Sailing to La Palma (Part 2)

Valle Gran Rey above Puerto de Vueltas   

Grey skies, grey sea and wearing a fleece and trousers.
Winter sun holiday in the Canaries?    

After a very disturbed night off Puerto de Vueltas, we left La Gomera at 0720 on Tuesday 21 November. Under the cliffs in the anchorage the wind was generally only about 8knots, though there were occasional impressive gusts to about 20. The question, though, was what was the steady(ish) windspeed clear of land and what would we be likely to experience as we cleared the island? In the end, we hoisted the mainsail with just one reef, though we should probably have put in 2, and we stayed with that sail plan alone for a couple of hours until the wind moderated when we were out of La Gomera’s acceleration zone. In that time we had 2 bites on the fishing line but neither fish remained hooked – evidence that we were moving mighty fast?! We actually only experienced a sustained 20-25 knots of southeasterly wind, with gusts not significantly stronger, as we departed La Gomera's southwest coast but the crew of a yacht that left a couple of hours after us said that they had 25-30 knots (mostly at the higher end) and gusts up to 35 knots, perhaps 40. We're rather glad we left early!

La Palma ahead   

Even when the wind eventually eased, 2 hours later, it didn’t drop much below 15 knots and we had a cracking sail across to the southern tip of La Palma. However, off Punta Fuencaliente we met an impressive adverse current and despite making 6 knots through the water we only made about 4 knots over the ground.

On the plus-side, we did see a huge pod of dolphins, a mixed pod of both Bottlenose and Atlantic Spotted dolphins. It was a fantastic sight to see them all streaming in towards us, leaping and, in some cases, looping as they came. Some even stood on their tails; was that to look at us, to look at their compatriots or just because they could?  We’ll never know.

The group seemed to contain a high proportion of very young dolphins so we wondered if this was a nursery area for them; an area with, presumably, a high concentration of prey due to the sea upwelling along the continental shelf. In any event, we had a good 15 to 20 minutes of enjoyment of their antics before, just as suddenly as they had arrived, they left.

The volcanic south of La Palma 

With the dolphins gone, we had to content ourselves with enjoying the view of La Palma as we drew closer. The south has experienced the island’s most recent volcanic activity and we could clearly see the craters of San Antonio (erupted 1949) and Teneguia (erupted 1971) as we passed by.

Punta Lava lighthouse (51m, centre of picture) dwarfed by the Caldera de Taburiente behind 

As we continued up the coast, the Caldera de Taburiente began to stand out more clearly…….and on every available piece of flat ground we saw banana plantations.

Entrance to Puerto de Tazacorte marina on a relatively still day   

The harbour at Puerto de Tazacorte has been relatively recently upgraded, so that it now has a huge outer breakwater providing excellent shelter from the prevailing northwesterly swell. There is also an impressively large commercial area and a ro-ro ramp, but no ferry service to use either facility. The upgrade work also provided a series of dogleg breakwaters to protect the marina and fishing harbour from the effects of southerly wind and swell, which was the reason we had chosen to visit Puerto de Tazacorte rather than Santa Cruz de La Palma. As we approached Puerto de Tazacorte the wind increased again to around 20+ knots, accelerated along/around the high ground of the island, and the seas steepened up onc more in the shallowing waters of the coast. Actually, getting into the harbour in the prevailing southerly conditions did concern us slightly but we need not have worried. Despite the fact that the wind and wind-driven waves were coming almost straight into the main port area, the waves were reduced by the stepped breakwaters, so weaving through the chicane of the final inner breakwaters was nothing like as ‘exciting’ as we had expected it would be. Better still, we were met by a couple of hugely efficient and competent mariñeros at our allocated (downwind!) berth, so the final and, under these conditions, likely most fraught part of the passage, was completed quickly, easily and safely. A great welcome to La Isla Bonita.

Puerto Tazacorte, La Palma, Canary Islands