Photographing Tenerife, Viewing Things Differently Through a Lens

A thought occurred to me as I focussed my camera on a sun-dappled, tree-lined street populated by smiling strollers wearing chic summer clothing; the women in colourful, light cotton dresses of various lengths that complimented their curves; the men in loose shirts and three-quarter length pants that were both casual and stylish. The camera liked them.

The thought that occurred to me was that my camera likes some places on Tenerife more than it likes others and that has possibly fashioned my view of some of the towns and resorts on the island.

Over the years I’ve photographed many towns, resorts, villages and hamlets on Tenerife for print and web publications. For many of these I use the images to compliment the text by trying to show the subject at its best. This isn’t always easy as there are lots of places on Tenerife that I don’t find particularly photogenic.

You can more or less point and click in La Orotava and get a result

The old towns and cities are easy. There are places like Garachico, La Orotava, La Laguna and Santa Cruz that I could return to again and again and still find new things to photograph. The rural places like Masca and Santiago del Teide have scenery to boost their lack of streets and historic buildings.

Towns with a fishing community have harbours, colourfully bobbing boats, fishing nets piled high and grizzled fishermen and those are always good subject matter.

Hill towns can sometimes pose a challenge, especially when the population has grown and breeze block buildings are in the majority like in Santa Ursula, La Victoria, La Matanza, San Miguel de Abona and Granadilla de Abona. But these have history and there are always quirky corners to uncover.

It's got a church and the buildings are inoffensive - but it's 'blah' lifeless

It’s the purpose built resorts where I struggle. Remove the beach from the equation and there’s usually very little left to interest the camera. Being new they don’t even possess any urban grit.

Funnily, Playa de las Américas, which is often unfairly held up as Tenerife’s tackiest resort by those who don’t know it has a lot of potentially interesting shots. Whereas once I move away from the beach at Playa del Duque in ‘upmarket’ Costa Adeje my camera positively yawns with boredom.

Worst of all are the purpose built resorts without a beach where the architecture is new-ish and often characterless. What the hell do you photograph there? And if there’s no sunshine, forget it. I’ve tried Callao Salvaje, Playa Paraiso, Golf del Sur and Costa del Silencio a number of times and never been satisfied with the result.

I tried to use the holes in the wall in Playa Paraiso...but still no cigar. Just can't get a decent picture.

Of course that could be my limited creativity, but search Flickr for any of the above and the evidence suggests otherwise.

The upshot of this is that there are places on Tenerife that bore me in photographic terms and subsequently I avoid spending time in them.

Another thought occurred to me as I focussed the camera and that was the people in the photograph. I point a camera up La Noria in Santa Cruz and the people in the frame are very, very different than if I point it along the promenade at…say…Puerto Colón. But that is the topic for another blog completely – and I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go there…for the moment.

If there’s anyone who has managed to get really good shots of the places that I mentioned I struggled with (I don’t mean HD, sunsets or over processed so that they don’t match what the eye sees) I’d love to see them.

Tenerife Carnival Diary #3, Santa Cruz Street Party

“I mostly stick to Puerto’s carnival,” I said to a Santa Crucero friend who’d asked if I was heading into the capital for Tenerife’s biggest party of the year.

“But that’s tiny,” She laughed.

Tiny… and that’s despite there being up to 30,000+ people at the nightly street parties in Puerto de la Cruz. That should give you some idea of the scale of celebrations in Santa Cruz.

Arriving in Santa Cruz via the bus station during carnival is like arriving via a portal from another world. You enter the station from a relatively quiet, modern city and emerge into what could easily be a bizarre and unfamiliar post apocalyptic landscape.

But this is no Blade Runner bleakness; this is a parallel universe where Disney and Marvel characters rule the world; the place where vampires, zombies and all types of miscreants go to party and Snow White reveals a dark side, as well as a lot more, by wearing micro skirts that expose her stocking tops.

Costumes are essential keys to the carnaval kingdom and Andy and I had prepared ourselves for entry by donning a monk’s robe (me) and a Hit-Girl (Kick-Ass ) costume (Andy)…or rather Hit-Girl a few sequels down the line. That was a foolhardy comment which earned me a super hero karate chop.

The glass-walled bus station is like an acclimatisation zone and at 11pm on Saturday night the few people in costume (carnival doesn’t hit its stride until much later), aided and abetted by a neon-lit world beyond the windows, added a surreal, slightly trippy feel to the place.

Outside, a fairground ran the length of the port promenade to the centre of the city, a 10 minute walk away. For every ride there was a junk food stall selling churros, burgers and baked potatoes.

11pm is far too early for carnaval and the mix of those in fancy dress and those not was about 50/50. But with every step towards the centre, those not ‘in gear’ began to look more and more like dull intruders in a Dayglo world. In carnival land the tables are turned. A man wearing false breasts, high heels and a lace-panty revealing skirt looks normal, whereas one in a jumper, jeans and sensible shoes looks and feels (I know from experience) odd.

There was a Ministry of Sound set (from 11pm to 6am) at Plaza Europa. By midnight there were still only a handful of people in front of the huge stage as a supporting DJ warmed up the crowd, so we went on a tour of the other carnaval hot spots.

Plaza Candelaria was already bouncing as a young, lively maquinaria band had the crowd in the plaza screaming approval (Latino music wins out every time in Tenerife) and a conga line of police women, cavemen and a flamenco troupe snaked their way through the throng.

The streets running parallel to the square were full of decorated floats blasting out a mix of dance and Latino to the costumed revellers. In front of one a group of dirigible-sized mock Scots in kilts bounced and waddled to the music.

In Plaza Principe butterflies and ladybirds salsa’d to the sounds of another Latino band whilst in the street below the plaza an overweight Marilyn Monroe flashed her knickers to the strains of a Spanish rock band as the statue of Padre José Murphy (I kid you not) looked on disapprovingly.

By 1.30am the centre of the capital was a whirling mass of colour and costumes. We had casually arranged to meet some friends, but there was little chance of spotting them amongst the tens of thousands that packed the streets and even less of trying to communicate by phone. So we continued to shimmy our way through the madness, being stopped every so often by creatures of the night who wanted a brief dance or to have their photo taken, whilst carnaval just got busier and busier.

By 2am the Ministry of Sound party had filled considerably. As Andy and I jigged to Shane Kehoes’ set someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to face a clown who pointed at the bag slung around my shoulder.

“Your mobile phone’s on show,” he said. “You should keep it in your pocket; much safer.” The clown smiled.

It’s a nothing little story, but to me it spoke volumes about carnival on Tenerife. You can talk about the imaginative costumes, the live music and the sheer spectacle of Tenerife’s bigger carnivals, but what really makes the street parties very special is that to experience one is to experience the best of the Tinerfeño character. Carnival is a lot of fun and visually an intoxicating rollercoaster ride, but possibly most important of all, its atmosphere exudes an overwhelming wave of warmth and friendliness.

That’s why it’s so dammed hard to drag yourself away from it until the cocks start to crow.

Tenerife to La Gomera on Public Transport – Island Hopping Canaries Style

It was a friend on La Gomera’s birthday last weekend and we’d promised her we’d hop across from Tenerife to celebrate.

Normally we drive everywhere, but now and again we ditch the car and use the public transport system. I could tell you that doing so helps with our continuing mission to experience all elements of life on Tenerife first hand, which it does, but the real reason is that after a weekend on La Gomera we’re usually too buggered to drive back from Los Cristianos to Puerto de la Cruz.

Stage 1 – Our House to Puerto Bus Station
Calima had rolled in big time on Friday and the temperatures were into the 30s. So tooled out with two rucksacks, a notebook, camera bag and a sheepskin rug (don’t ask) we sweated our way through the banana plantation and up the hill to the main road to catch the bus into Puerto. About fifteen minutes later we pulled into Puerto bus station with about a minute to spare before the ‘sin parada’ (no stops) bus to Santa Cruz left. Cost €1.20 each.

Stage 2 – Puerto de la Cruz to Santa Cruz
Despite there being three buses to Santa Cruz every half hour, the 10am 103 bus was absolutely jam packed full. Whilst we were queuing to get on, I clocked Tenerife’s version of a chav hanging around the entrance to the bus, taking a last swig from a bottle of beer before he got on the bus. We grabbed two of the last available seats and he squeezed into what must have been the last just across the aisle from us. Even though all the seats had gone, people, mostly mature locals, continued to stream on, filling up the aisle. Then the young ‘chav’ did the most unexpected thing – he got up from his seat and offered it to an old lady. It was one of these little moments that completely confounded expectations.

Despite the heat, it was a pleasant 40 minute journey into Santa Cruz, apart from the fact that someone had a fart attack just as we arrived in the capital. In a confined area like that bus it was potentially lethal. Cost €2.75 each (we used a bono).

Stage 3 – Santa Cruz to Los Cristianos Port
Even though we’d booked tickets online for the Fred Olsen Express (€60 for the return trip for the two of us), we still had to pick up boarding cards at the Fred Olsen office in the bus station. This involved photocopying residencia papers and passports. Good to see that online booking has streamlined the process – Tinerfeños still have something of an obsession with paperwork.
One of the great things about travelling from Santa Cruz to catch a ferry in Los Cristianos is that all the ferry companies lay on a free bus to the port. It’s a wonderful service which takes a lot of the pain out of travelling. You pick up your tickets, jump on the free bus and an hour or so later, you’re stepping off the bus and onto the ferry in Los Cristianos. Cost – a big fat zero.

Stage 4 – Los Cristianos to San Sebastian de La Gomera
I like the Fred Olsen ferries; they’re clean, nicely laid out with lots of room and have a bar/café area in each zone. They also have free WiFi. It’s not the greatest signal, but it did mean that we were able to answer a few emails during the forty minute crossing to La Gomera.

Having left our house at 9.30am, we stepped onto the harbour in sunny San Sebastian, La Gomera just over four hours, three buses and a ferry later at 1.40pm. We were relaxed and ready to allow ourselves to be embraced by La Gomera’s charms.

The Harbour at San Sebastian, La Gomera

Carnaval on Tenerife 2010 – Diary of a Carnaval Goer

10.30pm
I’m sitting on the bedroom steps watching Andy try on various potential carnaval outfits – her cowgirl look is a disaster. She’s put on about three layers to ensure she stays warm in the cool February night and looks like a cowgirl in the early stages of pregnancy. There’s an orange weather alert for high winds and rain and the trailer for ER (it’s on Spanish TV and we’re watching it for the first time) looked as though loads of stuff is going to happen on tonight’s episode. I don’t feel in the slightest bit carnaval-y
“You know I’m tempted to give carnaval a miss tonight, Andy.”

11.30pm
Andy’s a sort of Folies Bergères showgirl and I’m Willie Wallace. The cool February night seems to really be a balmy February night as we work up a sweat on the thirty minute walk through the banana plantations, La Paz and finally the centre of Puerto de la Cruz. The streets are near empty as we walk through La Paz. You’d never know that there was a carnaval taking place and the few German tourists that we pass look at us as though we’ve just stepped out of a spaceship. I’m tempted to lop off their heads with my axe.

The Party's just Starting

12.30am
Latino music is blasting out and the smell of candy floss mingles with sizzling chorizos and fried squid. All around are painted faces, retina damaging luminous costumes, busty girls with cleavages you could park tandem bikes in and ladyboys grabbing at their crotches to adjust too-tight thongs. I’m home. All tiredness and apathy towards carnaval is a distant memory. We grab a cerveza from a chiringuito (beer stall) and dive into the madness.

1.30am
The streets are really starting to fill up as revellers in fancy dress stream into the town. There are some wonderfully imaginative costumes around this year. Some N’avi from Avatar are particularly good, but Shrek, a Marilyn Monroe who insists on flashing her pants which seem to have a large cucumber stuffed down them, and a couple of Marge Simpsons also stand out. A Cap’n Jack Sparrow comes over to us and takes my photo. I’m flattered – having your photo taken at a carnaval street party is recognition that your outfit looks pretty good. We get another beer to celebrate.

Now it's Getting into its Stride

2.30am
We go off on another circuit of the various street parties. A live band energetically keeps the crowd salsa-ing to Latino music in Plaza del Charco whilst DJs blast out a sort of Spanish pop-rock with a distinctly Latino beat at the little plaza beside the harbour. There are lots of fairies, Chicago gangsters, sexy nuns, policewomen in fishnets and people in fat costumes. I point out one particularly enormous derriere to Andy. Andy points out that it’s not a costume. The best spot is a new dance area beside the customs house. There are lots of flamboyantly dressed trannies there and the music has a more techno beat, albeit with a Latino influence.

3.30am
It seems like five minutes since I told Andy it was 2.30am – we’ve entered the carnaval time-warp. A man in lederhosen tells Andy if she kisses his friend he’ll kiss me. I don’t view this as a particularly attractive offer…and I’m not sure they’re in fancy dress; I think they’re German tourists. Andy gets dragged into a group photo and has her beer spilled over her. A man in an Incredibles costume taps me on the shoulder then plonks a rat into his mouth. We’re well into carnaval’s surrealistic grip.

Andy is Kidnapped by Austrians and Dowsed in Beer

4.30am
The high winds which have been completely missing start to make an appearance, except they’re more strong gusts than high winds and are accompanied by an impromptu mass “WOOOOO” from the crowds. Everyone wants their photo taken and a group of teenage girl’s and boys wearing not-a-lot jump in front of my camera and strike up a fantastic pose. It’s the shot of the night, but the beers have taken their toll and I end up doing what the girls in the picture were doing – outrageously over exposing. The wind is really whipping up and we decide to head home, making friends with a ‘blacked up’ trio on the way.

5.30am
Removing my blue and white ‘Braveheart’ face paint seems to be taking forever and I’m left with a vaguely ill looking bluish white pallor. The temperature on the way home didn’t drop below 20 and the sweat mixed with the face paint and ran into my eyes stinging them. The living room looks as though a carnaval bomb has hit it – a battle axe here, red fishnet stockings there, a scarlet boa draped across a sofa…
We collapse into bed as the sound of Latino music from the plaza makes its way the three kilometres to our house telling us that the party is still going strong.

5.31am
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Carnaval on Tenerife 2010 – Election of the Santa Cruz Carnaval Queen

It catches your eye doesn’t it? I’m talking about her name. The new carnaval queen for Santa Cruz is called Alicia San Juan Mc-Nulty.

Alicia San Juan McNulty – it’s great, like the statue of the priest in Santa Cruz called Father José Murphy.

Alicia hails from La Laguna, but at least one Spanish paper commented that she had a foreign appearance – no surprise as she has Irish blood in her veins, like  quite a few Canarios. A lot of Irish settled around the north of Tenerife from the mid 16th century onwards and every so often you hear a name that is half Spanish and half Irish.

One Victorian explorer attributed the exceptional good looks of the Canario people around La Orotava to the mix of Spanish, Irish and even Guanche blood.

Finding The Christmas Spirit on Tenerife

La Orotava - a warm, winter wonderland

I’ve just read a thread on Tenerife Forum which was comparing Christmas in the UK with Christmas on Tenerife. A couple of people said they thought that there was no Christmas spirit on Tenerife. It illustrated for me yet again that there are still a lot of people on Tenerife who really don’t know the island they live on.

During the holidays I’d been to La Orotava, Santa Cruz and La Laguna to take photos for a Tenerife Magazine article about the most Christmassy towns on Tenerife and they were all very festive with live music and stalls selling hot food.

These and the other historic towns had streets decorated like Christmas trees and full Christmas agendas which involved Christmas concerts, music in the streets, Christmas markets and all sorts of festive goodies. If you wandered through any one of them at night, it was impossible not to be infected with a jolly dose of Christmas spirit.

It’s true that because the most Christmassy places tend to be found where most Canarios live (i.e. the north of the island) and that decorations in the purpose built tourists resorts are maybe not quite as elaborate as in the old historic towns. But it’s also true that places like Arona and Adeje, where the biggest resorts are located, also had extensive Christmas agendas.

There was Christmas spirit by the sparkly bucket load to be found on Tenerife. There always is.
However, depending on where you live, or are staying, it might not  come to you; you have to make the effort to find it.

Santa Cruz - the odd light in the centre is a fire juggler.

Things That Make Me Go ‘WOW’

The recent 7 Rockas Festival in La Laguna made me think of Bruce, and Bruce made me think of a guy I met in Las Américas, whose name I forget, when we were putting together a magazine feature.

The bloke in Las Américas seemed to model his behaviour on the Colin Farrell character in Phonebooth. He wore designer clothes, a designer watch and talked consistently about his flash car, other people he knew with flash cars, attending flash events with models on his arms… he talked money, money, money. His conversation left me as cold as the Arctic Circle (actually in these times of climactic change, probably colder).

Bruce on the other hand was a very nice bloke I met on a trip up the Yangtze. Bruce taught me a simple trick with two wine corks which confused and ‘wowed’ me. Clearly, as it involved wine corks, we had been partaking of the odd glass or 5 of wine and so it probably wasn’t that difficult to confuse me. It’s a useful little trick to know whenever a ‘party piece’ is required (unfortunately it’s impossible to describe in words) and it impressed the hell out of me.

Our friend Sarah has done lots of things which have also impressed me no end. She’s climbed to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro for charity, been a dead body on the beach for the cover of a crime novel and gave up a very good job in the NHS to go and work for the VSO in Sri Lanka.

A while ago we interviewed an eye specialist in Santa Cruz who goes out to Mexico a couple of times a year to administer free eye treatment to the poor – I was very impressed by him.

On the same trip that we met Bruce we also met Joan, a ninety year old woman travelling on her own. She was as fit as a flea which was impressive in its own right, but what really impressed was a throwaway line as we flew across a piece of desolate land somewhere between China and Russia where we could see the occasional camp fire flickering beside large shadowy tents.

“I once spent the night in a tent with a prince down there,” She remarked and said no more, lighting my imaginative blue touch paper.

At a party a few years ago some people were talking about what they’d just been doing work wise. One bloke mentioned that he’d just finished making a movie about Bob Marley. As I’m a movie buff and had just read the review in Empire movie magazine, I was really, really impressed by that one.

The reason why Bruce made me think of Phonebooth man was that they existed at opposite ends of the spectrum. Phonebooth man and people like him try to impress everyone by parading material goods, but ultimately there’s no substance to them. Bruce and the other people I’ve mentioned haven’t actually set out to impress, they just did things that were, to me anyway, incredibly interesting and therefore impressive.

But what’s all this got to do with the 7 Rockas Festival in La Laguna, I hear you say?

Part of the 7 Rockas Festival involved an air guitar competition which reminded me that Bruce was the proud father of the UK national air guitar champion.

How impressive is that?

Beaches on Tenerife – Lounging at Las Teresitas, Santa Cruz

Playa Las Teresitas - Tenerife's Best Beach

Like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, Las Teresitas beach is the golden treasure reward at the end of a long walk in the eastern Anaga Mountains.
Teresitas’ palm tree lined, long golden crescent was a very welcome site when we emerge battered, bruised and weary after negotiating the area’s hot, dry vertiginous slopes around Igueste yesterday.

The beach bar was the first stop at just after 16.00 for an essential post walk ice cold beer.

There are debates on Tenerife forums and Tripadvisor at the moment about Tenerife’s best beaches. For me Playa Las Teresitas is the most attractive beach on Tenerife.

Fine golden Saharan sand, palm trees, the Anaga Mountain backdrop, a quaint fishing village at one end, beach bars with good tapas and a beautiful aquamarine lagoon add up to a package that nowhere else on the island can match. It’s not my favourite beach on the island, but I do think it’s the most spectacular looking.

The golden Saharan sand which makes Las Teresitas so attractive is also a downside. The least breeze and you’re sandblasted – and it gets everywhere.

By the time we got prone on the beach it was about 16.30. Las Teresitas was still quite busy with most people crowded around the azure water’s edge. As Andy stretched out on the sand, I had a nosy at what was going on around us. Being a people watcher I love watching the interaction which takes place on beaches and Las Teresitas is a great people watching beach.
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Near us a girl in her twenties posed while her boyfriend took photographs – nothing unusual in that on a beach, but her positions were bordering of soft porn. She lay on her back with one thigh raised across the other leg, her hair spread out on the sand and her face toward the camera whilst she traced windmill patterns on the sand with her arms. On the other side a young African boy of about 7 held court in the middle of a circle of friends of about the same age all of whom were completely transfixed. I couldn’t quite make out what he was telling them, but it involved a lot of theatrical hand movements and must have been a bit naughty because when an adult came over, one of the children tapped him on the leg and he shut up pronto.

Inviting or What?

Behind us, the guy renting out sun beds flirted with a couple of Spanish women who laughed loudly and huskily at his gentle teasing. In the palm trees a couple in their thirties played beach tennis, her returns going seriously astray to the point that I didn’t know why they were bothering. He hit the ball to her, she hit it back – it went way over his head and he had to trudge across the sand to get it and then the sequence started all over again.
Then into the centre of the scene walked the uncoolest man on the beach. He was wearing a blue bandana which was way too small so looked like a tight swimming cap, his shorts were too tight and could easily have been body paint plus they were pulled too high up his waist and he was carrying an Ipod, or possibly, given the rest of his gear, a Sony Walkman. You just know he’d gone for a cool look, but somewhere made a seriously wrong turning.

None of them were particularly out of the ordinary, just snapshots of people relaxing and enjoying beach life and I find it fascinating to watch others. Problem is that sitting up watching others isn’t a good strategy for an even tan. At this point of the summer when all the locals are a gorgeous golden brown colour, my peely wally body looks as though it’s just stepped off the plane from Manchester.

The Lost Weekend on Tenerife: From Impro Jazz to Stomping on the Neighbour

Where does time go to in this odd place? It disappears like smoke from a puro on the breeze; a slight aroma in the air the only clue that it ever existed…

Note to self: – When watching a concert in Tenerife, don’t stand next to the group of trendy españoles chain smoking reefers; you know you can’t handle it.

ST Fusion - Jazz and Japan

Last year we’d caught some of the Jazz Festival down by the harbour in Puerto de la Cruz. It was nice, easy trad jazz which had the mainly mature audience tapping their feet in appreciation…this year’s was completely different.

First up on Saturday night was ST Fusion – a mix of traditional Japanese and improvisation jazz. I realise modern Jazz isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Armada Sur’s ‘General’ Chris Todd likens it to a piano crashing off the stage and I can see what he means.

The first time I saw improvisational jazz at the Brecon Jazz Festival, I was still waiting for the band to start playing when the rest of the crowd were shouting for an encore – I thought they’d been tuning up.

However, although I don’t really understand it, I like it. As the hauntingly classical Japanese rhythms segued into anarchic and seemingly random riffs from the double bass player I was seduced by the energy and originality of the music.

ST Fusion were followed by the James Taylor Quartet. The name alone induced thoughts of Dixieland and men in purple shirts and panama hats, but once you know that James Taylor was once signed to punk label Stiff Records, you realise that safe, foot tapping Jazz wasn’t likely.

James Taylor Quartet - there were six of them!

James Taylor positively demanded that the audience dance to the Quartet’s (actually it was a sextet on this occasion) Jazz Funk Fusion sounds and the crowd responded perfectly.  It was a Hi-Energy performance from both band and audience and the first time I’ve seen a crowd dance to improvisational jazz – everyone humming along to the ‘Starsky and Hutch’ theme tune was particularly bizarre.

It was also great to see Puerto buzzing with Spanish visitors; it gives the town a vibrancy during summer that isn’t necessarily found in other places on the island and is completely at odds with the sedate reputation that it has with some Brits.

On Sunday we had to head into Santa Cruz to pick up Gomeran Jo who was returning from the UK. Last time we saw Jo it was my Birthday; this time it was Andy’s.

Andy had wanted to spend the morning walking in the Orotava Valley and the afternoon on the beach, but as Jo only had one pair of shoes with her that were suitable for the streets of Manhattan but not the forests of Tenerife, the walking plans went west. Instead we spent a leisurely and sweltering day at the beach catching up and bitching about how women with flat derrieres really shouldn’t wear thongs and how it should be illegal to sell thongs to men altogether. If you’re a people watcher and a signed up member of the style police, Playa Jardín usually has loads of material to keep you occupied, especially if you deliberately choose a spot furthest from the olive skinned chicas with the perfect bodies (Andy and Jo assumed responsibility for choosing where to spread the sarongs).

In the evening we made a spinach and feta tart, cracked open a cava or two, stuck on some Massive Attack and Leftfield and sat outside chatting under a clear sky and watching the occasional shooting star streak across the universe until Jesús appeared clutching his right thigh and asked for a volunteer to stand on him.

So that was how Andy spent 30 minutes of her birthday; standing on our neighbour’s thigh as he lay prone on our terrace. It wasn’t a conventional way to celebrate your birthday, but hey, this is the north of Tenerife…conventional isn’t an option.

A Life on the Ocean Wave – The Tall Ships in Tenerife

That's a lot of friggin' rigging

For a while on Thursday I had the overwhelming urge to dig out my old striped Brittany fisherman’s T-shirt, buy a kitbag, fill it with who-knows-what, have an anchor tattooed on my bicep and head up to Santa Cruz to stowaway on a sailing ship…an Argentinean one to be exact.

The Tall Ships were in town and their arrival time-warped the dock back a century or so. I’ve seen old sailing ships before and I remember being surprised at how small they were. As we stood on the bridge outside of the African Market and looked over the Noría district, the old skyline was dwarfed by wooden masts and a veritable spiders’ web of rigging; these ships were not quite like any I’d seen before.

I’d been hoping to take some photographs of the armada sailing into Santa Cruz harbour with their sails billowing in their morning sunshine; however, a) all the ships were berthed by the time we arrived on Thursday morning at around 10.00 and b) there wasn’t any sunshine anyway.

No shortcuts to loading goods on this ship

The eleven ships which had completed the first leg of the Atlantic Challenge 2009 were an eclectic bunch ranging from a relatively small ketch (the British Rona II) to a football pitch sized monster of the seas (the Russian Kruzernshtern) which even made the huge Argentinean ‘Libertad’ and Romanian ‘Mircea’ which were berthed nearby seem little more than big yachts. The Cabildo building in the background looked more like its Pueblo Chico version than the real thing.

The buzz of getting up close to these giants of the ocean soon banished any regrets at not seeing the ships arrive and watching the sailors go about the daily business of maintaining their vessels made me realise that not a lot had changed in a hundred years.

One sailor hung from a rope swing underneath a prow touching up the paintwork, passing a paint pot fashioned from a water bottle cut in two to his mate perched precariously on the anchor by means of a grappling hook at the end of a rope.

Pass the paint, mate

A long line of sailors stretching from the dockside into the galley passed crates of tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and sacks of potatoes between one another; it could have been a scene straight out of Mutiny on the Bounty. It was fascinating to watch.

It was also interesting to note what supplies were being taken on board each ship. Where the Argentinean sailors stocked up with a supermarket storeroom of fresh fruit and vegetables, as I passed one of the smaller British ships I noticed they were loading up tins of corned beef and packets of shredded wheat. At the Russian ship, immaculately dressed young sailors with dinner plate hats filed up the gangplank with Mercadona carrier bags filled with six packs of beer.
There was a real feeling of purpose and community, of sharing and friendship which united mariners from 10 different nations. It was compelling to witness and as I wandered amongst the members of this unique sea going community of modern day adventurers I heard the strains of a sea shanty in my head and the tug of an ozone laden breeze on my sleeve.

The appearance of some of the Argentinean crew was the crowning moment which almost had me reaching for a quill and saying “forget the shilling I’ll sign up for nothing”.

A Few Good Men...and some bloody marvellous women

A row of female sailors dressed in the traditional naval summer white uniform a la Demi Moore in ‘A Few Good Men’ sashayed down the quay toward their ship. At that moment I realised why so many young men ran away to sea.

A shout from above broke the spell and I looked up to see a line of men strung out along a sail on the uppermost spar on the tallest mast. They stood suspended 100 metres above the ground, on what looked like the thinnest of ropes. That 1920s picture of construction workers high above New York sprang into my mind and I suddenly felt a bit dizzy.

A life on the ocean wave might have had a romantic appeal to it; a life swinging about on a slippery mast high above it didn’t.
My imagination might run off to sea, but my legs are definitely staying firmly on dry land.