Tenerife

Sunday 4th May

I saw the last part of the sunrise! I had set my alarm for 7am. I went out on the balcony to see how light it was and discovered the sky was still showing sunrise patterns. When did I last see a sunrise? I rushed for my camera.

I had booked on an excursion leaving at 8.30, which meant being there at 8.15. I was the last down and saw everyone else trooping downstairs just after 8.20. I hurriedly bought some water and went after them. I had booked this the day before, and had not seen any written information. I had been told that we would get on our catamaran at the port, or perhaps 5 minutes’ drive away. No, we drove for an hour to Playa des Americano. I was told that our catamaran would seat 40 but that Cunard does not like putting more than 30 on, and we only had 16 for this trip. No, we were on a huge public excursion that could take 200 people. The company sends a bus around all the hotels to collect passengers. We were lucky that we only had about 70. We had families with young kids and young adults who had obviously been up partying the night before, and so were made sick by the sea. Not what I expected of a Cunard excursion!

Friends from the cruise had also booked this, so I had company. The catamaran had only been out from shore about 10 minutes when we stopped to see about four dolphins swimming nearby. We watched them go in and out of the water. We could see a couple swimming right next to each other, probably a mother and baby. We rushed from side to side on the ship as they swam under us. There were several other ships nearby, all intent on watching them.

As I looked back towards Tenerife I could see a line of cloud partway down the mountain.

Again we set off and very soon saw a pod of pilot whales. There must have been about eight of them, mothers and babies. We were told that the males would be diving down deep to catch giant squid. They go together as the squid are larger than the whales. Together they pull the squid up to the surface and it dies from the pressure. They all eat it together.

The next stop was closer to shore, a half hour for those who wanted to swim around the back of the ship. As we finally set off back for the port, loud music was put on and a couple of the sailors started dancing to it, along with about three of the kids. They were entertaining to watch, but I would have preferred less volume on the music! I had expected a peaceful day, not to be blasted off my seat. Then, of course, it was another hour in the coach and back to the Queen Victoria by 2pm for lunch, reading on the balcony, working on the computer, etc. As we sailed out, I could see the bleakness and grandeur of these volcanic isles, and I wondered why the Romans called them the 'fortunate isles'.