Oh and it’s raining again!! Only one thing we can do while we wait for it to pass... catch up with the blog.

23 hours of sailing, feeling very ill and wet we arrived in Santa Cruz de La Palma on the 2nd of November. The rain stopped in the evening long enough for us to explore the city with its beautiful colonial buildings, and intricate wood carvings on the balconies and cobbled streets. Do not ask who dragged us into a bar where we were served a tapas consisting of 10 slices of ham, 10 slices of cheese, 8 fish croquettes, 15 tiny calimari, 2 pieces of chicken, 2 pieces of fish and some buttery vegetables* for a cracking 65 Euros! Ever since then we’ve been eating half price at the American Diner opposite to us... a pizza never goes wrong.

* numbers are approximate

The bad weather continued day after day and we entertained ourselves by watching the wind on the Raymarine hitting hurricane strength. Obviously we went out for a walk in it, the palm trees all bending under the power of it. Leaves, rocks and everything else you can imagine flurried around our legs, sand eating into our calves. Even Raph didn’t wear his NASA cap for fear of losing it. The sky was an incredible dark violet and clouds swirling like giant meringues in the sky.

We’ve also taken to feeding the brightly coloured fish in the marina. There are some amazing brown ones with electric blue fins, rainbow fish, long trumpet fish, tiger fish, even what we thought was an octopus once. Top tip for fishermen. Fish love cheese.

Picked up a new friend, Javier Nacho del Paco (pronounced Habir) the parrot. He is hanging from the roof the saloon imitating the sounds of Raph enjoying his Nutella and screeching ‘Mr Choc!’ into his ear, for Raph cannot stand the sight, smell or sound of Nutella’s inferior counterpart.

Nigel and Annie have been busy making firends in the marina and finishing the major jobs that need doing to the boat, at a rate of about 30 a day whilst the other three lazies believe that one job is plenty enough. They’ve discovered the most addictive card game, Saboteur, that brings out the worst in human greed. The sheer length of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy has also been taking up a lot of their time.

The major event therefore has probably been Florian, Kiera and Raph’s two day hike up to the Caldera. The camera and tripod came too of course meaning 10 kilos of baggage weighed down each of the weary travellers as they struggled to heave themselves up the slopes of the steepest island in the world. Florian bounded ahead looking at rocks, Raph turning into a young incarnation of Gandalf, with his walking stick and hobbling steps and Kiera wanted to force food down the other two every 10 minutes or so in a vain effort to lessen the weight on her back as she was carrying most of the supplies.

Oh but it was so worth the effort. The views up there were absolutely stunning!! The first day we were in the clouds until evening, spending the night in a completely empty refuge, which with it’s four walls and hard wooden bed was the most welcome thing we could ever had asked for. It was so cold up there we probably wouldn’t have survived the night sleeping rough, even with our woolly hats.

The night sky was beautiful and clear and the next day we summated a further 5 mountains in high winds and with epic views. The most wonderful two days we had spent on La Palma for sure.

Before I leave you to make the most of the five minutes when it’s not raining I must tell you about the swimming pool only minutes away from the boat that we are allowed as guests of the marina to use for free. Absolutely fantastic. There’s an outside and inside pool, a jacuzzi, a hamam (great for singing in) and a shower that jets your ankles with freezing water, then moves up to your bottom, then - as you had spotted minutes ago and had been waiting tepidly for - it jets your shoulders and finally dumps a load on your head. Oh the best place to be is sitting in the jacuzzi watching Raph and Florian’s faces as they suffer in it’s clutches. Worth every jet they try to send in your direction.

Wet wet wet marina...

Some of Santa Cruz's beautiful architecture

Vortex to Oz

King of the Banana

A little late for Halloween

Chickens in the bushes... always watching...

The Queen Mary 2 comes into port

Up, up... up

Caldera Hiking

In the clouds...

Kiwi is in da the Refuge