26 – Getting our sails back and Gran Canaria’s past

Back to normal

After Neil had left from Gran Canaria, life went back to normal, meaning boys back to school and (a little) earlier to bed ! Financially more interesting, we do normally try to anchor as much as possible, but on the Canary Island, due to ever present swell turning around the islands, it’s not easy to find a good spot. However, we anyway moved the boat out of the harbour to the anchorage outside Mogán, which was not extremely pleasant, mainly because of jetskis and party boats. What we needed to do next is find someone to repair our genoa that got torn crossing from Tenerife. As quickly as possible, if possible at all as we’re not sure how old the sail actually is…

A boat takes work

Not only did Jean-Luc want to deal with the port winch like the one on starboard (take it apart, clean the parts, assemble it correctly), but also some school work needed to be done (tests!). Furthermore we wanted to get our jerry cans filled, and finally finish and post the next articles on our website. In terms of “household” we really needed to clean the boat in- and outside (while Neil was here we didn’t want to lose time for THAT), but the piles of laundry would have to wait: Puerto Mogán doesn’t allow hanging your laundry on the boat – they don’t want the marina to look like a camping site – and as we can only wash with 220V, it’s not possible when we’re anchored. Moreover, some serious shopping needed to be done: this is a half day activity for the whole family, and obviously more convenient with a car! I also wanted to reorganize some cupboards to gain space. So, does anyone still have questions about what we do with our time on the boat? 😉

Genoa repared!

We were so lucky to find the charming Bulgarian sailmaker and his wife in Las Palmas, Sunny Yachts Services, who we can really recommend. Flexible, efficient, professional advice. He found that our sail could still last 1-2 years and repaired it in 2 days. We had some nice exchanges while bringing and picking up the sail. In fact, they had left Bulgaria with their boat 15 years ago and stranded in Las Palmas, where they built up their company.

Through Gran Canaria’s past

During those days we had rented a car, not only out of necessity to transport the sail but of course we wanted to see more of Gran Canaria that none of us knew. We can say we followed the tracks of the former inhabitants of the Canaries, the Guanche, which started to fascinate us quite quickly. Unfortunately, little is known about this population, but it seems confirmed that their roots were berber, but no traces exist of how they got to the Canaries. Different sites can be visited, like graveyards, caves and hide-outs for food storage. The whole Guanche population was converted, integrated or wiped out in less than a century when the Spanish arrived on the islands in the 15^th century. In Las Palmas, a lovely town, there is a very interesting museum concerning Culumbus’ different voyages that all were prepared and started off from the Canaries.

Hiking and leeches

Yet we found the south quite uninteresting in terms of scenery there is an exception: the dunes and lagoon of Maspalomas. The north and centre is quite different, relatively green and very very curvy. Especially the small part of the round island where there’s no motorway and through the centre, if you see what I mean (see photo). Some valleys have a microclimate, so other than bananas (omnipresent on Gran Canaria, Tenerife and La Gomera) papayas, mangos and avocados can grow.

On one of the days, we had a beautiful hike to some natural pools up a rather dry riverbed which, further up the valley, meant to be perfect for a refreshing dip. We finally didn’t have a dip because the water was stagnant, and the boys think they saw (and showed us) leeches… I preferred just looking for the frogs 😉 Since being in Malaysia I don’t want any leeches near me, thank you! All in all, the hike was great anyway and so was the picknick. We stopped in some pretty villages, too, full of art and handmade souvenirs.

Heading west again

We left from our anchorage outside Puerto Mogán early, before the boys were awake, to go back to La Gomera with stopping for 2 nights in the south of Tenerife – without even going on land. The anchorage was perfect: the rolling swell past beside our sheltered corner of the bay, crashing against the rocks on shore 100 m away from us. We were clearly more comfortable than it had been the last 4 nights next to Puerto Mogán!

And further west

As well as all of our Island skips, our sail from Tenerife to La Gomera was sporty: the known acceleration zone between the islands was clearly present! And, we knew then already that we had a problem apon arriving in the next harbour… the bow thruster wasn’t reacting anymore (the little front propellor that makes the front of the boat turn more easily). A big problem if you arrive in a tight harbour and have to aim your boat into the place with lots of wind. That’s exactly what happened. In La Gomera, the marineros had been informed to give us an easily accessible place as our bow thruster wasn’t working… we had to re-negotiate over the VHF radio and then were allowed to put ourselves alongside on the end of a peer.  But the wind was strong and we didn’t land very softly… We deserved our dinner out!

More technical issues?

Our Swiss sailmaker had finished our storm sail and our parcel with parts we had ordered in Germany 4 weeks ago was waiting for us. In our next post, read all about being back in San Sebastian and taking Illika out of the water again – no worry, nothing serious! But we might have to wait for parts again… for the bow thruster. And do we have a next technical problem to deal with? (last picture)

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