La Palma
Today, I espied a whale:
Actually, I didn’t see any whales at all. The comment was aspirational: all I wanted see is one little, or big, whale, but so far all I’d seen was sea. And of course the occasional landfall. But, after sailing all night, we have found another island. I was going to name this island The Land of Folded Hills but it would seem that the island has already been discovered and is known as La Palma.
Newsflash: Mrs Me actually came out of her slumber in time to see us arrive. I think this is a first
As we had no pre-booked excursions we had the luxury of time and so we were able to enjoy a relaxed breakfast while looking out over to the island through the early morning rain and resultant rainbows.breakfast this morning was indeed a lovely experience. Mrs Me didn’t even moan about two fried eggs I had hidden under the scrambled eggs, bean, mushrooms, sausage, etc., etc. Yum Yum.
We then planned to our 3.2 laps of the Oceana but the maintenance men had other ideas and closed parts off. So, that plan thwarted, we went ashore and elected to walk into town instead of taking the shuttle bus.
I have to say, Santa Cruz de la Palma, the capital of La Palma, where we were berthed (see, I know all the nautical terms) is quite the nicest of towns and probably one that I / we would happily come back to for a few days. The town just felt welcoming, relaxed & happy; especially the bars. Of course there were other shops but I was canny. Leaving for town so late meant that before long it was siesta time and most of the shops shut for lunch until 17:00. What a result. During this time, I did find a rather nice jewellers who had a stunning array of pendants and gold chains which of course I did point out to Mrs Me: this was when she realised it was siesta time, and smacked my, already cauliflower, ear. 😦
After such trauma, I clearly needed to find a bar where we could sit, relax, enjoy a beer and watch the word go by; a world by the way that consisted mostly of passengers and crew from the Oceana. But would you believe it, we had found a bar that, itself, was closing down for a siesta. So we finished our beers and headed back to the boat.
We reached the boat just as lunch was finishing. Crickey I thought, what am I to do. It’s another hour until tea time (sandwiches & cakes), how am I going to manage? Well, fear not. All we had to do was head to the sun deck where we found the Horizon Grill. Here they would cook just about anything that goes with chips to order. So, fish, chips and mushy peas were ordered, cooked, delivered and consumed, and all washed down with a nice glass of Rioja. Lovely.
Looking forward to this evening, we have two birthdays that I know of; one on our table and even more importantly, my new hero who is 100 years young today. What a legend. I just so want there to be 100 balloons over his table.
Anyway, we’ve checked the charts and it’s quite a short trip, by-passing Tenerife (why I thought we were going to Tenerife I have no idea) to our next port of call, which is Gran Canaria. Perhaps we’ll see some whales on the way!
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