No room at the Inn... (Las Palmas, Gran Canaria)

 

We once again found ourselves in the safe, but smelly confines of the sheltered cove that I’m calling Poo and Onion bay - it’s real name is the somewhat less descriptive ‘Punta de la Salinas’. We’re half way up the East coast of Gran Canaria on our way North to our check-out destination of Las Palmas. Having battled to Poo and Onion bay in unfavourable conditions, it’s the same as last time: too choppy and windy to get the tender over to the wind turbine lined shore. We remained stuck there, boat-bound for a joy sapping week. We roll around, listening to the anchor chain grinding across rock, and the bridle ropes squealing under the constant strain from the strong persistent wind.

Chez crocheted while I played online backgammon.

One minor highlight of the time spent there was catching a decent sized ‘Diamond lizard fish’ (what I’d previously thought to be a hake.. ugly thing with lots of teeth) - I was a little bit pleased with myself as I managed to catch it using a spinning lure which I’d made from an old teaspoon bought from a charity shop in Crete.

Six long days and nights later when the wind did eventually decide to die down, we were both extremely glad to up anchor and head away to cleaner smelling air and a change of scenery.

As we neared to the large sprawling town (city?) of Las Palmas we had to weave our way through an interesting mix of container ships and tankers all waiting around at the outer entrance of the busy port.

Our anchorage, just outside the marina in which we’re planning to stay, is quite busy, but not so much that we couldn’t find a space. After an initial anchor drop that neither of us were happy with, we upped again and found a home next to a boat that, although we’ve never met, is very familiar to us.

The boat is ‘Sunday’, it’s occupants; Ryan, an Aussie, Brittany, a Canadian and Jackson, their German Shepard are from the YouTube channel ‘Sailing Sunday’ which we’ve enjoyed and watched for some time.

The marina we’re parked outside is fairly large: a sea of masts, we took the tender in and dropped in to say ‘Hi’ to ex-AgNikians Rene and Babs who are here for a few days before they head to Tenerife and beyond for Christmas.

The next morning we make an early start in pouring rain to secure a marina berth - After a short wait in the rain outside the marina office we’re beckoned in. All seems to go well, our documents are taken, and we go through all the usual motions, all seems well until right at the end when we’re told ‘There’s no room, so I put you on the waiting list’.. this is frustrating as the evidence of there being ‘no room’ is not backed up by the large number of empty berths we’d passed in the tender on the way in - Oh well.

The ‘Sundays’ - Ryan and Brittany pop over later and we spend a sunny afternoon getting to know them a little better. They seem like a genuinely lovely young couple, who you’d hope will be able to make a go of the live aboard vlogger life. We’re also randomly joined by another Aussie; Scott, a rough around the edges pot bellied tall story teller who we’d all previously met in Gibraltar.

I check with the marina office again the next day - Still no room at the inn... and the estimate has gone from ‘2 or 3 days’ to ‘maybe a week’ before we can get in. This being the case, we decide that we should probably start the provisioning for the Atlantic crossing by doing tender runs to the beach and loading up from the supermarket (SuperDino) which is only a few streets back. On our first trip we over-estimate just how much we can carry and end up having to borrow a trolley - leaving my driving licence as surety - to get the shopping as far as the beach. Finally making it back to the boat both absolutely knackered.

The Sundays - also on the waiting list - have now made it into the marina. Chez half joked that having a YouTube sticker on your boom and having nearly 20,000 followers probably helped.

In other news, my skin, which has been good for some months, has chosen now to ‘blossom’ - the dormant psoriasis has gone from nothing to red, sore and angry in the span of a few weeks - this pisses me off no end, but not really very much I can do about it at present.

On that unhappy and itchy note, I’ll call it a day.

Having read that all back to myself, I seem to have put a glass half empty slant on the current situation.. it’s really not at all bad: the sun shines most of the time, the temperature is still in the high twenties in mid December, we’re on the adventure of a lifetime and all being well, we’ll be crossing to the Caribbean in just over a weeks time!

So on that slightly more cheery note... I really will call it a day there!