Wed 1^st, Thurs 2^nd & Fri 3^rd Dec.

On Wednesday along with Chris and Steve we set off to explore the island in our hire car and in keeping with tradition purchased a wholly inadequate road map. We headed north into the Anaga mountains and once again found ourselves driving up narrow twisting roads, climbing ever higher before plunging down to a tiny village beside the sea, where cars were not frequently seen judging by the way the locals strolled in the road. After a coffee, we headed back up into the hills and made our way westwards and as usual got lost once or twice due mainly to the absence of road numbers on our map. In one town we found ourselves returning to a roundabout on the outskirts four times, each time from a different direction!

Eventually we ended up down in the south at Garachico where we had lunch in the town which was pretty busy with likeminded tourists.

Next stop was a visit to Masca which is a little village which is almost inaccessible and remote. This sounded just the job and so Sarah took over the driving from me and off we set. When they say that was hard to get to, they meant a very narrow road twisting and turning as tightly as any of the tortuous roads we have been on over the past month. Added to this was the other traffic, mostly heading back up our of the valley which made this a very difficult drive. But the clincher were the coaches also coming the other way which forced us to edge right up hard against the cliff face as they inched past us! Sarah endured an hour  of this before gratefully handing the driving duties back to me.

Masca itself was in a very impressive setting although the village is given over, inevitably, to tourist shops; but we had coffee and ice creams in a very nice cafe before we set off back out of the valley. There were endless photo opportunities all through the day and we will be posting a selection of ours at www.rhbell.com none of which really do justice to the beauty of the place, but the most impressive sight has to be the massive snow capped volcano in the very centre of the island. El Teide is remarkably the highest peak in Spain and (apparently) one of the highest volcanoes in the world.

Last stop on the road trip was a visit to the awesome Acantilados de Los Gigantes which are huge cliffs climbing an impressive 600 metres vertically from the sea.

We then headed for home which was a very long way off, but fortunately we soon found the new motorway and had a fast run through the early evening back to Santa Cruz. However, along the way we did get something of a cultural shock when we came across the Playa de las Americas and Los Cristianos which are huge modern resorts with the entire landscape covered in sprawling white apartments and housing. It is the most astonishing contrast with the northern part of the island.

On Thursday I drove to the airport to collect Robert and Joyce Forsdike who are sailing with us on Serafina to Barbados. They had started their journey around 2.00am as they were driven to Stanstead which thankfully remained open (Gatwick and Manchester were both shut due to heavy snow) and arrived tired and blinking into the bright sunshine here. Very sportingly they emerged from customs both wearing very new baseball caps with the word ‘Crew’ emblazoned across the front.

We had a flawless journey back to the boat and this must be recorded as the first trip on Tenerife where we did not take at least one wrong turning! The day sort of drifted away as they were both tired and after we had caught up on news they had a much needed snooze. Steve and Chris joined us in the evening for drinks and after supper cooked by Sarah we all had a fairly early night.

Friday was a return to business as usual and Robert F got involved straight away firstly soldering and repairing a lead for the computers before undertaking an oil and filter change for the generator and various other jobs in the engine room all of which allowed him to satisfy himself that the mechanical side of Serafina was in good shape. Sarah and Joyce made various sorties into the city visiting various stores and markets as well as Carrafour and El Corte Ingles, armed with the menu plans. The day just slipped away and it was 7.30pm when we had showers and wandered into town to visit first the Cafe Atlantico who have excellent WiFi (we drank wine whilst Sarah downloaded another ‘Audible’ book and I updated various websites) after which we went to Restaurant Olympo for a very nice meal.

The latest weather forecasts look a lot more promising with every indication that once this weekend’s storm passes through, we could see the trade winds setting in from Cape Verde islands across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. The only downside still is that we are being promised headwinds for the first few days out of Tenerife which will make us rethink things a bit. However the biggest setback to our departure date at the moment is the discovery on Friday that next Monday and Wednesday (or possibly Thursday!) are bank holidays here which messes up all the planned visits to the fruit and veg market and purchase of perishable foods.   So the actual departure day is still open for discussion, but may now be Thursday 9^th Dec.