Cruise Day 6--Tenerife, Canary Islands

 Being that it was Nov 1, the Day of the Dead, we worried that the town would be shut down as Google indicated this holiday is celebrated here. We wanted to do a sailing/snorkeling excursion at one of the two Canary Island stops and thought Tenerife would be good. On Viator, there wasn't much available, and most of them said it didn't include transportation from Tenerife, and was nearly an hour drive. 

You can see Tenerife in the skinny area near the top right. We followed the coast to where the red pin is.

So we went with a ship excursion for whale watching on a catamaran since we didn't want to deal with trying to source transportation for an hour drive on a holiday.  There weren't any snorkeling or just sailing excursions.

Waiting on deck 7 by the Chart Table/Roundabout. There are lots of places to sit on this ship, and I even watched a video about if the ship is fluffy-person friendly. It is, but what it is not, is short people seating friendly. So many seats, benches, loungers etc had really, really deep seats. While lounging is fine for a bit, I found most seat uncomfortable. Up by the pool, there's these cool triangular seats that looked great, each in it's own nook. But they were terrible! 

We were guided out to the bus, and the driver was a wonderful lady who had to see my Halloween nails LOL. I wasn't too sure what to think of this contraption on the seat backs. It seems everywhere we go that we get a bus ride, there's something strange. The hook is for your purse? The (narrow) handles are to hold on to? It was a hilly drive! 

It was very desert like, much more than Las Palmas even, though there we had been just in the city. The drive was smooth, on a freeway. It was interesting that there were (public?) bus stop pull offs though. How did the people get to the bus stops?

Most of the island has rocky cliffs, but this south-west end has the tourist beaches. Not huge beaches like Mexico.  The beaches are formed by building breakwalls. There's also natural pools that are carved out of the volcanic rock and fill up at high tide.  Most resorts are not on the beach. 

We were taken to a very, very busy habour area. The roads are curved to be scenic; they're curved because it's a steep hill. You sort of loop around to get to the harbour.  It was a tight squeeze to get into the parking lot but you could tell the driver was used to it. We were dropped off and lined up for the catamarans. Their dock was at the very end of the breakwall you see in the picture above. There was our group and other group that had young people in it. I think our group was split and half went on the other boat. There were no kids on ours.

I was impressed with our captain, the workers, and everything I read (and they said) about the company.  We'd never been on a catamaran with sunbeds before, and we got second row! I wish I had taken my wide brimmed hat though.

It was very busy on the road, on the beach, in the water. This was a Friday, so maybe that made it more busy? 

I had asked in the FB group if anyone had done this excursion because I needed to know if any food would be included or for sale. I was told you get a sandwich and some drinks (open bar?), and ice cream was for sale. This was the sandwich we got. Cheese and ham (I think there was another option too). It was not very substantial, especially for a guy like Rob. It was quite tasty though. Later in the day I bought an ice cream, it was like what we call Drumsticks here.

On the way out, the captain said there's a 99% chance of seeing the whales. He later said they live there all year round so yeah, chances are good LOL. I thought he called them shark finned pilot whales, but it seems they are actually called SHORT finned pilot whales! Ooops. There was also a story about the giant squid that was found (the whales feed on these), and it being something crazy like 60m. You bet I Googled that after! No such thing! I think 20ish feet was the biggest. But still!! I almost didn't want to go swimming!

It amazes me how many people still want to sun tan. I want the vitamin D but not the other effects LOL. And with so much to see, how can people just lay there?! 

We got to see quite a few, including babies.

It is quite difficult to photograph moving objects while on a moving object! I should have videoed them and taken stills from video.

This is Mount Teide, a volcano that is the highest point in Spain. It's 3718m, or 12, 198ft (didn't see that high LOL). There is often snow at the top. The temperature that day was around 22-24C.

Although most of the photos were of a group of three, there were actually quite a few whales!

This was about half of them probably. Just by the time you zoom out to get them all in frame, they're just dots. It was a nice sparkly day on the water!

Another view of the mountain. I think it was around now that Rob and I started to say we could retire here. Warm and dry, not humid. So lovely. Getting to Tenerife though is not so easy from Toronto, compared to from England or Spain.

A ship that was anchored in the area. Apparently it is a ferry line, between the islands and to Huelva and Cadiz. The reviews on Trip Advisor are very mixed. 

Rob kept asking me to take pictures of  'ribs', these boats with inflatable pontoons. He wants one. This picture might also have been to show the fish farming as you can see it below. 

You can see these circular fish pens on Google satellite. The captain explained the fish farming, but unfortunately, I forget. Luckily, Google is here to help me, and I actually found a short film  (under 7 min) on this very spot! You can even see the cave we went to behind the man speaking! 

This shows where we left from (the red pin), and the cave (the indent just above the bottom...not the very bottom small indent but the next one up).

We headed over to a cave area, The Love Cave, where two go in, but 3 come out LOL. 

There were a lot of kayakers around, and the other Freebird catamaran approached the cave. It went right up to it, almost to the mast touching the outside wall. Our captain was not happy to see that and commented on how he prefers safety.

There's that Fred Olsen ferry again!

This is apparently a cruise ship. Yup. It's had an interesting history! Check out the Wikipedia page too. 

Such a busy tourist area!

I couldn't find any info about why this ferry seemed to be moored here. 

If I remember correctly, this was a "Viking ship whale watching" excursion.

So hilly, but desert.

A lot of resorts in this area, but not much beachfront. However, it's not tropical hot here, so I don't think ocean swimming is really a big thing. 

Obligatory feet on the catamaran net picture

There was a story behind this place, someone famous, important or rich?

The area we went swimming was just outside the harbour, where all the sailboats and other boats were moored. Not really where I thought it'd be, but still. We were swimming in the Atlantic!

 It was a little chilly getting in, but "fine once you're used to it".  An informal poll revealed that most of the swimmers were from northern states or Canada or England LOL.

Far behind me is that Armas ferry.

One of the other boats enjoying the nice weather! LOL.

The small beach area is very busy, it's located in the harbour. 

A rare photo of me that isn't a selfie!

When we got back in, many of us needed the bathroom. There were signs that you weren't supposed to change in them.  They needed a Euro coin to open. A couple were open and were totally gross!! We used them anyway. There were heads on the catamaran but they were small and I was surprised at how they smelled (but they seemed clean). 

Driving back, I was on the ocean side of the bus.

This is a national park, with a volcano that's really young... only 10,000 years old.

It's that strange section in the bottom half. Looks like when a kid adds a piece of Play-Dough to the edge of another flat piece to make it bigger. 

It's so steep! Those are the roofs of buildings on the coast.

Big touristy places! This island has a lot for tourists to do.

We saw a lot of these platforms at various ports. We assumed oil.

There's Fred again (Fred Again...  is a British EDM composer I enjoy).

 A different P&O ship than the day before.

Along the right, is a wall and there are several stores that are IN the wall. Rob had gotten a cold when we got to Barcelona and I was having a bit of a sore throat, so we went in some of these to see if there were any cough syrups, cough drops, etc. We found "throat sweets" and they were even sugar free! I also bought a little clamshell wallet with Tenerife on it to replace my tiny one that held only 4 cards. However, I dropped it a few weeks after being home and it's slowly broken more and more.

There were these blue and green lines painted on the ground and apparently they lead you into town. One was 1600m. Which seems like a lot, but it it's only a mile.

What did seem forever was how long it takes to walk the length of the two ships! It was hot, we were thirsty and tired. But also, this was going to be the last land for 8 days!!!

That wall creating this portion of the harbour loos SO long. I guess it is long but it's so hard to get a sense of scale on the map. 

This was a lovely sail away! Looks calm! A sunset! 

And Fred again...

Some mood lighting.

Bye bye land...eight days!!! Never done this before!!

A boat like Rob wants.

Imagine living way up there. Are there roads? Is it more expensive up high or less because it's a nuisance?

Look at the road coming down to this hotel! There was a nice, very large beach just to the north-east of Tenerife. It's man-made, with imported golden sand (most of the other beaches are black lava sand), and is free with restaurants and bars. No hotels on it though which is nice in one way. Loungers to rent are available. 

This is the small menu at the Sun Bowl. We did try it later in the cruise. We had the 5 spice chicken bowl and the BBQ beef rib bao. They were both very good. Rob asked if he could get the BBQ beef on a chicken bowl instead of the chicken, but the lady wouldn't do it.

The famous entry into Pink Agave. I was worried about this restaurant. Rob doesn't care for Mexican (Tex-Mex), and this was "modern Mexican"

Here's Rob looking pensive about the appetizers. It was a street corn "Esquites", it was good. The nut mix in the middle is automatically brought to the table. They're a little spicy! Do you notice how there's a water on a coaster and a water not on a coaster? I kept wondering why only I got a coaster. I figured it out a few days later--it's because I got sparkling water and this is how they know what your water is! Sneaky!

Dinner was okay.  It's creative, well prepared, but not really our thing. Rob had a ribeye and he said the steak was fine but he didn't like the sauce. I think I had the chicken enchilada but I didn't like the tortilla. 

Rob got the chocolate tacos which he did not like. 

I got the Milhojas, which I loved.

The best part of the dinner was towards the end, when I overhead the table to my right talking to the table to their right and that man answered he was from .... Cold Lake, I think. Canada! The table to our right commented that they're from Minnesota, or almost Canadian. I commented that this must be the Canadian Corner because we were here too. Rob and the man next to us, Paul, really hit it off. His wife, Sandra (I think!), was also quite nice. We ended up being seated beside them the next two nights, I think. Paul has a YouTube channel, and Rob was really interested in the van build.

This was one of the spots I hid Ghostie, in the social club at the end of the tables. All these decorations are glued down!  He didn't last too long here!

This is Flute Loops. I'm not sure if I wrote about him already. He's Irish, and plays the Irish flute (on a stand to his left), but mostly plays the guitar. You can see the board at his feet that he uses for his loops. He improvises over top. It was fun watching from this angle (on the stairs of the Roundabout). That was a nice thing about this ship--much of the music is presented in open spaces, not the theater. Some of the musicians were performing the entire trip, but some--mainly the theater shows--only did a couple shows. 

There is a Happenings Cast member who was in charge of arts and crafts (yet they didn't host the knitting group!). There'd be these large artworks set up at the top of the Roundabout where the DJ stand is (did we ever see it get used?), and you could paint. It was with paint markers.

It got cool on deck, so I grabbed the throw from the bed. I was pretty sure it was wool, and it was so warm and cozy walking around with it outside. Even inside it was nice. Someone commented a few days later that they had seen me with it and thought it was a great idea!

I think this night, we saw Andy Askins in the Red Room (theater). He was a British comedic musician. He was funny!

And that's all the photos and info for this LONG day. It was another night of putting the clocks back an hour. You think that gives you an extra hour sleep, right? No. You just get up an hour earlier. As well, I believe this was a really bad night for motion. I was worried it was going to be like this for the entire crossing. Not sure which day it was, but we decided to get a ginger ale at one of the bars and when it came, Rob tasted it and said "That's not ginger ale". I tried it and no, it wasn't. A few minutes later, the server comes back asking if we had tried it, and explained she had given us Canada Club instead of Canadian Dry.  She took it away LOL.