A little history of the Canaries
Breeze
Stewart & Joanne
Mon 26 Nov 2012 10:12
the Las Palmas harbour. ARC participants around 300. Racers left
yesterday and a few large yachts. Most boats are waiting for a high
pressure system to move through as waves are rather huge on the blue.
Modern life here is a far cry from the ancient heritage of early
inhabitants called Guanches. The islands were named "Fortunate" by
early European visitors. According to the Imray pilot book, Phoenician
traders collected purple dye orchil from the Canaries and Pliny the
Elder reported an expedition sent by King Juba II of Mauritania
(Morocco) to these islands in 60BC. Troops discovered large dogs
roaming the islands and brought two of them back to the king. The
typical Canary dog is now much smaller but the name Insulae Canium-The
Islands of Dogs- persists today as Islas Canarias. In 1492 Christopher
Columbus put into Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for repairs and, before
setting off for the New World, attended Mass at San Sebastian de la
Gomera in a church which still stands. Since the 1960s the tourism
trade has swelled from tens of thousands to millions. The flora is a
mix of southern European and African. Coffee, dates, bananas, sugar,
avocados, tobacco, grapes and other fruits and vegetables are grown
and exported. There are more than 200 species of birds - including the
canary (named for the islands, rather than vice versa). The
archipelago and the African coast was one of the better fishing
grounds of the world. Drying and salting corbina, canning tuna,
processing cod, bream, mullet and other species dominated the working
waterfronts. But a combination of over fishing, reduced quotas and
competition for space from yachts has seen a large reduction in the
local fishing fleet. Unlike in the Azores, nearly all marinas are
private and many berths sold together with holiday apartments.