La Gomera - 24th Oct to 1st November

San Sebastian – La Gomera

 

We spent 8 nights in La Gomera. The marina was conveniently located close to the town and next to the black sand beach. After the full on car hiring adventures of La Palma we decided to take things much easier and reverted to mornings of school and afternoons at the beach. This means that there are few photos or new adventures to share with you.

The sun shone for the first few days and we enjoyed the beach. The waves were not crashing up the beach so we had fun on the canoe and the kids especially enjoyed trying to fit all 4 of us on, which resulted in falling in quite a lot. The rock breakwater was home to a number of scurrying crabs which made a hasty retreat as you approached. The marina itself was home to many fish which we found were very much like pets that liked being fed. It then became a game seeing what food we could get the fish to eat, like goats they ate everything – even cucumber! The picture below was taken sat on the back of the boat the camera is not below the water. Russell said he saw a massive ray, which marina staff say lived there but we never saw it again.

 

 

Intrepid bear arrived on Monday (I think!) , much to the boys delight. We invited them for a drink and just as the evening was packing up Rafiki arrived. Another ARC boat with 2 kids on board. They had sailed directly from Porto Santo (3 to 4 days away). Other islands were closer but the newly created ARC kids email group had told them we were here and they were keen to find children. Emily (age 9) was invited aboard and introduced to the 5 below. This left Rob (her Dad) very relieved as she had said “if we get to La Gomera and there are no kids I am going to kill you!” Having got to know Emily quite well now, he had every right to be scared. The 11pm bedtime turned into 2am as we exchanged stories and experiences over a few too many beers and glasses of wine.

The weather stayed fine for the next day, but we knew strong winds were coming and we would be staying put. We planned to weather the storm in the nearby yachtclub playing games in the afternoon. The wind did what windfinder said it would and just as we were leaving a 45 knot gust ripped through the marina causing a flurry of activity as everyone adjusted and added more ropes and fenders. The pontoons resembled a wiggly snake and swung quite violently. The marina was not piled but held on anchors. The wind was still unseasonably blowing from the South so it felt like you were being blasted with a hair dryer.

With Halloween a day away it was decided that the kids should have a party. The weather had cancelled the event in the town.

Russell bravely took the 7 kids to the beach whilst the remaining adults decorated boats and made food for a Halloween party. The kids enjoyed playing football in the rain with their old friends from Intrepid Bear (Milly, Thea and Harry) and new friends from Rafiki (Emily and James). Sara (Intrepid Bear) and I braved the torrential rain which flooded the streets to buy costumes, games, food drink and prizes. Sara did a brilliant job decorating the Bear.

We found a Chinese takeaway which delivered some lovely food and saved a lot of work in the galley. It obviously took the men a long time to order the said food and we were a little surprised when an hour later they returned without the food and asked if it had been delivered yet. They had had one drink (apparently!) but James (Sara’s husband) looked a bit wobbly and I suspect got a few strange looks as he had gone out complete with a painted face. Us girls had spent not quite such a pleasant hour trying to keep 7 children happy playing games. I think the kids were relieved when we finally gave in and relented to them watching The Witches on DVD. I think they all enjoyed it but Sara and I feel the effort we put in was far greater than the thanks we got.

In an effort to deplete Mad Fish rum stocks, and to satisfy James’ love of making cocktails we started with Rum punch. James then decided that we should have a more Halloween themed cocktail called a Zombie. This still contained rum and I think some Cointreau and other things…. James’ favourite saying is fast becoming “what that needs is some vodka!” The large quantities of fruit juice that accompanied the rum seemed to hydrate us sufficiently that we seemed to awake the next day hangover free.

 

We said goodbye the next day as we wanted to meet up with our next door neighbour (Tamla) who was holidaying in Los Christianos Tenerife with her Mum and Daughter. We were unable to secure a berth there and had to stay at Marina San Miguel on the South East coast. We enjoyed a pleasant motor (we had a brief sail as we were fooled by the wind into hoisting sails only for it to die again) the 25 miles. It was pretty uneventful and we tried out fishing using our new lure which is a sparkly pink squid. It was going to drive the fish wild and catch us some tea. The only thing we caught was a seagull that flew into the line. Luckily it had not eaten the €12 lure on its first outing, but we were equally not going to cut the line, so we hauled it in and managed to untangle its wing. It flew off seemingly unhurt but missing a few feathers. We have since wondered if we catch one in the Atlantic whether we would try eating it, especially if we had been away several days and failed to have fresh meat for a while. Would it taste of chicken? I have since been told that another boat has caught many seagulls and filleted them and frozen them for the atlantic trip, so if we catch a seagull we will try eating it.