Spring is a busy time, and this year is especially packed full of activity. There are the usual things like spring cleaning, opening the sailing club, getting the boat ready, the return of better flying weather, and so on, but the big contributors to the craziness this year are the NEW BOOK, a new roof on the house and the recently completed trip across the pond. I’m excited about the book, and the trip was great. The new roof on the house…not so much. If you would be so kind, please pre-order a copy of the book. It will help make up for the construction project. You can find it at these links- B&N, Amazon, Thirftbooks.

Now, on to the big trip across the pond…

A lot of junk clutters the home mailbox. Most of it makes a direct deposit in the recycling bin, but occasionally the travel brochures from Willa, our neighborhood travel agent, get a casual “look-see.” Several months back, Willa’s offering was a cruise (on the same ship that carried us around Greece and Turkey) to a part of the world most folks don’t consider- Macaronesia. What? Where’s that? It is four archepeligos off the Atlantic coast of Africa and Europe. The proposed trip went into the heart of the group known as the Canary Islands. It also made stops in Morocco, Gibraltar, Cadiz and Lisbon. When The Captain opened the booklet to the description page, I said “I’ve always wanted to see that part of the world!” She agreed, and off we went.

The start of the journey was a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to the island of Gran Canaria via Tenerife. We rode a 2/3rds full Boeing 757 (my favorite airliner) on the once a week United Airlines red-eye to the Islands. We arrived at Tenerife just before dawn, and after a too long layover, boarded a Binter Canarias Airlines ATR-72 turboprop (also a fun ride). Most of the seats were occupied with pre-teen kids and a handful of teachers on a school trip. The chitter-chatter was all in Spanish but it sounded just the same as a bus load of kids anywhere. We switched seats around to get the right chaperone to student situation and finally took off, arriving at Gran Canaria around lunch time. If you are interested in these things, LPA, or GCLP, depending on the code you use, is home to Binter and host to a wing of the Spanish Air Force. We saw a Fokker F27 patrol aircraft and several A model MD-Boeing F/A-18s in hardened shelters on the south side of the runway complex.

Unloading via air-stairs makes it feel like you’ve really arrived, not just walked into another airport terminal.

The rising sun revealed the partly cloudy skies, ocean and volcanic rocks. Pretty much the background theme of the trip. (I thought this was the infamous Tenerife airport, but it wasn’t. That field is up on the north ridge. We saw it a couple days later.)

The ATR-72 is a workhorse of the tropics. Maybe because of this incident.

After extricating ourselves from the airport hoopla, we snagged a taxi into the city of Las Palmas for the over-night stay before joining the ship. Willa booked us into the HG Hotel right on the beach, and we did our best to settle in for the day. As with all things Euro, there is usually an adjustment period for Americans, or in this case, it was more like an adjustment point. Yep. The shower. If you’ve never been, you’ll find out quickly. A half booth with no enclosure or curtain and a hand spray wand drizzling maybe 1.5 liters of water per hour? Or is that a day? A typical drinking fountain delivers as much flow. Anyway, we washed off the airport funkiness, found a local version of pizza, and made a jet-lagged stroll along the beach. The air was twenty degrees (F) warmer than home and there were waves crashing on the sand. It was all good.

For the edification of all our friends and a potential bar trivia answer…Gran Canaria is a volcanic island about 90 miles west of Saharan Africa. It’s shaped like a big cone, reaching a height of 6400 feet and a rough diameter of 30 miles. There are a lot of people. Over 800,000 of them. It is thought to have been settled by North Africans about 500 BC. Europeans showed up around AD 1200-1300, and the Spanish managed to conquer the island in 1483. It’s pretty much been Spanish ever since. Incidentally, Christopher Columbus stopped here for his last R&R/sanity check before heading west on the first Voyage of Discover.

Las Palmas is a mostly a mid-price European beach destination. Expect euro-beach behaviors, like granny out for an early morning naked swim or relentless sunbathing by puffy pear-shaped men in speedos.

After an early bedtime we forced ourselves to get up for the hotel’s continental style breakfast buffet. (Jet-lag be gone!) We had most of the day to wander around before jumping over to the harbor for boarding. We walked from our hotel on the west end of the boardwalk several miles to the east end, checking out the jazz concert hall, the really nice El Mirador shopping mall, and maybe the largest grocery store we’ve seen outside of the U.S. of A. For comparison, it was about the same as the larger Kroger, Publix, or Albertsons you’d find in the states. To the Captain’s disappointment, Coke Light is fading from European store shelves. It’s all Coke Zero Sugar, even at McD’s. She wasn’t happy about that (or was it lingering jet-lag?), so when we finally found some Lights, she bought as many as we could carry.

We rounded out or leisurely exploration of Las Palmas with lunch at a local cafe. The proprietor didn’t speak our language, and we didn’t speak his, but picture menus and a sense of humor got a variety of dishes on the table, and all of them were edible. (No TP in the banyo was the only catch. Remember, be prepared and have a few squares to spare…) After collecting our bags from the hotel clerk, we taxied over to the harbor and checked in with the ship. The itinerary took us back to Tenerife the next morning.

Wind, Waves, and New Pages- Part 1

Wind, Waves, and New Pages- Part 2

Help Me pick a Book Cover!