Life trundles on here in Las Palmas. The marina is cheap and friendly, the showers are (mostly) clean and hot – and the loos work – which is a refreshing change from Messolonghi last winter! Las Palmas is a typical noisy, bustling city, but it’s very Spanish (there’s a lot less English spoken here than I expected). It is really easy to get around with a range of supermarkets, a ferreteria (ironmongers) and the produce market within easy walking distance. Plus the ever-present Chinese tat shops of course – it’s unbelievable how many different, useless, things have been made in plastic in China (figure that one out if you can) – but I have to check every shop just in case I’ve missed the one really important thing – in 4 colourways of course! There are my flashing chilli pepper lights, for example – no self-respecting girlie would be without those in her galley...

We keep ourselves busy most days with work (for me), boat school for Beth and Bryn, boat jobs for David, with shopping, laundry and music in between. There is a self-service laundrette here on the marina, but at 8 EUROS a wash we’ll be sticking to hand washing! At least it’s warm enough to dry everything on the guard rails. Beth and Bryn did a stint of cat sitting of Scabby while Carolyn and Mike (PHANTOM LADY) went back to the UK for a couple of weeks.

Scabby helping with boat school.

As ever, it is the people that make a place – Hilary and Paul (PAX) are here in the marina and we are on a really friendly pontoon (R) and have a good group to socialize with. I am power walking three times a week with Carolyn (PHANTOM LADY) and Petra (AQUAMARIJN); there is an all-weather 1 km running track just by the marina so we go there and walk hard (for an hour – about 4 km in total), gossiping while we go and trying to remember to keep our bums tucked in and to stretch at appropriate points (you wouldn’t believe how hard it is tuck your bum in AND gossip).

Ton and Mike with the marina and the city behind.

Boat kid convention

It has been quite an international boat kid convention here – at one point there were three other boats on our pontoon with six kids aged 6 to 13 (a Dutch boat, an English/Italian boat and a Brazilian/New Zealand boat), plus another boat on a different pontoon with another two girls (English) and MOLLYMAWK in the anchorage with 13-year-old Roxanne. I’ve never seen so many boat kids in one place! This little gang had three kayaks and two sailing dinghies to play with, the beach/anchorage 500 metres away and various skateboards and scooters to take to the skateboard park (which is great as they are now old enough to go on their own). They all call each other up on channel 69 on the VHF to make arrangements for each afternoon, and all arrive back just as it’s getting dark (about 7:00 pm) for showers before tea. Needless to say we don’t see much of B&B except for school, meals and bed! , There is the odd falling out here and there (which I guess is just as important to learn to deal with as the good bits), but this is basically boat kid heaven at the moment.

Playmobil pirate people take over the pavement.

Wheelbarrow and crab races were just a couple of the ways that we helped Senne celebrate his 11^th birthday.

Hot dogs for tea on the boys’ sleepover on CAPE.

Following the departure of a couple of boats for Brazil, we are now back down to a core of seven kids. The boys have been building model boats, swords and a large-scale siege catapult (that can launch 1 kg about 10 metres), so basically an excuse to saw up bits of wood, use the jig saw, hammer, nails and create lots of splinters and sawdust. The girls attempted to build a raft, but quickly learned that you can’t hammer screws, and that you can’t nail polystyrene to wood. They’ve graduated to bead jewellery-making instead and have been selling stuff they make around the marina. Oh, and shopping for shoes, clothes and more beads with the money they are earning.

Boat school

There is a brilliant Science & Technology Museum in town; their motto is ‘it is forbidden not to touch’ and most of the exhibits are hands-on. For quite a while school was following up on the things that B&B found interesting there; we’ve done engines (internal combustion, diesel, petrol and jet), propellers, lift and drag on propellers and on plane wings, Focault’s pendulum, osmosis and reverse-osmosis watermakers, and the international space station (you don’t often get excuses to watch the film Apollo 13 for school!). I’ve learned loads!

Bryn in the cockpit of a jet fighter.

David (upside down) in a large gyroscope.

A thermal image portrait of Beth and Bryn.

At some point we will be back to do the rest of the museum – we only did two out of the three floors last time!

We have a baited prawn pot down under the ramp to the pontoon and it gets lifted periodically (i.e. when the kids remember) to check if anything has been daft enough to go in. There was great excitement when we caught a scorpion fish. While we knew that they were supposed to be here (it says so on our fish identification chart), it is a sobering to think that they are hiding among the rocks where we paddle. Scorpion fish have a poisonous sting that causes intense pain and swelling at the site of the sting, and the swelling can spread to affect an entire arm or leg within minutes; other symptoms can include blood pressure and heart rate changes, delirium, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting, paralysis, seizures and shortness of breath – just what you need on a boat while cruising in a foreign country.

Identifying the scorpion fish.

No scorpion fish were harmed in the making of this blog – we let him or her go afterwards...

At the moment school has moved on to navigation and geometry, circles and angles, leading up to creating a theoretical passage plan from here to Brazil via West Africa and the Cape Verdes...

Music on PAX

Hil and Paul have made a den down below on PAX with seats around the edge and we get together a couple of times a week to play music. Beth has started to play her whistle by ear, and is playing Paul’s big recorder (don’t be smutty – ‘big recorder’ is a technical term) so is joining in much more. Marijn (AQUAMARIJN) and Cara (LADY CAT) come along with their guitars, and Senne (AQUAMARIJN) has just started learning harmonica, so we are quite a noisy little crowd. Music theory (scary stuff!) and composing are starting to creep in too...

Visitors

Colin and Moira (TASMAN) arrived to stay for a week (on PAX). It was great to catch up with all their news, have a few beers and sing some old – and new – stuff. We took them to the Science & Technology Museum – unfortunately it was Monday and it was closed. We walked along the promenade in the rain instead and found a kebab for lunch.

Having visitors was a good excuse for a BBQ on PAX, for the kids to show off their new-found musical skills, and for a general a sing song. The weather was perfect UK BBQ weather – cool and windy with rain later.

Marijn.

Beth playing Paul’s big recorder.

Bryn and Cara.

Senna leading Dirty Old Town.

Just like old times – David, Colin and Moira.

A rare photo of the complete female vocal section.

A giggle of girls in the bowsprit netting.

Carnaval (that’s how they spell it, honest!)

It is Carnaval here – a whole month of it in the run up to Lent. It was the Murga competitions this last week (huge singing bands all dressed up, singing their hearts out with choreographed movements). We walked up to the main square to watch a couple of the bands competing. Apparently the winners get to lead the actual Carnaval procession. There was a salsa band set up to play afterwards for people to dance to, but – in typical Spanish style – they still hadn’t started playing at midnight. It’s competitions for the Carnaval Queen this week, followed by the Carnaval Drag Queen next week and the grand finale the week after – imagine the Llangollen International Eisteddfod meets Notting Hill in drag. It aIl makes for brilliant people watching – everyone out in their finest or in fancy dress, including all the drag queens getting to go out fully togged up (there’s plenty of them as Las Palmas is a big gay centre).

The weather

All good news programmes finish with the weather, so you’ll be delighted to learn that the last 3 weeks have been cool and windy, but on the whole the weather here continues to be glorious most of the time – mid-20s during the day, and about 15 degrees at night, which is bliss after two winters in the Med!

The anchorage in Las Palmas.