Tenerife
Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Fri 16 Nov 2012 20:57
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28:27.97N 16:14.68W
Friday16 November 2012
Distance Run 56 miles
I went to the hospital on Thursday for the elbow
check which is still infected but progressing slowly and the Dr asked me to come
back next week. I asked if I could go sailing and it was suggested I could
'try an hour at a time'. 'What if I sail to Tenerife?' (10-12
hours). 'Well you could try it but don't sail off to somewhere like St
Lucia yet'. I asked 'what if we make the next check up 2 weeks
instead of one?'. OK then.
We knew we had a weather window to sail to Tenerife
either on Friday or the following Tuesday so we paid up at Las Palmas Marina and
prepared to leave the next day.
We had fitted new rigging to the boat in June last
year in preparation for the Atlantic crossing and it had started to rust a
couple of months later. This should not happen (even after 10
years). We did some remedial work on it which improved things and the
German company that supplied the wire to Turkey, where the work was done,
suggested we get it checked by one of their agents and if necessary
they will change it all under warranty. They have an agent in
Tenerife which is why we are so keen to go there.
We left the dock at 8am, soon after first
light. There was little wind so we motored for some time. The sea
was lumpy near the NE tip of Gran Canaria but this is normal around
headlands.
The city of Las Palmas behind us:-
 We ran the watermaker once we were in clean water
to flush it's membrane. This should be done at least every 14 days but
hadn't been possible for the 5 weeks we were in Gran Canaria because the water
is oily.
The wind picked up from the south west, gently at
first but was soon rather vigorous once in the wind acceleration zone
between Gran Canaria and Tenerife. It settled later and we were able to
set the sails and turn the engine off. That is always a blissful
moment.
We had been able to see Tenerife as
soon as we had cleared the point of Gran Canaria. Although it is over 50
miles away the prominent Mount Tiede rising to 3700 metres is
visible.
This is a few hours away from Tenerife
but if you have very good eyesight you might be able to see the distant
peak of Mount Tiede in the centre of the picture just above the cloud
line:-
 Tenerife is another volcanic Atlantic
island:-
 Queen Mary 2 ?:-
 We reached Santa Cruz soon after 5 pm and were all
tied up in the marina by about 5.45 pleased that we had arrived before
dark.
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