Santa Cruz, capital of Tenerife, two day stopover

Or maybe 3, we’ve arrived to the marina in Santa Cruz and plan to spend a day looking around, maybe going inland to look at a village with cobbled streets and much to see called La Orotava We had then thought about going to Gran Canaria on Wednesday, but the weather has other ideas, looking at the GRIB info below.

Beginning to wonder if our plans to see Gran Canaria are thwarted, however all looks good from Thursday onwards.

So the journey up to Santa Cruz was pretty uneventful, to begin with then no wind, then unforecast wind from the other direction. Anyhow we managed to test the boat, down wind sailing, up wind sailing, reefs, no reefs, motor sailing, did the lot. Today was also a special day for Ellison, today was a new Ocean, the first time sailing in the Atlantic. Also the first time experiencing Ocean swell which can be disconcerting. After yesterday’s storm I was expecting a residual large swell but actually it was OK. Nonetheless when you look back it does look a bit like a wall of water that will break over the boat and swallow you up as you can see from the piccies below. But not at all, no breaking waves just swell that you rise and fall on. No drama at all.

Thankfully Ellison rather enjoyed it, or at least she looks like she did.

Not too much to see on the way but here’s a piccie on the way and one of skipper doing sailory stuff.

On arrival at Santa Cruz the Marina is the other end of a big commercial harbour, so you need to get permission from the port authority on VHF to enter the harbour then call the marina to get instructions. No problems in the Marina, we parked it like a boss (watch the video on Youtube, it’s funny). Really interesting in the commercial harbour there were two oil rigs, presumably being repaired or moved. Never been that close to one before, they’re huge!

Now to the highlight of the day, we were just talking about on all of our trips Ellison has never seen a dolphin, then this happened, about 15 of them!!!

For sailing chums, no need to book Santa Cruz, big Marina, loads of spaces, mostly finger pontoons, easy parking. A nice young man from the Marina even came out to take our lines.