La Gomera
28:05:01N 17:06:53W
The strong winds that plagued us on our last few days in San Miguel came from the storm (1042mbs) crossing the Atlantic and heading NE for you I’m afraid. It is interesting that extreme high and extreme low pressure are both likely to result in storms, that is areas of pressure trying to equal themselves with areas of different pressure. The 24/7 winds that resulted howled down between the islands making the acceleration zones dangerous areas. It has been the hottest and windiest November here since the WW1.
Fortunately now the system has passed out of our area it is a little cooler and more settled and sadly, despite our lively exit from SE Tenerife we sailed around into the lee of the island and NO WIND, ARGGHH.
27th November. Shortly after our arrival in La Gomera yesterday we were enjoying a cup of tea with Chris and Sandra on Deep Blue, whom we had first met in Arrecife over the World Cup Rugby on the TV in the bar.
Like them we have arranged a hire car for two days from tomorrow (Sunday and Monday) to see just a little of what promises to be an amazing island.
In the evening we went through the tunnel under the rock edifice that protects the harbour from the north to the yacht club whose roof is the lava flow that solidified 20 million years ago (to the day!). It is a spectacular venue and I will take my camera next time.
Early this morning I was awoken by the sound of a bow thruster being used excessively. I thought it would burn out if he went on, or catch fire, as sometimes happens. Shortly after the screeching sound of a bottle bank being emptied and then back to sleep. In fact our nights here are so restful, no more howling rigging, halyards whacking masts and creaking mooring lines, just peace, for most of the night with the exception of the singular body who just has to shout his or her way home. I wonder if there is an international club of late night shouters.
Three boats away from us is a fine green steel French yacht called Rouge. On board professional baker Helene has lived with her husband since they left Brest 18 months ago. Every other day she rises at 3.00am to bake brioche and sells it to us fellow yachts, a small one for 3 euros and a large one for 6 euros delivered still warm to the cockpit. It is delicious and we have placed an order with her while we are here. They leave for the Verdes in January and South America early next spring. Maybe we’ll have to change our route! Only joking. We will be following in Deep Blue’s wake, sometime next week.
Each day a few yachts head south. Our Australian friends, Greg and Jane whom we met on the ARC Portugal in 2014 in Orion have now left the Verdes and are well across to the Caribbean and Torsten and Hille in Infinity, also friends from the ARC Portugal are back on board and preparing to sail swiftly to the ABC islands and on to the San Blas islands in February for their passage through the Panama. It would be grand to see them all again at some stage.
Rob spent much of the morning making a do it yourself hull cleaner by sticking velcro onto a sponge attached to a rigid base with handle. He then laid a green nylon kitchen scritcher onto it, donned his wetsuit, tied a chain around his waist and leaped over the stern. Eat your heart out Idris, Daniel and Damian, Rob should definitely be the next James Bond in my books!!
Tomorrow we join the thin thread of yachts heading south for a week or so to the Cape Verdes. Our French neighbours have just gone and we should get light winds for the first few days at least.
Zoonie’s hull is as clean as a whistle so that will help us progress and Rob’s blocked ear has responded well to the olive oil!
Out of all the islands we would love to revisit are Lanzarote and Gomera and we would add on La Palma and El Hierro which we have missed this time.
An Isle of Wight friend of my son in law, Gary’s stepdad has lived here aboard his sleek Moody, Springhill Lady for eighteen years. Ian is well loved locally, having had Hose at the PO give him some Spanish lessons in return for help with his English conversation students, where ever we went with him he chatted to the locals who clearly look on him as one of them.
We met Hose when we were posting our Christmas boxes. “Advertising not allowed” he muttered as he kindly stuck parcel tape over the advertising words on the box we had picked up outside the Ferretaria (iron mongers) in which we had packaged our gifts. After an uneasy few moments he said in perfect English, “I hate you,” We fell about and Rob replied “Ah but we love you!”
The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Rowing Challenge was on while we were there. Crews steadily loading their tiny boats ready to take on the mighty Atlantic, I was glad of our sturdy forty feet!
Our little Seat Ibiza had half a tank of petrol when we collected it. “Just return it the same,” the young lady said. Off we sped to make the most of the two days. In the centre of this lemon squeezer shaped, volcanic island is the National Park Garajonay.
Bearing our Machu Picchu plans in mind we decided to follow a 10.24km trek of medium difficulty in the National Park through the romantically named Laurisilva or Greenwood forest. The main species are Laurel, Indian Avocado, heather and Wax Myrtle. In 2012 a fire took out one fifth of the undergrowth and many houses so we were surrounded by charred trunks and stumps and vibrant new growth. We dangled our feet over the wall at the mirador, watching the clouds threatening to shroud us while eating our lunch.
Valle Gran Rey had my nerves a-tingling. Rob’s driving was fine but of course he was always near the centre of the road and controlling the car, from my perspective the view hundreds of feet down to the winding road below had me gulping. Why on earth, I asked Rob, do folk find a precipitous promontory and plonk a house on it. Do they have suicidal tendencies?
Historically farmers have communicated across the valleys using a comprehensive and structured language through whistling. (Silbu whistling) We watched a demonstration in the square outside the church in San Sebastian. Not wanting the skill to die out the council insists it is taught to all youngsters in school.
With Sandra and Chris we took another walk up and down steep hillsides of the Vallehermosa and along fertile terraces now used for allotments burgeoning with potatoes, beans and maize with vines and passionflower trailing over the warm stone walls. Tall palms, girded with metal bands to deter rodents, are milked for their delicious palm honey, Miel de Palma.
Goats tethered outside restored stone houses and some new villas built by Germans show a tide of people in to the area. But there is also an ebbing tide since many of the fertile terraces are no longer farmed as the youngsters who leave the island for university often don’t return. Also when Franco was boss in Spain many left for Venezuela to avoid his regime. They are now moving to Colombia to escape the gang dominance and corruption in Venezuela. Maybe some will return.
Our guide around the gofio mill at Hermigua was a Yugoslav who was married to a lass from Bogota in Colombia. He was to return there soon to live. He told us the lady owner of the mill was the daughter of the woman who started it and her mother had died the year before. We stocked up on Christmas goodies there after being shown the water mill used to grind the flour from roasted grains. The garden of the mill is an oasis of banana palms, mango, avocado and orange trees.
Down this particular valley on the beach is the ruin of the old banana factory and the concrete base of a vast crane that would load ships with the delicate fruit that we used to eat as children. A co-operative now exports a reduced crop with Tenerife being today’s main producers.
Another factory, where the small hands and nimble fingers of the ladies would wash and sort the bananas, was rebuilt a few years ago and called Castillo del Mar in Vallehermoso. It was a short-lived venture into the bar and restaurant business though. With Madrid refusing to re-issue a licence, the sea battering the roadway to smitherines and a major avalanche just behind threatening its very existence it remains stubbornly closed. Fabulous place to visit and photograph though. A few of us sat around on the beach and sea wall, mesmerized by the force and raw beauty of the waves, I for one just could not stop taking photos, lest we forget their splendour.
Two German hikers squeezed onto the back seat of the car grateful for a lift to a bus stop and just before they got out the fuel gauge went “ping” I’m nearly empty. In retrospect we thought perhaps we should have filled it up at the start.
Alajero, with its hospital and coach station, half way down the hill to the airport, seemed like a good bet for a petrol station. Nope. I visualised having to push little car back up the hill to the main road that would take us back to the marina.
Phew, we made it to the top. “Rob its downhill all the way now,” we coasted for over 20 kilometres, the most fun part of the day!
Sandra and Chris invited us around for a supper of Delia Smith veggy sausages and I took along some honey gofio sweets I had made in the morning. They were tasty, especially after I dipped them in melted Nutella!
Not all my culinary exploits were so successful. We were chatting about our shared departure plans with Sandra and Chris when there was a loud bang from the galley below. Strangely the smell of roasting chicken reached my nostrils and my heart sank.
The microwave does not like to eat eggs, in fact it had vomited with gusto all over the galley, cooker, panels and floor the 4 eggs I had been hard boiling for our trip. I didn’t take a photo for fear of turning your stomachs. I have hard boiled pricked eggs in the microwave like this before but I guess they just got a little too heated!
Mary at Llama Travel back in the home country, is organising our Ecuador and Peru trips as I type, but we have to organise our own flights as their contract with the airline is for return flights from the UK.
Remember the Norwegian couple and their baby daughter in La Gomera? Well the little girl has apparently developed a strong aversion to being on the boat and her distress has resulted in the family going home early to assuage her fears and hopefully will return when she is a little older to pursue their dream to sail to the Caribbean. A life at sea is a fine place to raise children.
La Gomera to Cape Verdes Day 1.
Slipped our lines at 10.14 having said goodbye to Ian, who lives on Springhill Lady in La Gomera and Sandra and Chris who we hopefully will see again in Mindelo, Cape Verdes. We knew there would be plenty of wind, up to 20 knots and Zoonie broad reached with the wind coming from a wide angle to her stern. We were astonished at her speed after Rob has cleaned her hull, 135 miles in the first 24 hours.
Day 2 We were on a dead run with the wind directly behind us at 12 to 14 knots. Our first 24 hour plot on the paper chart I used in 2004 put us a few miles east of the track of the Stavvy on which I was a watch leader for the Atlantic crossing in January 2004 along with Kirsty who was a deckhand and now works at Poole Quay Boat Marina.
Both sails were poled out on opposite sides (Goose-winged) and Zoonie rolled gently from one side to the other in the sunshine, with little white puffy clouds above. Deliciously warm and not another vessel in sight. That night it was noticeably warmer, on the midnight to three am watch I listened to Vittorio Grigolo sing his album In the Hands of Love, while I watched shooting stars and wondered at the brightness of the space station. Zoonie’s motion is soporific so sleep comes easy when we’re off watch and we are well rested.
Day 3 Yesterday’s run was 118 miles of well won distance. We have taken off the bimini mid-section so we can see the stars at night. We reasoned that as we are heading south the sun would pass across the sprayhood and we would still have some shade in the cockpit.
In just over 100 miles we will be in ‘the Tropics’ from 23’ north of the Equator to 23’ south of it. It feels like we are literally going downhill. I can tell you from my astro tables that for you all, on the 22nd December at around midday the earth’s orbit will start to dip south wards making it appear that the sun is moving north to lengthen your days and warm you up. You certainly deserve it. I’ve always thought it’s one of the best Christmas presents.
This morning we played with the red, white and blue spinnaker (like a half balloon flying infront of Zoonie) Sadly in order to keep it flying we had to go well off course. So now the pretty blue cruising chute is flying in front of the mainsail and giving us 4 knots of speed using 7 – 9 knots of wind.
