Leaving Tenerife

Tuesday was the last day that we had a car. Of course we had to drive somewhere. Since there was no clouds on the hills in the NE, we drove there. And it was really almost cloudless, from the top of the hills we could see the North coast.

We drove through Taganana...

... to Roque de Bodegas. Last time we were here, the swell wasn't so big...

...and the waves weren't breaking on the beach.

We drove to village of Benijo and left the car there, the road further to the East is only open for local traffic. So we walked along the road, by on some very crumbly and unstable rocks and hills...

...to the end of the world. These two houses belong to the...

...village of El Draguillo. It really feels like the end of the world, we wondered why anybody would want to build the house here, so far from everything. And there isn't even any good access to the sea.

But the view along the North coast towards West is beautiful.

What surprised me was how crumbly and unstable the rocks and ground were - even this white and brown "rock" would just crumble under our touch.

The road doesn't really end here, it goes on for another 2 km to the even smaller village of Las Palmas, I just don't think it is suitable for cars. But we decided to turn back here - we still had to walk another 2 km back to our car in burning sun.

A big dragon tree.

I was watching these houses and thinking how long will the unstable ground support them.

On our way back we saw this little dragon on the flower, he was hunting for insects.

Nice red rocks...

...and some black ones.

On this beach there were dozens of people, I don't know how they got down there.

Back in Benijo we went to this restaurant. The restaurant is in the house to the right and we ate on a small terrace on the left. The grandma that was serving, was quite happy that we ourselves brought our drinks and cutlery to our table. But the food was very good, we had the best wrinkly potatoes in whole Canaries here.

This was the view from the terrace.

On our way back we made a stop near a very pretty black beach.

It was another nice day trip. I have to admit that Tenerife really made a great impression, it might be the prettiest of the Canary islands so far.

On Wednesday we did a walk through the town of Santa Cruz and bought some things along the way. In the evening we had a great get together with the crew of Stabo again, this time we had a BBQ on our boat. Food and drinks were great, but the company even much more so. This was the last evening for us both in Santa Cruz, next day we were both leaving the marina. We were going to sail to the SW of the island and Stabo was starting a longer passage to Gambia. We became such good friends in last months, we are really going to miss them. Fair winds, Stabo!

On Thursday morning, after breakfast we sailed off towards SW. The plan was to get to Montana Roja by evening and anchor for the night. The sailing was rather slow, there was just light wind from behind. Since the sea was not too choppy we managed to sail wing on wing (metuljčka), with only 3 to 4 knots of speed, but is was working. Wind picked up near Montana Roja, and it was blowing 20 knots when we turned around Cabo Roja into anchorage.

So this is why Montana Roja (red mountain) is named so. As you can see, the sea is not very calm, but we hoped we would be able to sleep well.

In the evening we saw on AIS Stabo passing a few miles away, and I even thought to have seen their navigation lights.

In the night it got a bit more rolly than in the evening, I don't know why it is always like this. But we did get some sleep. We woke to a grey day with the grey yellowish haze hanging over the sea and land and very bad visibility. We could only see the hills that were right on the coast, but no hills further in the island. We sailed on towards W and rounded the SW point of the island...

...and sailed North to the town of Los Cristianos. The bay in front of the town looked quite calm, so we anchored and a bit later decided to stay for the night.

Captain rowed the dinghy to the town beach to check out the town, and I stayed on boat and had a couple of quiet hours reading a book (I'm reading Godforsaken sea again, first time I read it on our first Atlantic crossing and after all these years I'm reading it with new eyes). Captain reported that there's not much to the town, it's all just tourist development and I was quite happy I didn't go with him.

The night was not very calm, partly due to the waves, that although small, managed to roll the boat, partly due to a very loud music from the beach that lasted into the early hours of the morning.

Next day we sailed to La Gomera, two nights on anchor was enough. Wind was again very light, but it was from the side, so we were sailing nicely, although not very fast. After two hours wind died. I was again scanning the sea for dolphins, turtles, whales, anything, but we saw nothing. The visibility was again so bad, that in the middle between the Tenerife and La Gomera we couldn't see either of the island, although it was just 10 miles to each one. Nearer to Gomera wind picked up again, this time from NW, and we were sailing again. Wind got stronger and stronger, to over 20 knots, but also changed direction - it was blowing exactly from where we wanted to sail to. We struggled to beat against the wind, but sea got quite choppy as well and after a while we rolled in the genoa and motored in the right direction.

We got to La Gomera marina at around 4 in the afternoon. Marineros helped to tie us to the pontoon and luckily there was almost no wind when we were mooring the boat. The marina is small and space tight and it would be a challenge to manoeuvre here in strong wind. Both marina and the town are quite pretty and laid back and we are looking forward to do some exploring of the island.