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Benedictine
Abbey 2007

Canaries 2007

TRAVEL

Canaries 2007

Our second O!bora cruise (after Croatia) - this time on the Canary Islands.

Well, I have mixed feelings about this trip. Unfortunately we wasted much of our vacation time when one of the boats broke down (the propeller fell off!). Before everything was finished, several days went by (sitting on our asses in one city instead of sailing and/or sightseeing).

On the other hand, the islands are splendid and beautiful. I thought they will be dry, sterile, and not very hospitable. Maybe some places are like that, but there great mountains and rocks, forests, and volcanoes, obviously. I snorkeled once, but that single time I forgot to take the underwater camera (of course)... Not much of underwater plants or corals and stuff like that, but lots of nice fish.

Food is quite ok, although I expected something better. All in all, the best food was prepared by people from our boat - shrimp in butter, garlic, and lemon. Here, in a restaurant, you have to pay a small fortune for just six; there, we could eat our fill for much less...

Apart from that: biiig waves (after all, it's an ocean) and very long trips between islands. Our cabin was on the bow. And that was pretty tough, especially when the boat, time after time, hit the water with a noise so loud that we were afraid everything will fall apart. And it's pretty interesting what people can tolerate when they need to sleep... But I had to figure out a special way of lying so that I wouldn't be tossed at the walls of the cabin...

And worst of all, on the last day, when going below deck, I sprained my ankle. On the bright side - this saved me a night watch!

But we had some nice summer (about 27 degrees), when in Poland winter decided to finally come...

So, our voyage looked as follows:

Plane from Cracow to London (Stansted)
Bus and train to Gatwick (I guess this wasn't the best choice of getting there)
Plane to Las Palmas (Gran Canaria)
Taxi to the marina (f*cking assholes, they drive there for some 20 years and don't know where the port is!)
Tried to get to Tenerife, but sailed back to Gran Canaria (our girls got sick - a very unfortunate wave)
Martha and Aneta took the ferry to Santa Cruz and a bus to the south side of Tenerife; the rest sailed to Los Cristianos
Los Cristianos; the second boat was being fixed
Los Cristianos
Los Cristianos
Sailing to Gomera; the second boat was still being fixed
We rented a car and had a trip on Gomera; the second boat made a short stop on Gomera but went right away to La Palma
We sailed to La Palma; the second group took a car around the island (apparently it's quite nice)
Together (that is, several hours apart) we sailed to Santa Cruz (about 120 miles, 28 hours of sailing); our girls - half an hour by plane...
Trip to the volcano Teide
Trip to Cueva de Punto Blanco
Sailed to Las Palmas
Taxi to the airport (this time the driver didn't try to rip us off)
Plane to London; this time to the same airport that we had...
Plane to Cracow - into the freezing winter! :)

Right, during the voyage we visited our first lave cave - Cueva de Punto Blanco.

[MJT] Acquaintance party

[MJT]

[MJT] Bird tracks on the beach

[MJT] Interesting trees; and look at the fruit!

[MJT] We stopped at the nearest bar (some 20 meters from the dock)

[MJT] Our marine

[MJT] After all, this was right after Christmas

[MJT] The prettier half of the crew

[MJT] They rigged some modern sails on the other boat

[MJT] Err... I don't understand a thing

[MJT] The second boat

[MJT] Our first time on the sea - no waves yet

[MJT] We're passing the port in Las Palmas

[MJT] Our captain - The Witcher

[MJT] Such small blocks on that ship (and each the size of a truck)

[MJT] Another smallish boat that we passed

[MJT] Coming back - Martha and Aneta had a very hard time

[MJT] In Las Palmas, again

[MJT]

[MUT] Another try; our girls were left on the beach

[MUT]

[MJT] We got the second boat to Los Cristianos after they lost the propeller

[MJT] Salt

[MJT] We wanted to get back to the boat with some groceries

[MJT] And this was not that easy (the bread got totally soaked)

[MJT] Fred is passing our boat

[MJT] And a ferry from the competition right after that

[MJT] One of the parties in the nearby bars (the waiter knew more about our football than we did!)

[MJT] The girls drank a bit too much

[MJT] And started dancing with the boom (although they would've preferred something vertical)

[MJT]

[MJT] Time to get the second boat fixed

[MJT]

[MJT] Our girls really liked these plants...

[MJT] On the summit of one of the surrounding volcanoes

[MJT] Los Cristianos (the nicer half)

[MJT] Some lichen on the volcano top

[MJT] And some nice plants

[MJT] Down there is our boat (the second or the third from the left)

[MJT]

[MJT] Some succulents for Aro

[MJT] Finally we left Los Cristianos

[MJT] And sailed to Gomera

[MJT]

[MJT] At the start of our trip around the island (28 euro per day for a car)

[MJT]

[MJT] That's our marina on Gomera

[MJT]

[MJT] Banana plantations (notice that bananas actually grow up)

[MJT]

[MJT] The Moon (and its dark side illuminated by sunlight reflected from Earth) and Venus

[MJT] We stayed the night in a camping place some 1100 meters above sea level

[MJT] Where the stars shone really nicely (here - the fantastic Orion)

[MJT] Sunrise over Tenerife

[MJT] Sunrise and Teide

[MJT] The wind was much stronger that day (and the waves much higher)

[MJT] In the way to the Organs we lost one of the fenders; we spent half an hour trying to get it back

[MJT] We were here the day before (in a car)

[MUT] Sometimes I could look after the boat (still, the autopilot was usually turned on)

[MJT]

[MUT] The waves were rocking the boat a bit

[MJT]

[MJT] The Organs

[MJT] Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture here - the boat was rocking really hard

[MJT]

[MJT] A great place nevertheless

[MJT]

[MUT] Santa Cruz de La Palma - the girls went sightseeing when we were fighting for our lives (on the way back to Tenerife)

[MUT]

[MUT] Right, I wonder how they will be able to get out

[AW]

[MUT]

[AW]

[MJT] On the way to the top of Teide

[MJT]

[MUT] The volcano can be seen in the background

[MJT] On the top; the clouds blocked the view of the beaches below

[MJT]

[MJT] We couldn't get to the summit - you have to have a permit (that can be obtained in Santa Cruz, but not here obviously)

[MJT] A view at the caldera (some 16 clicks across)

[MJT]

[MJT] Pumice stone

[MJT]

[MJT] Very nice rocks at the foot of the volcano

[MJT]

[MJT] Martha found a cave

[MJT]

[MJT] I guess that's how the surface of Mars looks like

[MJT]

[MJT] Some nice forest on the way down

[MJT]

[MJT] A ficus tree (you know, the kind we keep in pots and grows to be several feet tall...)

[MJT] A fountain...

[MJT] ...with fish

[MJT] A botanical garden - really fantastic! :)

[MJT]

[MJT] That's a bit better...

[MJT] The biggest dragon tree (a thousand to 2 thousand years old)

[MJT]

[MJT] What a haircut!

[MJT] A "natural" cave in the park

[MJT] A spider web bridge

[MJT] The younger brother (only some 500 years old)

[MJT]

[MJT] This palm tree got a bit mixed up...

[MJT] That's not a pot!

[MJT]

[MJT] Some more succulents for Aro

[MJT] Searching for a cave - massively crumpled rock

[MJT] The whole wall was like that

[MJT]

[MJT] The beautiful, black-gray, Play de San Marcos

[MJT] A bunch of bananas we "found" on the way (there were some 300 bananas there)

[MUT] Shrimp in butter and garlic (very tasty!)

[MJT] Our last day on the boats

[MJT] It's not that easy to get to the bar with a sprained ankle

[MJT] A storm hit the islands on our last day - we were really lucky

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