Life Aboard Persephone: San Miguel Marina, Tenerife

Greetings from Tenerife, Canary Islands! - See last line of this post for our SPOT online.....

We arrived at the catamaran “Daydream” around noon on Thursday. Our internal clocks still thought – 6 am. That did not deter the three of us from jumping right in exploring the boat, figuring out systems, cleaning, organizing, unpacking. The previous owner was Polish – many of the labels, systems, and instructions are in Polish. Trial and error resolved most questions and new masking tape labels applied. Outside the sun was shining and the wind was blowing. The temperature about 70 degrees.

Here’s the weather pattern so far: no wind until about 8 am. The wind picks up and blows about 20 knots. About 8 pm the wind stops. All from the northeast. Perfect direction for downwind sailing to the Caribbean.

Thus far the new mainsail is on the boom and the stack pack installed. Jerry and Gerald continue to inspect and test everything – electrical, plumbing, engines, steering, lines, gear, the list goes on and on. The boat came with lots of tools and spare parts. In addition to what we brought – most tasks can be completed. Our neighbor Ziggy has been kind to loan the rivet gun needed for the stack pack installation. (Ask Gerald how to say rivet gun in German when you see him next).

There is a small grocery store 5 minutes away by foot that sustained us for the first 2 days. We had ham and cheese sandwiches, bananas, milk and wine. Gerald and I ventured up the hill (everything is up from the marina on this volcanic formed island) to find the Super Mercadano other sailors told us about. Most people speak Spanish here so we have to seek out a Brit to ask for directions. A kind lady gave us directions and drew a map. Up through the resort areas full of condos to the Super Mercadano.

Our first hurdle at the grocery store – getting change to put a 1 euro coin in the slot to unlock a shopping cart. Then into the crowd of Spanish speaking Saturday afternoon shoppers. We ended up with two carts of food and stuff before calling it quits. How do you ask for bleach or yeast with very limited Spanish? We resorted to poking holes in the foil of the jugs that might be bleach and sniffing each one before finding the right jug. Simple gestures, while holding a bag of flour and saying “pan” resulted in a box of packets that could be yeast. (Haven’t tried them yet.) After the checkout we go went out with our two heavy carts (the wheels not only roll forward but turn in any direction making it harder to control but easy to drive sideways while shopping). How do we find a taxi? Waiting a couple of minutes ended up being the best way – a taxi arrived with customers but he called a taxi for us. Down the hill back to the boat.

We are all doing well and hope to be ready to leave in a week – sea trials still need to be done besides more provisions. Our departure may coincide with the ARC Rally but not intentionally. The ARC Rally: A gathering of sailors on one of the other Canary Islands, Las Palmas, plan to leave the 24th.
Wifi is very slow and only available at the marina office.

Karen, Gerald, & Jerry aboard Catamaran “Daydream”

PS We have a SPOT electronic device on board that will show our GPS position when we push the button. You should be able to look at it here:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0xzdMs0KbdCjimA4Z4O2BG38ySD6yQfna

I’ve also linked it to my Facebook account. We've checked in a few times to make sure it works. If you click on satellite view instead of map you'll see a picture of the marina but not the exact boat as Google map is not that up to date.