28:05.328N 17:06.487W

 

¡Hola! We’re back in Spain, but we’re not on the mainland. We arrived in the Canaries on the 21.10.13, La Palma, with Alan and Jan Haynes visiting as extra crew.  The view from La Palma was really amazing, you could just see Tenerife’s mountain, Teide.

On our second day in Tenerife, we decided to hire two small cars. Alan and Jan hired one to head on their discovery of the island and we hired another to explore the island by ourselves.

 

Our first stop was a small volcano located on the South of La Palma called San Antonio. It’s one of the most recently erupted volcano’s on the island and has been turned into a museum and tourist attraction. We were able to watch a video from the latest eruption, in 1971, that was quite scary!

The crater of the volcano, San Antonio

 

Our next stop was the main volcano in the middle of the island that had been turned into a national park, Parque Nacional de la Caldera de Taburiente. We went on two hour trek that included some stunning view of the volcano. Even though we were very sweating when the walk ended, it was definitely worth it!

Dad, Kerry and I by the Caldera de Taburiente.

 

Early next morning, we went for a scuba dive, at the beach of Los Canjos. Even though the shore entry did not agree with my equalization (when shallow water diving, surge and waves tend to mean you have to pop your ears regularly and sometimes this results in a sore forehead), we saw some amazing stuff! I spotted an uncommon scorpion fish, a green moray eel, a bright starfish, the hoover-like cuttlefish and lots of spiky anemones. It was a great dive!

Going out of an underwater cave!

 

Roque de los Muchachos was our next visit. Driving along the hair pin bend roads, we were able to rise above the trees and clouds, to an altitude of 2,396 metres. Up at the top, we had some amazing views of the islands, including the National Park we visited 2 days ago!

 

The little path to the highest point of Roque de los Muchachos

 

After a lunch of sandwiches and ice cream, we drove to the rainforest, in Los Sauces. It was very green and humid and we had to pass through a small tunnel.

 

Back in Santa Cruz de la Palma we finally found the famous ice cream parlour, Helodomania, after much hunting hunting with Alan and Jan! The ice cream was definitely worth hunting for as I had Nutella flavour! Yum yum!

 

On the 26.10.13, we sailed to La Gomera and managed to get the spinnaker out, even though it rained a little! We got a berth in the marina and Kerry and I found our Dutch friend, Floor, was also at the marina!

Alan at the helm on our way to Gomera.

 

Two days later Alan and Jan had to go back to England. It was great that they came, thank you!!

 

The next day, we hired a car and took a circle route of Gomera. It’s very rugged and it has some pretty fascinating history. We saw a lot of bananas growing and Kerry and I had some mango juice from  a restaurant, that was made of fresh Gomeran mangoes!

 

The little village of Agulo, that we passed through.

 

For the next 2 days, we shopped for food for the crossing to Cape Verdes and our Atlantic Crossing. It was great fun finding cupboards and holes to store the huge quantities of foods such as rice, cereal, juice, beer (for dad!), etc!

 

So in 5 days we’ll be Cape Verdes!

¡Adiós!

 

Robyn