Tenerife
Trippwire
Fri 6 Nov 2009 11:12
Las Galattas is a
funny place, with a very pretty marina, but a bit of a minging small town
attached. Our plan was to head around the southern tip of Tenerife and go and
anchor up in Los Cristianos, which is the archetypal canarian resort town, with
attractions such as Mcdonalds, Burger King, Aberdeen Steak House, lots of bars
and clubs and...well, not much else. However, it looked like a promising
anchorage. On enquiry, it turns out that the authorities have clamped down on
hobo's like us and wont let yachts anchor in the bay (I suspect because they are
not paying the tax that marinas charge).
After a couple of
days recovery, and with the weather being settled, we decided to see if we could
anchor in the lee of a headland called 'red rock'. It turns out that the beach
next door to this headland is a nudist beach! However, it was a nice
anchorage with great views of Mount Teide, and so we fired up the barbecue and
cooked some fantastic fish that we had bought from the market in Las Galattes.
We were hoping that we could stay for a few days until Jennifer's brother
Richard and his family came out, but the headland did not give quite enough
shelter and after a very rocky and rolly night we reluctantly headed into the
nearby marina in the resort of Golf del Sur.
A view of Mount
Teide
The Golf del Sur
resort seems to be exclusively English (again with an Aberdeen Steak House!),
and aside from Golf, there is little to do. After scoping out the local hotel
pools, we settled on our favorite and spent a day there..before hiring a car,
which enabled us to do some surfing and kite surfing (perhaps more accurate, I
should say 'attempt' because both our abilities in the respective sports are
somewhat deficient or perhaps more accurately, non
existent!)
Life is really
tough!
Jennifer's brother
and family arrived, and it was fantastic to spend a week with them. It is
shocking how quickly toddlers grow up, with Millie (Jennifer's 1 and 11 month
old niece) clearly pronouncing lots of words, where only 6 weeks ago, we
struggled to understand her. Jennifer really enjoyed spending some time
with Mille, although apparently it is not on to tell a toddler that her dolly
has died in a horrific pram accident!
Feeling ourselves a bit like
kids coming back home, we took all our washing up to the apartment (honestly we
had not been storing up our washing for this occasion!), and miraculously it all
came back clean (for which we are immensely grateful)! Sarah, Jennifer's sister
in law, is a great cook, and so we also got very well fed into the
bargain. Jennifer was very sad to see them leave, with rather more than a
trace of a lump in her throat as they drove away.
All too soon the
week finished and we had to get the boat ready for Laura, Jennifer's friend, and
Rob (a mutual friend) and his friend Alex to arrive
out.
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