25 – Diving in Tenerife and a torn sail

How we experienced the wonderful underwater world by diving in Tenerife and how ready you can be and anyway tear a sail!

Family visiting and life in the marina

Neil, my nephew, arrived in Tenerife bags loaded with goodies from Switzerland (real Gruyère, Vacherin Fribourgeois and Tilsiter, Maggi, Ovomaltine and Crunchy Ovo spread and of course swiss easter chocolates. Thank you, my lovely Angelica 😉.

The marina of Amarilla, just a hop away from the airport in the south of Teneriffe, is really not the best place to be stuck, as there is not much to do once you’ve explored the closer surroundings of the harbour. Unless you like playing golf or collecting golf balls. On top of that, there is always wind, sometimes nearly blowing you off the peer! The sanitary installations are questionable, and the pontoons are neither secured nor maintained. Grocery shopping is far away and the surroundings of the harbour are under construction (no doubt it will be a nice seafront promenade once…).

Diving in Tenerife together

But I think we made the best of it: the day after Neil arrived the boys started the SSI Open Water Dive Course at the local diving centre GooDiving and I refreshed my diving skills. And so did Jean-Luc when he arrived back from Switzerland. All the boys past the theory exam and practical test for their Dive certificate – we are very proud of our divers!

The diving spots around there are great and when lucky, as we were, you can see green turtles, rays and angel sharks as well as many other wonderful fishes. This was obviously the main motivation for the children to squeeze into the tight wetsuits over and over again, struggle up and down steps with heavy equipment and then, completely overheated, finally entering the welcoming cool water. Furthermore, the theoretical part should not be underestimated, especially for a 10 year old! So quite a few hours were spent learning, in French for Alexander and English for the others in (easier for Neil than Oliver – well done Oliver!).

Sightseeing and a bad night

Obviously, we wanted to show Neil part of the island, hence rented a car again. Calima (the hot wind loaded with sand) was back again so the view wasn’t favourable and it was very hot. A dip in the fresh sea was welcome and so was snack lunch in the shade and later the artisanal ice cream. Unfortunately, that evening and night all the boys spent expelling something eaten during that first day of excursion and I was busy handing glasses of water, rinsing buckets and calming the situation. I was fine, just a little tired the next day! So were the men. So the 2^nd day of car rental was spent on the boat.

The second attempt of sightseeing was a success though, with the Teide in its best setting, walking through the laurel forest with the clouds drawing in, a quiet picknick in the pine forest and a stunning view from the Anaga Nature reserve on the north coast.

Worn sail or too much wind?

The time past so quickly and we needed to get over to Gran Canaria for Neil’s flight, so we took the weather window (it was calmer than all previous days) to sail the 55 miles. We knew the conditions were anyway going to be sporty so prepared the boat and ourselves accordingly: life jackets, shoes and pullovers, 2 reefs on the main sail, genoa half rolled, everything stored and tucked away in the boat, food nearly ready to eat.

We were going up to 8,5 knots, which is a good speed for our boat. But the genoa didn’t take it for long and through the uneven tension linked to being half rolled, it ripped and we had an enormous hole… quite stressy! Of course we rolled it in immediately. This is the reason we had the small storm sail prepared by our swiss sail maker on La Gomera, and we regretted not having it yet for this crossing (see article 24 – La Gomera…). The rest of the trip with only the main sail was anyway quite fast (still 5-6 knots) and we arrived in Puerto Mogan early evening. In fact just in time to enjoy the lively atmosphere of this attractive and sheltered harbour. We’ll tell you all about what happened to our torn sail in our next post.

Saying goodbye to Neil in Gran Canaria

A last snorkelling excursion by dinghy and a nice evening out in one of the many marina restaurants and then it was time to lug Neil’s bag up the ladder onto the peer (at low tide Illika was in fact 3 m below the level of the peer!) and take the bus bringing us along the arid south of Gran Canaria to the airport.

Bye for now, see you later alligator, with a smile crocodile… It was great having you and show you a little bit of our “normal, everyday” boat life!