La Gomera 2.0
I was woken by the ferry starting quite early and it was a warm morning. The wind had come and gone in the night and I was amazed to see the washing hung out to dry still be on the guard rails, although a few pegs had come off.
I went to the marina office when open to check in. I then hired a car using the company recommended by the marina. When entering the harbour I thought our bow thruster sounded a bit rough. A bow thruster is a tunnel through the hull at the front of the boat which in our case has two propellers in it (Stormbird's is 20hp). These help you manoeuvre the boat when in harbour and it is important. I have two-foot pedals by the helm on the floor and if I stand on the left one it takes my bow left and the transverse with the right. We could not have moored in Marina del Sur easily without it. The bow thruster is situated at the front of the boat underneath, but the electronics are under the front bunk where there is a small reservoir of oil for lubrication. I looked at this and it was empty, so I thought this was the cause of the rough sound. The oil container was nearly empty.
After breakfast we wandered into town to get some more oil which we did find. We had a coffee and a Gomaran cake and returned to get our stuff to leave in the car. This included walking shoes (it has fantastic hiking trails) and believe it or not a coat in case of something called rain.
We headed off to do a tour of the middle and eastern part of the Island on the GM2 which was a fantastic road. We started going up a steep ravine gradually and as we went the bushes started to increase and the scenery became more dramatic and it began to feel as if we were in the Alps. We stopped to take pictures looking down on San Sebastian way down below and with magnificent views down the ravine to the sea below. We climbed higher and the cloud began to form and thicken so that we could feel the moisture and dampness on the windscreen and you could see it on the road. There were dramatic rocky crags and views of steep valleys, but the view was sometimes blocked by could and swirling mist.
We continued to climb, and the vegetation began to increase and then the trees started and before long we were in a damp forest with lichens on all the trees and the road was carving a path through the trees. It was beautiful and as if we were in an enchanted forest or one which would not look out of place in the area of the wicked queen’s palace in Snow White.
We stopped at Laguna Grande a walking centre with information on walks etc. This had a flat centre and in heavy rain looks like a lagoon hence the name. We picked up some information about walks and did a short walk through the forest which was well laid out and had boards regularly to tell you about the trees and animal life. We were glad we had our coats as it rained and the temperature lowered to about 15 -16 degrees The part we were in were scrubs of tree health and wax myrtle, characteristic of the kind of forest of the highest mountain peaks. This forest in addition to rain gets its moisture from the trade winds which blow across it. It was quite mysterious and the information said witches used to gather on the plain. I think it would be a spooky place to be there at night!
Following our walk, we drove on to a restaurant a little bit lower and out of the forest. It had a great terrace view looking down a ravine toward the sea. We could see La Palma in the distance which also had some cloud over it. It was an enjoyable lunch and then drove on round in a clockwise direction and down a valley to Hermigua. As we came down this ravine it was green with lots of palm trees and man-made terraces and it was clearly a fertile part of the Island and our guidebook told us they grow a lot of bananas here which we could clearly see. We carried on and had to go up this ravine again on a different route and through some tunnels to bring us back down to San Sebastian. The scenery had been stunning and it was nice to get back to late 20’s temperature again from the early teens up high.
We returned to the boat and I decided to look at the bow thruster and put the new oil in. I thought that I ought to check whether there was a leak before I filled the reservoir. I pulled up the floorboard and could see a bit of purple oil. Then I picked up a small pipe which came down from the reservoir which some idiot had put a bolt in and it was not attached to the bow thruster motor. The person who had looked at it had taken off the pipe and stopped the leak with the bolt but had forgot to put it back. The bow thruster had therefore had less lubricant over time. Once we had worked this one out, we connected the pipe back and filled the reservoir and hope this will solve the problem. I will report back in due course.
We wandered round to see another English boat called Zingala (a swan with 2 cockpits) which was 17 meters and was a Swan design. Mark was impressed how they had flaked (folded) their mainsail over the boom. We said hello and the Skipper and the main man had been on the boat since 2006 and his wife who had a German accent had only been on the boat a few years. They were just wandering around and had no real plans. I suppose a kind of boat gypsies!
Mark cooked a delicious supper of prawns in garlic which we eat in the cockpit and contemplated which route we would take tomorrow. We had been impressed by what we had seen today and looked forward to seeing more.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions – do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com