Isleta broadcasting its identity with the steady rhythm of three flashes, pause, fourth flash - every twenty seconds. A beautiful night of broken clouds, a mild northerly swell and a bright half moon shining on the water. There were dolphins about, coming now and then to dart back and forth across the bow before going on about their business.

While Sonja took her couple of hours of blissful repose in the warm bunk below, I looked out across the sea, noted a passing ship, marvelled at the stars, adjusted our course as the wind shifted, revelled in the singular peace of a night passage with the promise of reaching secure harbour before the dawn.

By the time I roused Sonja at half past two, the wind had picked up a little more and we were tearing along, closing the coast and tracking our way around the island to Las Palmas, careful to keep a couple of miles offshore and so avoid the hazards close in. Turning off the wind, we dropped the main sail and ran on under the genoa alone, searching eagerly amongst the myriad of lights on shore for those that would guide us into the harbour.

A little before five we glided silently past the mole and swiftly crossed the large commercial basin, thankful for the momentary lack of moving ships as we made our way into the anchorage, starting the engine and stowing the genoa as we did so.
By six, we were anchored, everything ship shape, the crew tucked in and well on the way to the land of Nod.

The day began again a little after ten, with a quick swim around the boat and a leisurely breakfast in the sun before inflating the canoe and paddling ashore to get showered, buy some food and see which of our friends we could track down in the marina.
Back on the boat in the late afternoon, I enjoyed a beer and a read in the sunny cockpit, followed by a prime dinner of chops fresh from the butcher with tatties and sweet tatties.

Evening drawing on, I went to the locker of sin for tobacco and whisky, grabbed the earphones, selected an album of Renaissance music, the pure and close vocal harmonies of which I have always found particularly moving, and settled to smoke a reflective cigar as the darkness gathered, sipping a precious dram from a bottle of rare old malt, given us as a wedding present by a dear great uncle nearly eleven years ago.

Fettler swung gently to and fro on her anchor, pointing me now to the city and its bustle, now across the anchorage, where I looked between the other boats to the light blinking green on the end of the harbour wall and the dark sea beyond. Now to a kayaker dashing through the gloaming, now to a cargo ship making her pondrous way into port. Jupiter and Venus appeared overhead before disappearing behind drifting cloud.

I thought on life. On the abiding mystery of it. The miraculous capacity for joy. The deep wells of sadness and suffering. The many places I've been. The many people I have known; those who to my sorrow I'll never see again, those I hope to see much more of.

Cigar finished, whisky drained, I go below to the warmth of the cabin, conclusions open. A fine birthday.

La isla bonita

The usual 'marina from above' shot: Tazacorte

It's been a good stay in Tazacorte. We had planned to be off after just one week, but the favourable forecast suddenly deteriorated as we were confronted with the first gale force weather since our arrival in the Canaries back in November. It so happened that this was pretty much the best spot in the archipelago to sit out the weather, coming from the northeast as it was, so sit it out we did. No hardship, mind you! There is ample hiking to keep a body occupied for many weeks.

Church square in El Paso

Ancient petroglyphs, created by the island's
original inhabitants (pre-Spanish conquest),
outside El Paso

Caldera frog

Inside the Caldera de Taburiente

The multi-coloured waterfall

On the Route of the Volcanoes

Emerging from the clouds

Volcan Martin

Another tempting cottage 

The caldera from 1,000 metres 

View from Los Brecitos

When not hiking, we had the usual run of boat maintenance jobs to keep us busy, plus swimming, socialising and plenty of reading. Even more than Gomera, La Palma has high proportion of Germans, which is also reflected in the boats at Tazacorte Marina. A simple visit to the dentist (for which I had duly prepared the Spanish phrase for 'I have a broken molar') turned out to be a German situation - the practice consisting of 6 German dentists. Anyway, a good job done, at reasonable cost.

Our boon companions here have been the Roede Orms, a family of four on our size of vessel, the Sophies, both on one-year sabbaticals, and the Men Goes, long-term cruisers with a cat and dog (Spanish water dog) aboard. The hound, seemingly, has no problem holding its bladder for 24 hours at a stretch. Pretty ideal sea dog.

Tomorrow we plan to depart for Las Palmas.